In a sermon last month, the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III told worshippers at his Dallas church about two encounters he had with his longtime criminal justice reform comrade-in-arms, Kamala Harris, after her ascension to the Democratic presidential ticket.
"Yo, you could have given your boy a ride on Air Force Two," Haynes claims he jokingly told the vice president when they met backstage at an American Federation of Teachers conference in Houston on July 25. They had crossed paths just the day before at a black sorority conference in Indianapolis, Haynes said.
Harris and Haynes, the pastor of Dallas's Friendship-West Baptist Church, have known each other for more than two decades. They worked together "in the early days of the criminal justice reform movement," Harris said at a conference for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition on July 16, 2023.
"I am so confident in his leadership and his ability to carry on the greatest traditions of this organization and to meet the challenges of this moment," said Harris. "Congratulations, Reverend Haynes."
And they have remained in close contact all the way through Harris's rise to the Democratic nomination. Haynes has visited the vice presidential residence and attended a roundtable discussion that Harris convened at the White House on February 29. Haynes told the Washington Post this month that he maintains contact with Harris and speaks to her about how to apply her religious faith to her government role.
That level of access to the potential commander in chief could raise concerns given Haynes's history of anti-American and anti-Israeli views.
On Oct. 8, the day after Hamas fighters slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, Haynes gave an explicitly anti-Israel sermon in which he dismissed a "manufactured war" between Israel and Hamas and called both Israel and the United States "apartheid" regimes.
"I recognize that we gotta be pro-Israel, yeah we got to do that, or we get in trouble," Haynes said mockingly. "Well, I'm coming to get in trouble."
"Palestinians don't have the financial backing from the United States that Israel has, and so they throw their rocks and shoot their arrows, and Israel is able to bomb them and kill them," said Haynes. "It is totally unfair, but this country's going to stand on the side of apartheid because that's its track record. It stood by apartheid in South Africa because it created apartheid in this country."
Haynes, who in 2017 touted anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan as a "wonderful and great man," in January urged the Biden-Harris administration in January to call for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. At a DNC event in 2020, Haynes said supporters of a border wall "may go to hell." In his Oct. 8 sermon, Haynes repeatedly criticized "Governor DeNazi," a nickname he coined for Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.).
It is unclear how exactly Harris met Haynes, but they have a mutual connection through San Francisco pastor Amos Brown. Haynes grew up attending Brown's Third Baptist Church, while Harris has been a member of the church for more than 20 years, working on Brown's 2000 campaign for San Francisco supervisor. She has called Brown an "inspiration to me always" and invited him to give the closing prayer at the Democratic National Convention this month.
The Washington Free Beacon recently reported that Brown blamed the United States for 9/11 at a memorial service days after the 2001 attacks. "Ohhhhh, America, what did you do?" said Brown, whose remarks drew condemnation at the time from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and victims' families.
It may come as little surprise, then, that Haynes considers himself a friend and "mentee" of another firebrand pastor with political connections.
Haynes has worked for decades with Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor. Obama's 2008 campaign was nearly derailed when footage surfaced from several years earlier of Wright shouting, "God Damn America," during a sermon about U.S. foreign policy. Haynes has called Wright an "adopted father" and defended the pastor against what he called a "media lynching" over the Obama dust-up.
Haynes has gone to bat for Wright before, most notably when Wright was caught up in a sex scandal involving Haynes's executive assistant.
The assistant, Elizabeth Payne, alleged that Haynes fired her in August 2008 after discovering she had exchanged steamy emails with Wright. The emails, released through the lawsuit, show Wright calling Payne "sexy" and making other remarks. Payne alleged she was fired because of the emails and because she was the only white and Hispanic person who worked at Haynes's church.
Haynes said he was "not interested" in reading the emails at issue in the case, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon. Payne alleged during the case that Haynes may have been involved in an affair of his own. She said in her deposition that she opened mail addressed to Haynes that included a photo of a topless woman. Payne said she brought the photo to the attention of church officials because she had recently wired money to the woman.
The Harris campaign and Haynes did not respond to requests for comment.