Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash after saying that if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in November, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do” with it.
The comments were made during the former president’s opening night address for the annual Israeli American Council (IAC) summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Trump has previously called out U.S. Jewish voters for backing Harris in preliminary polling, including saying last month that any Jewish voter who backs the Democratic ticket should have their “head examined.”
Trump said on Thursday that he was backed by only 24 percent of Jewish voters in 2016 and 29 percent of the bloc in 2020, despite “all I have done for Israel.”
“I’ll put it to you very simply and as gently as I can, I wasn’t treated properly by the voters who happen to be Jewish,” Trump added later in his speech. “I don’t know. Do they know what the hell is happening?”
He went on to say, “if I don’t win this election, and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens,” adding that recent surveys show a majority of Jewish voters (65 percent) back Harris this election cycle.
Trump’s statements were ripped online by prominent Jewish figures like Andrew Weinstein, an attorney who serves as a public delegate of the United States to the United Nations.
“This is vile and dangerous and should be condemned by all Americans,” Weinstein wrote to X, formerly Twitter. “Antisemitic rhetoric like this makes Jews less safe.”
Former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah, whose father is a Holocaust survivor, also posted to X that Trump’s comment “is incredibly dangerous antisemitism pure and simple.”
“It’s an old trick that has worked—laying the groundwork for a scapegoat,” she added. “Regardless of your politics, please see this for what it is and denounce it.”
“Trump’s antisemitism speech is, for the umpteenth time, advancing this antisemitic trope,” wrote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “Stop dividing Jews into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ camps. Stop labeling those who don’t support you as crazy or disloyal. Stop playing into dual loyalty tropes. All of it makes Jews less safe.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment via email late Thursday night.
Former President Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting in Flint, Michigan, on September 17. The Republican presidential nominee faces fierce backlash after saying that if he loses the White House in November, Jewish voters “would have a lot to do with” it. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
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