Rep. Keith Ellison says some of his past comments defending National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan were made when he was a student, and shouldn’t be held against him in his campaign to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.
“Everything is fodder for the mill, right? Everything is fair game and it’s interesting … but every single word, though?” Ellison asked in an interview with Politico. He noted that some his comments came from his time as a law student nearly 30 years ago.
“I’m 53 years old. I have four kids. My youngest child is 20. Some of the things they want to hit me for, I was younger than her when I wrote them,” Ellison said. “And so, come on. At some point, we all are human beings who have evolved over the course of 25 years, and yet we want to freeze each other in time.”
In one of his writings, Ellison declared that Farrakhan was not an anti-Semite. But critics of the Minnesota Democrat say his ties to Farrakhan do not end there, and note his involvement in Farrakhan’s Million Man March in 1995, which he helped organize in Minneapolis.
Ellison has earned the support of many high-ranking Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. However, the comments have given some Democrats pause. Haim Saban, a top Democratic donor, recently declared that Ellison is an anti-Semite.
He is facing a fight for the chairmanship after Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a top ally of President Obama, said he’s also seeking the position. Last week, Obama called Perez “wicked smart” after news emerged and top White House officials push for the labor secretary to take the reigns of the party.
The Minnesota congressman also waded into the similarities between President-elect Trump and Farrakhan, saying that the two preyed on the fears of people and turned it into personal success.
“They are charismatic speakers speaking to people’s pain,” Ellison said. “Blaming other people is an old trick and those two guys have used it, and so have many others.”
