A top Biden White House adviser has been employed for decades as a minister at a Washington, D.C., church that has hosted several activists and religious leaders with long histories of antisemitism, including one Black activist who, during a 2002 speech, called for ‘Zionists’ in Israel, including their babies, to be murdered.

Rev. Thomas Bowen, who is listed on Shiloh Baptist Church’s website as a minister of social justice and has been employed at the church since 2002 in several leadership roles, joined the White House in February to serve as the senior adviser for the White House Office of Public Engagement, which ‘works at the local, state, and national levels to ensure community leaders, diverse perspectives, and new voices all have the opportunity to inform the work of the President.’

Shiloh Baptist Church, a historic Black church that Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband visited on Christmas Day in 2022, is led by Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith, Shiloh’s senior minister and a longtime mentor of Bowen. During a sermon before Shiloh’s congregation last month, Bowen called Smith his ‘hero,’ ‘friend,’ and ‘mentor … to whom I owe a debt that I could never ever repay.’

Bowen’s social media is also littered with praise of Rev. Smith, who invited multiple activists with long histories of antisemitism into their church.

In April 2018, Rev. Smith hosted the National Black Men’s Convention at Shiloh Baptist Church, which was billed as a five-day summit for ‘mobilizing and organizing brothers for a better future for our community’ and opposing President Trump. Each day had a different theme, which included reparations, and several of the speakers involved with the summit had a problematic history of antisemitism and vile rhetoric against White people.

In the months before the convention, Rev. Smith met at Shiloh Baptist Church with the convention’s co-host Malik Shabazz, the founder of Black Lawyers for Justice and former chairman of the New Black Panther Party. Shabazz, who has been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a ‘racist black nationalist with a long, well-documented history of violently anti-Semitic remarks and accusations about the inherent evil of white people,’ posted a photo of him and Smith hugging on his Facebook and said they had a ‘great meeting’ together. Shabazz also added that ‘Pastor Smith and other pro-Black Christian preachers will be speaking’ at the convention.

Shabazz, who posted a photo with notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan in 2020 with the caption, ‘I HAVE WALKED WITH THE BEST’ and called the Nation of Islam leader ‘one of the great influences in my life’ last year, made several other posts in the months leading up to the 2018 convention touting Shiloh Baptist Church as the host of the convention, including videos that showed he was in attendance at church events while Bowen was on the church’s payroll.

SPLC’s website lists several vile quotes uttered by Shabazz, including remarks from a 2002 speech in Washington, D.C., where he reportedly said, ‘Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!’ In another speech from the early 2000s, he also pushed antisemitic tropes about ‘Zionists’ controlling the media and foreign policy.

Earlier this year, Shabazz posted a photo of him and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from 2012 and said his ‘views are shaped by my experiences.’ He said he was invited by a now-deceased journalist for the Nation of Islam’s publication and said Farrakhan was in attendance with dozens of imams. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called Israel an ‘illegitimate regime’ and has called for its ‘elimination.’

When pressed by Fox News Digital on his ties to Farrakhan and his long history of antisemitic remarks, he responded, ‘Have no associations with Louis Farrakhan. Am not anti semetic (sic).’ Fox followed up with a social media post showing him and Farrakhan, prompting him to say, ‘Meaning I have no current associations with him.’

The other co-host of the convention was Minister Hashim Nzinga, who has since died and was serving as the chief of staff for the New Black Panther Party when he died in 2020. He also made several controversial statements, according to SPLC, including saying, ‘Every White man and every Jew is the devil by nature.’ During a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he was asked to respond to Shabazz’s comment about killing Zionists, prompting him to admit, ‘I still say that all the time now. You’ve gotta kill them before they kill you. … If someone brings harm to us, we’re gonna kill them.’

‘In addition, Nzinga said in the interview that homosexuality is evil, that Jews control the media and are responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and that blacks are God’s ‘chosen people,’ Jesus himself being black,’ the LA Times reported at the time.

An archived itinerary of the convention revealed that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ controversial uncle, Leonard Jeffries, was also a speaker at the event. The elder Jeffries, who has a long history of antisemitism, is described on the convention’s website as a ‘political scientist’ who ‘achieved national prominence in the early 1990s for his historical statements about Jews’ and highlighted how Jeffries ‘stated that Jews financed the slave trade, used the movie industry to hurt Black people, and that whytes [sic] are ‘ice people’ while Africans are ‘sun people.’’

