Former President Donald J. Trump, speaking on Thursday at a campaign event in Washington centered on denouncing antisemitism in America, said that “if I don’t win this election,” then “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”
Mr. Trump repeated that assertion at a second event, this one focused on Israeli Americans, where he blamed Jews whom he described as “voting for the enemy,” for the hypothetical destruction of Israel that he insisted would happen if he lost in November.
Mr. Trump on Thursday offered an extended airing of grievances against Jewish Americans who have not voted for him. He repeated his denunciation of Jews who vote for Democrats before suggesting that the Democratic Party had a “hold, or curse,” on Jewish Americans and that he should be getting “100 percent” of Jewish votes because of his policies on Israel.
Jews, who make up just over 2 percent of America’s population, are considered to be one of the most consistently liberal demographics in the country, a trend that Mr. Trump has lamented repeatedly this year as he tries to chip away at their longstanding affiliation with Democrats.
Much as he repeatedly spins a doomsday vision of America as he campaigns this year, Mr. Trump has pointed to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 massacre and to the war in Gaza as he has insisted that Israel will “cease to exist” within a few years if he does not win in November.
“With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote,” he said during his earlier speech on Thursday, at a campaign event where he spoke to an audience of prominent Republican Jews — including Miriam Adelson, the megadonor who is a major Trump benefactor — and lawmakers. Mr. Trump added that “I really haven’t been treated very well, but it’s the story of my life.”
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