Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday in back-to-back speeches that he would hold Jewish voters responsible if he loses the Nov. 5 election, suggesting that they owe him their support because of his position on Israel and questioning the sanity of Jewish Democrats.
“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Trump said at a summit on fighting antisemitism in America. “It’s only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you.”
He made similar remarks later in the evening at the Israeli American Council National Summit. Both events took place in Washington, D.C.
Trump did not take questions at either event and did not address the new report that a Republican gubernatorial nominee he has personally boosted, Mark Robinson of North Carolina, once described himself as a “black Nazi” on an internet pornography forum.
Robinson has denied that he made the comments attributed to him in the CNN article. CNN described extensive evidence linking Robinson to the username in question, noting that he listed his full name and an email address that he has “used on numerous websites across the internet for decades.”
Trump also repeatedly insisted that Vice President Kamala Harris’s election would directly result in the elimination of Israel and accused her without evidence of hating Israel or Jews. (Her husband is Jewish, as are Trump’s grandchildren by his daughter Ivanka, who converted.)
At one point, Trump appeared to use Israel and American Jews interchangeably.
“Israel, I believe, has to defeat her,” Trump said of Harris on Thursday. “More than any people on earth, Israel has to defeat her.”
His campaign did not immediately respond to a request to clarify his intent.
Trump’s remarks are part of a long-standing pattern of criticizing Jewish Democrats. He has falsely called Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish official in the U.S., a “proud member of Hamas,” the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip and has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and others. On Thursday, he repeated the false claim by describing Schumer as “Hamas all the way.”
On Thursday, Trump said that any Jewish American who votes for Harris “should have their head examined,” echoing remarks he made about President Joe Biden when he was at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Trump’s campaign sees gains with Jewish voters as a path to winning the pivotal swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. American Jews favor Harris over Trump 65 percent to 34 percent, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 2.
On Thursday, Trump called that split “not acceptable.”
Most American Jews identify with Israel, according to Pew’s research. But many are uncomfortable with being treated as single-issue voters on Israel because of old antisemitic tropes questioning Jews’ loyalty as citizens of other countries. Pew has also found generational differences in how American Jews view Israel’s war in Gaza, with younger people being more conflicted.
Trump’s suggestion that Jewish voters would be to blame if he loses in November drew condemnation from Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick, who said he was playing into “dangerous dual loyalty tropes.”
“Donald Trump has used a speech about antisemitism as an opportunity to embrace antisemitic tropes and attack the American Jewish community,” Spitalnick said in a statement. “Treating Jews and Israel as political footballs makes Jews, Israel, and all of us less safe. Dividing Jews into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ camps and engaging in dual loyalty tropes further normalizes antisemitism.”
Trump’s campaign also did not say whether he still supports Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor who is now running for governor. Trump has in the past praised Robinson as “a star,” “like a fine wine,” “an outstanding person,” “Martin Luther King on steroids,” “better than Martin Luther King” and “Martin Luther King Times Two.”
On Thursday CNN reported that Robinson posted on a pornography site’s message board calling himself a “black Nazi” and using an antisemitic slur. Robinson has in the past denied the Holocaust and supported a conspiracy theory about Jewish bankers.
Thursday’s event on antisemitism was hosted by Miriam Adelson, a Jewish philanthropist who has contributed more than $25 million to Trump and other Republican causes this election cycle.
Adelson introduced Trump at the Israeli American Council summit, telling the crowd: “Even if he were to retire right now, Donald Trump will have done enough for the Jewish people and the Jewish state to earn his eternal place in the Jewish history.”
During his speech, Trump repeated his claim that Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel would have never happened if he were president and described Harris as “the candidate of the forces that want to destroy Western civilization.”
He also complained again about his debate against Harris, once again criticizing the moderators and saying he regretted not attacking them.