Shabazz posted Jeffries’ speech on his Facebook page, where he opened his remarks by saying ‘Black power’ before asking the crowd to give a round of applause for Shabazz and Nzinga for organizing the convention. He also gave a shoutout to Farrakhan during his remarks.

Another speaker at the convention was Dr. Boyce Watkins, who wrote the book ‘The 10 Commandments of Black Economic Power’ and is a staunch defender of Farrakhan. In a 2018 tweet, Watkins defended Farrakhan comparing Jews to termites, saying, ‘Anyone attacking [Louis Farrakhan] for his statement about being ‘anti-termite’ is probably a termite themselves.’ He has also used antisemitic tropes like saying Jews control Hollywood and the music industry. 

In September 2023, Watkins said, ‘I love Farrakhan. Period.’ And in a 2022 video, he boasted about being invited to the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day event and said the Nation of Islam ‘are like brothers to me. When I go in there, when I roll up there, I get so much love from all the NOI brothers and the sisters. I just want to give them a shoutout right now.’

It is unclear whether Bowen, who previously served as director of African American strategic engagement in the executive office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, was involved with the planning for the convention or was in attendance. But an archived version of Shiloh’s website says he was one of the five ‘assistant pastors’ at the time of the convention. He did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

A few years earlier, in 2015, Rev. Smith hosted Farrakhan and dozens of Black community leaders at his church for an invitation-only meeting to discuss the upcoming 20th anniversary of the ‘Million Man March.’ Farrakhan, who was surrounded by several Nation of Islam members in addition to Rev. Smith and Cora Masters Barry, who faced backlash earlier this summer for an unearthed clip saying, ‘F— the White women,’ spoke at the private event. 

An article from the Washington Informer, a ‘woman-owned multimedia news organization serving the African-Americans’ in the DC area, reported at the time that Farrakhan, while speaking at Shiloh, said he believed it was time for Blacks to ‘distribute the pain’ so they aren’t the only ones suffering.

Shiloh also hosted former President Obama’s controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright that year, according to a tweet from Bowen saying he was ‘preaching’ the ‘Miseducation of the Palestinians.’ Wright previously delivered the viral ‘God damn America’ sermon and used an antisemitic trope to blame Jews for keeping him from talking with Obama after Obama won the 2008 presidential election. The comments ignited backlash from the Anti-Defamation League at the time, calling Wright’s comments ‘inflammatory and false.’

‘The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Reverend Wright’s statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form,’ an ADL spokesperson said in 2009. ‘In a short succinct sentence, Reverend Wright manages to both label some of the President’s closest advisors solely by their religious beliefs and give them powers superior to the President himself.’

The White House and Shiloh Baptist Church did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

A new national poll conducted entirely after Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump indicates Harris leading Trump by five points.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted two-day poll, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has the support of 47% of registered voters nationwide. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, lands the backing of 42% of registered voters questioned.

The five-point advantage for Harris is up slightly from a four-point margin in the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted in late August, prior to the debate.

The survey indicates that voters agree with political pundits in saying that Harris bested Trump during their Philadelphia showdown, which was their first and potentially only presidential debate.

Fifty-three percent of survey respondents who said they had heard at least some of Tuesday’s debate said that the vice president had won, with just 24% saying that the former president was the winner.

The poll surveyed 1,690 adults nationwide, including 1,405 registered voters. The survey had a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for registered voters.

With seven and a half weeks until Election Day and early voting getting underway this month in some of the key battleground states, most national surveys and swing state polls indicate a margin-of-error race between Trump and Harris, who enjoyed a wave of momentum in the weeks after replacing President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket in mid-July.

Harris, at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday, reiterated to her supporters that ‘ours is going to be a tight race until the end.’

‘We are the underdog,’ she emphasized. ‘We’ve got some hard work ahead of us… hard work is good work.’

Seventy-nine Democrats voted against a bill effectively banning Chinese military companies from doing federal business in the United States, but the Harris-Walz campaign declined to say where it stands on the legislation amid concerns over Gov. Tim Walz’s ties to an institute that did business with one of the companies targeted in the bill.

