Marjorie Taylor Greene claims ‘common ground’ with Nation of Islam in Twitter thread with antisemitic articles

Anti-vaccine congresswoman promotes Louis Farrakhan and Covid-19 conspiracy theories

Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has found “common ground” with the Black nationalist organisation the Nation of Islam, claiming Louis Farrakhan, his conspiracy theory-promoting newspaper and its followers share her opposition to Covid-19 vaccines, public health officials and the press..

The Republican congresswoman from Georgia shared a 17-post Twitter thread on 8 November following her recent visit to a jail holding people accused of participating in the attack on the US Capitol.

“One of the benefits as a Member of Congress is visiting different types [of] government facilities to provide oversight,” she wrote. “On my recent visit to the DC Jail one of the things I picked up was some religious material.”

She claimed prisoners were offered materials for “Christain [sic] and Islam” – those “religious materials” included Nation of Islam publications with dubious claims about Covid-19 vaccine requirements, baseless claims that federal health agencies are hiding vaccine data on side effects in children, and promoting the use of the drug Ivermectin to treat Covid-19, despite warnings among federal regulators against using it.

“I also found out that the Nation of Islam sees the use and benefit of Ivermectin and is very angry that our media, Democrats, and [Dr Anthony Fauci] have attacked the drug,” she said. “We have common ground there.”

The congresswoman also shared a photograph of one article – “Stop leading Black people to Covid-19 vaccine slaughter!” – continuing antisemitic language and reference to a book called “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2: How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy.”

“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan pointed out to Black leaders that so-called Jews have always been successful in pitting us against each other,” the article says.

She shared another article praising a Nation of Islam minister for calling out what she called the “Propaganda Media.”

“Louis Farrakhan says that forcing the vaccine is a ‘declaration of war,’” Ms Greene said. “That is how strongly the Nation of Islam opposes [President Joe Biden’s] vaccine mandates that force unvaccinated people to lose their jobs.”

Federal, state and local health officials have urged all Americans to get vaccinated, if eligible, to prevent severe infections, hospitalisations and deaths in the middle of the pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 people in the US. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently approved Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11; there is no evidence to suggest it is harmful to children.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has characterised Mr Farrakhan – who has led the Nation of Islam since the late 1970s and claimed that “Satanic Jews” have “infected the whole world with poison and deceit” – as “an antisemite who routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the US government and controlling the levers of world power.”

The Nation of Islam promotes a “theology of innate Black superiority over whites” with “deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric” among its leadership.

Ms Greene hedged her posts with a message that she is “strongly opposed to radical Islam” and only found the Nation of Islam papers in areas outside the jail’s “Patriot Wing,” where she said she found alleged Capitol rioters reading the Bible.

Republicans have repeatedly tried to tie prominent Democratic officials – including members of Congress and Barack Obama – to Mr Farrakhan and his rhetoric despite publicly condemning his bigotry.

In 2019, Ms Greene filmed herself falsely claiming that US Reps Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are illegitimate members of Congress because they took their congressional oaths on the Quran. She has also suggested their elections were part of a Muslim “invasion” and said that they “should go back to the Middle East if they support Sharia.” In August, she said Islam is “not a religion of peace.”

House Democrats voted to strip her from her committee assignments after resurfaced comments on social media from before she ran for Congress contained support for violent conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes, including a belief that the Rothschilds conspired to ignite California’s wildfires using a kind of space laser.

After apologising for comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust earlier this year, she criticised “vaccine Nazis” during her appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast last week. She also told Donald Trump’s former adviser that she is not vaccinated against Covid-19.

The Independent has requested comment from Ms Green’s office.