Former president Donald Trump, in a speech Thursday to Jewish Republicans, repeatedly denigrated Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats and warned, without evidence, that Israel \u201cwill no longer exist\u201d if Vice President Kamala Harris becomes president.<\/p>\n
Trump has long questioned how Jewish Americans could vote for Democrats, even as polls show they support the party by wide margins, and Trump\u2019s rhetoric toward the voting bloc is criticized as antisemitic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand how anybody can support them \u2014 and I say it constantly \u2014 if you had them to support and you were Jewish, you have to have your head examined,\u201d Trump told the Republican Jewish Coalition. \u201cThey\u2019ve been very bad to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump addressed the group live via satellite as it held its annual leadership summit in Las Vegas, days after the bodies of six Israeli hostages \u2014 including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin \u2014 were recovered in Gaza. The hostages were taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Trump said Thursday that Harris and President Joe Biden have \u201csought to cast blame for these deaths on Israel,\u201d though both condemned Hamas in separate statements on the recovery of Goldberg-Polin\u2019s body. Neither statement criticized Israel. In discussing the matter, Trump initially appeared to misstate Goldberg-Polin\u2019s last name as \u201cGoldman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown strained during the war. The president said Monday he does not think Netanyahu is doing enough to strike a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
Trump did not mention Netanyahu in his speech Thursday but claimed without evidence \u2014 as he has before \u2014 that the war would not have started if he were still president. He also again expressed some impatience with how long the war has taken. Discussing the war in April, Trump said he would tell Netanyahu to \u201cget it over with\u201d and \u201cget back to normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will support Israel\u2019s right to win,\u201d Trump told the RJC. \u201cIt\u2019s a war on terror, and we will win fast. You have to win and you have to win fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, denounced Trump\u2019s repeated criticism of Jewish Americans who vote Democratic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is antisemitism, plain and simple, and if any other elected official or candidate said these things even once \u2014 let alone on a nearly daily basis \u2014 they would be condemned as antisemitic,\u201d Soifer said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Despite Trump\u2019s comments to the contrary, Harris has repeatedly expressed support for the existence of Israel and its right to defend itself, including during her Democratic National Convention speech last month. She has also spoken out against the human suffering in Gaza amid the Israel counteroffensive and emphasized the urgent need for a cease-fire deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,\u201d Harris said in her DNC speech.<\/p>\n
Trump, on Thursday, exaggerated what the implications would be if Harris wins in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president \u2026 Israel will no longer exist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump received an enthusiastic response Thursday as he addressed the RJC after being introduced by Miriam Adelson, the billionaire and Republican megadonor. She told the GOP Republicans gathered in Las Vegas that Trump is \u201cour best friend\u201d and that she is \u201ceagerly awaiting for him to enter the White House and to save the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jewish voters continue to overwhelmingly favor Democrats, according to polling. The group supported Biden over Trump 70 percent to 27 percent in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center\u2019s validated voter survey.<\/p>\n
Trump suggested Thursday, without evidence, that he was \u201cprobably around the 50 percent mark\u201d with Jewish voters \u2014 and once more criticized Jewish Americans who do not support him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are the 50 percent of Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don\u2019t like the Jewish people?\u201d Trump asked, pushing false claims about voters who oppose him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump, in a speech Thursday to Jewish Republicans, repeatedly denigrated Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats and warned, without evidence, that Israel \u201cwill no longer exist\u201d if Vice President Kamala Harris becomes president. Trump has long questioned how Jewish Americans could vote for Democrats, even as polls show they support the party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}