The Biosecure Act, HR 8333, passed the House by a vote of 306-81, with 79 Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, would not allow federal agencies to ‘procure or obtain any biotechnology equipment or service produced or provided by a biotechnology company of concern.’

One of the companies called out in the act, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), has been labeled a ‘Chinese military company’ by the Pentagon and has done extensive work with a medical research institute with deep ties to Walz, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign multiple times for comment over the last six days on whether it supports the Biosecure Act, but they refused to say where the campaign stands.

BGI’s presence in the United States was brought to the forefront again this week after Fox News Digital reported that the House Oversight Committee is aware of a machine operated by BGI that is in use at Los Alamos, the nation’s most secretive government laboratory.

‘I spoke in favor of my bill, the BIOSECURE Act, on the House floor today. This legislation is the first step towards breaking our reliance on Chinese biotech and pharmaceutical companies while protecting the genetic data of millions of Americans from the CCP,’ Wenstrup posted on X shortly before the bill was passed.

‘From harvesting genetic data for research to aiding and abetting the CCP in genocide, China’s biotech companies have proven they will stop at nothing to assist the CCP. It’s time we reclaim our independence and protect the health care of all Americans.’

Earlier this year, the House Oversight Committee announced it is investigating Walz’s ties to China and on Thursday the Washington Examiner reported that the investigation has expanded and documents have been requested. 

Walz worked briefly in China as a teacher, traveling to Guangdong in 1989 for a teach abroad program to teach English and American history. Walz has made dozens of trips to China and The Wall Street Journal, citing local media reports, reported that one trip to China doubled as his honeymoon in 1994, and he planned his wedding date to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

‘I’ve lived in China and, as I’ve said, I’ve been there about 30 times…. I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship. I totally disagree, and I think we need to stand firm on what they’re doing in the South China Sea, but there’s many areas of cooperation we can work on,’ Walz said in an interview with Agri-Pulse Communications.

He was also quoted by a local outlet in 1990 reflecting on his visits to China, saying, ‘No matter how long I live, I will never be treated that well again.’

‘They gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience,’ Walz said, adding that he was ‘treated exceptionally well.’

The remark came in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and amid continued and still ongoing mass human rights abuses by the communist regime.

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and Cameron Cawthorne contributed to this report

The House Oversight Committee is planning a hearing next week broadly targeting Biden-Harris administration policies and their effect on Americans, Fox News Digital has learned.

Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is scheduling the hearing – titled, ‘A Legacy of Incompetence: Consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Policy Failures’ – for Thursday, Sept. 19, at 10 a.m. ET.

Comer accused President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of causing ‘skyrocketing inflation, the worst border crisis in American history, high energy prices, chaos around the world, and rampant waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at federal agencies,’ in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

‘Simply put, everything President Biden and Vice President Harris touches fails,’ Comer said. 

‘Next week’s hearing will examine the Biden-Harris Administration’s failed record and what can be done to reverse the damage this Administration has caused.’

It comes as House Republicans ramp up their scrutiny of Harris in the weeks since she became the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, replacing Biden after he dropped out of the race.

Republicans have also seized on Harris’ own past efforts to position herself as integral to the White House’s most critical decisions. Former President Trump and his GOP allies argue that a Harris administration would be an extension of Biden and his progressive policies.

The House has also held multiple hearings on Harris’ handling of the border crisis in particular, and her role as the Biden administration’s ‘border czar’ in charge of tackling the root causes of mass migration from Central and South America. 

Comer has also led efforts to scrutinize the ties that Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has with China.

Next week’s House Oversight Committee hearing will include testimony from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Brendan Carr, Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian, Meaghan Mobbs of the Independent Women’s Forum, and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Mandy Gunasekera. 

Then-Sen. Kamala Harris bragged in 2019 about working ‘behind the scenes’ when she was California attorney general to change the state’s policy she said was unfairly hindering transgender inmates from receiving taxpayer-funded gender surgery.

Video of an interview Harris did as a candidate for the 2020 presidential election with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) Action Fund began circulating online following Tuesday night’s debate, after former President Donald Trump argued his opponent ‘wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.’ 

His remarks were immediately met with bewilderment by members of the media and Harris supporters, who suggested the claim was untrue. 

