DEKYAS NEWS World Breaking News and Trusted Source
Related Articles
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday that Jewish American voters will be partly to blame if he loses the Nov. 5 election to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
During a speech at the Israeli American Council national summit in Washington DC, the former president complained that he was lagging behind Harris when it came to American Jews.
If Harris wins, Israel will likely cease to exist within two years. Trump blames Jews for part of this, as they tend to vote Democratic.
“If I don’t win this election — and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happened, because if 40 percent, I mean 60 percent of the people vote for the enemy,” Trump told the crowd, referring to a poll he said showed Harris with 60 percent support among Jewish Americans.
“It’s absolutely despicable at a time when anti-Semitism is already at such a terrible boiling point,” said former Trump administration spokesperson Alyssa Farah Griffin, now co-host of The view, said Friday in response to the comments.
Trump said he was “not treated well by voters who happened to be Jewish” during the 2020 election, which he refused to concede to Joe Biden.
As in the past, the Republican candidate has for the third time in a row tied his election chances to the future of Israel.
“I have said long and loud that anyone who is Jewish, loves being Jewish, and loves Israel is a fool if they vote Democrat,” Trump said.
“If you want Israel to survive, you need Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States, that’s very simple,” he added.
For not the first time, Trump called Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish and American, “a Palestinian,” without explaining what he meant. Schumer has previously criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him an obstacle to the peace process as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has erupted.
WATCH Trump’s verbal attack on Schumer in July:
At his first rally in Pennsylvania since an assassination attempt, former President Donald Trump lashed out at Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, for the way they treated the Israeli prime minister during a recent speech to Congress — including not shaking hands with Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump also claimed he could end all the wars taking place around the world.
Trump made similar comments earlier in the evening at another summit, also in Washington, dedicated to combating anti-Semitism in America.
Trump condemned the anti-Semitic attacks that have taken place in the US since October 7, when Hamas militants led a deadly attack in southern Israel.
Trump’s campaign has made winning over Jewish voters in key battleground states a priority. American Jews have leaned heavily Democratic in federal elections for decades and continue to do so, but a small shift in the Jewish vote could determine the winner in November.
For example, the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania is home to more than 400,000 Jewish people, a state Biden won by 81,000 votes in 2020.
In a statement before the speech, Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, criticized Trump for sometimes associating with anti-Semites. Trump has rejected accusations of anti-Semitism and noted during his Thursday speeches that he has a Jewish son-in-law.
North Carolina a headache for Trump
During his remarks, Trump did not address a CNN report published earlier in the day about Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. That report alleged that Robinson, 56, once called himself a “black NAZI!” in comments posted on a pornography website and that he advocated the return of slavery.
Robinson, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, denied the report and vowed to stay in the race.
WATCH l Democrats see hope for victory in North Carolina after Harris replaces Biden:
North Carolina has voted Republican for the last three presidential elections, but since Kamala Harris entered the race, Democrats have gained momentum in the state. For The National, CBC’s Katie Simpson visits two rival counties to find out why.
Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that his Democratic opponent Josh Stein said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina. They have already contributed to the prospect that campaigning for Robinson could hurt Trump’s chances of winning the state’s 16 electoral votes.
Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Harris in a neck-and-neck race.
Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a 2019 Facebook post in which Robinson said abortion in America is about “killing the child because you’re not responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
The media has already reported on a speech Robinson gave at a church in 2021, in which he used the word “filth” when talking about gays and transgender people.
Trump has frequently endorsed Robinson, who is seen as a rising star in his party, known for his fiery speeches and evocative rhetoric. Before the March primary, Trump at a rally in Greensboro called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” because of his speaking skills.