‘When I was Attorney General I learned that the California Department of Corrections, which was a client of mine – I didn’t get to choose my clients … they were standing in the way of surgery for prisoners,’ Harris said during the 2019 interview. ‘And there was a specific case. When I learned about the case, I worked behind-the-scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman got the services she was deserving – it was not only about that case – I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desire and need.’

The 2019 interview was part of a series of other talks by NCTE Action Fund, called ‘TRANSform the White House,’ which sought to talk to the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidates about where they stood on the issue of LGBT rights. 

Trump’s claim Tuesday about Harris wanting to give detained illegal immigrants access to taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries started a firestorm on social media. 

”She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison’ is the WILDEST thing I’ve ever heard in any debate. EVER,’ former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill wrote on X shortly after Trump made his claim Tuesday evening. 

‘Trump made history last night for sure. Who will ever forget him ranting on stage about immigrants eating people’s dogs? Or insisting that the Vice President ‘wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in jail’?’ posted The New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser. 

Meanwhile, Time magazine was forced to make a correction after implying Trump’s claim was ‘false.’

Trump’s comments on Tuesday evening and the subsequent frenzy over where Harris now stands on providing taxpayer-funded medical procedures to transgender inmates was preempted by news that while Harris was running for the presidency in 2019, she indicated in a candidate questionnaire to the American Civil Liberties Union that she did indeed support gender transition surgeries for detained migrants.

‘I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,’ Harris wrote in the questionnaire. She also checked a box ‘Yes’ in response to whether she would use her executive authority as president to ensure transgender inmates, ‘including those in prison and immigration detention,’ can receive transgender surgery.

‘The Vice President’s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris Administration,’ a Harris campaign adviser told Fox News when asked about Harris’ response to the questionnaire. In an additional statement to CNN, the campaign added that ‘As President, [Harris] will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions of the sake of progress,’ but did not elaborate in response to questions on where Harris currently stands on the issue. 

‘That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on,’ Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler also told Fox News. 

Besides her remarks during the 2019 interview on LGBT rights about changing California policy to help ‘every’ transgender inmate get the surgery they ‘desire,’ Harris bragged during the interview about helping train prosecutors around the country on how to defeat the so-called ‘trans panic defense.’ She also touted her work starting what Harris said was California’s first taxpayer-funded victims assistance program for transgender individuals, while lamenting the ‘epidemic’ of Black transgender women getting murdered and insisting transgender people do nOt seek the assistance they need out of fear of judgment.

‘Way back when, with the power that I had [as California Attorney General], I used it in a way that was about pushing forward the [trans rights] movement frankly, and the agenda,’ Harris insisted during the 2019 interview.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by publication deadline.

A new House GOP-led bill is being introduced to block federal dollars from paying for gender reassignment surgery for illegal immigrants.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced legislation called the Stopping Transgender Operation Payments and Wacky Expenses for Illegal Residents and Detainees (STOP WEIRD) Act on Thursday, and it is backed by at least five other House Republicans.

‘Kamala could implement her weird and disgusting plan today, or in the very unlikely case of a Harris-Walz administration,’ Steube told Fox News Digital. 

‘Congress has the responsibility to safeguard taxpayer dollars from funding transition surgeries for illegal immigrants – I can think of a million things that are a better use of taxpayer dollars – for one, our veterans who fight for months, and sometimes years, to get the medical care they earned through service to our country.’

It is part of the House GOP majority’s increased scrutiny of Vice President Kamala Harris and her policy platforms since the vice president became the Democrats’ 2024 White House nominee in late July.

Harris signaled support for federal dollars going toward transgender surgeries for detained illegal immigrants and U.S. prisoners in a recently resurfaced American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) questionnaire from 2019.

The then-junior California senator filled it out alongside other 2020 presidential primary hopefuls.

It has earned her aggressive blowback from GOP critics who say it is proof that Harris is not the moderate she is styling herself to be during her campaign.

Former President Donald Trump called Harris out over the questionnaire during their tense head-to-head on ABC News on Tuesday.

‘Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison,’ Trump said during the debate. ‘This is a radical left liberal that would do this.’

The questionnaire said, ‘As President, will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?’

Harris responded, ‘It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition.’

‘I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,’ she added. 

When asked about her answers by Fox News Digital, a Harris campaign adviser responded, ‘The Vice President’s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris Administration.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the bill.

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.