Courtesy of JTA. Photo credit: Adam Gray/Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a fighting anti-semitism event with Miriam Adelson at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, in Bedminster, New Jersey, Aug. 15, 2024
(JTA) — In a speech about antisemitism, Donald Trump said Jews are facing a climate akin to the run-up to the Holocaust due to the actions of anti-Israel forces — and placed the blame squarely on his opponent while omitting any mention of antisemitism from the far right.
“What’s going on now is exactly what was going on before the Holocaust,” Trump said in the speech Thursday evening at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, attended by some of his most prominent Jewish supporters. “Instead of aggressively confronting these venomous antisemites in her party, Kamala Harris has maneuvered for their support.”
The speech came as Trump, by his own admission, is trying to “define” Harris, the vice president and his Democratic opponent, as she is beginning to lead him in the polls nationally and in swing states. And it served as a rejoinder to years of accusations that Trump accepts support from far-right figures in his party and by his own conduct evokes the run-up to Hitler seizing power — a charge leveled at him in his last campaign by Jewish Democrats.
In his speech, Trump repeated several of his most frequent claims, including a review of his actions on Israel as president — such as withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — and complaints that most Jews in the United States vote for Democrats.
He also repeated his claim that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel wouldn’t have happened had he been president. He pledged to give Israel the resources it needs to win the war — though he added, multiple times, that he believes few Israeli hostages remain alive.
And he promised to put university presidents “on notice” over campus antisemitism, as well as to withdraw federal funding and accreditation from campuses where antisemitism is allowed to fester.
“The toxic poison of antisemitism now courses through the veins of [the] radical Democrat Party,” he said. “We’re here tonight because we believe that this vicious outbreak of militant antisemitism is very militant, must be given no quarter, no safe harbor, no place in a civilized society. We must reject it in our schools, reject it in our foreign policy, reject it in our immigration system and reject it at the ballot box this November.”
Also Thursday, the Trump campaign launched a formal Jewish outreach, “Jewish Voices for Trump,” listing his pro-Israel accomplishments and endorsements from Jewish Republicans, some of whom have worked for him.
“He will ensure that Israel and the Jewish people have a secure homeland, and finally finish our war on terror,” the dedicated website says. “By re-affirming our support for President Trump, Jewish voices across the country are working to deliver President Trump a second term and put a stop to radical antisemitism.”
Among the endorsers were Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. “Campuses have exploded with antisemitic protests, and Iran-backed proxies represent an existential threat to the State of Israel, all because of the failed policies of the Harris-Biden administration,” Friedman said in a release.
The speech also included a moment, early on, in which Trump denigrated the appearance of decorated military veterans while praising Miriam Adelson, the Republican megadonor who introduced him at the event and has pledged up to $90 million to his reelection. Mentioning that he gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Trump said that Adelson looked better than some of the wounded veterans who received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, the soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” he said. “She gets it and she’s the healthy beautiful woman.”
He made several unsubstantiated claims throughout the speech, including that Harris had considered imposing an arms embargo on Israel (pro-Palestinian activists said she was open to meeting to discuss an embargo. but her campaign said she opposed one) and that she wanted to rush out of her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (they met for 40 minutes). He also alluded to his false claims that he won the 2020 election, noting that he got more votes in 2020 than in 2016.
He also mispronounced Harris’ first name and said he would not recognize her if she were referenced by her last name. “I really don’t call her Harris because nobody knows who Harris is,” he said. “You say to people ‘Harris,’ who the hell is Harris?”
He accused the Biden administration of “betray[ing]” Israel and said he would provide it his full support.
“I will give Israel the support that it needs to win, but I do want them to win fast, wouldn’t it be nice if they could win fast?” he said. “And we have to let them win fast. We will restore civility and peace to the Middle East.”
But he was pessimistic that many hostages remain alive. “I think you’re gonna have very few people left. A lot of people that they think are alive are not going to be alive,” he said.
The event did not touch on antisemitic violence on the far right, which the FBI and Anti-Defamation League say continues to proliferate and poses a grave threat. The “great replacement theory,” a baseless conspiracy theory alleging Jews seek to replace whites with migrants of color, has fueled some of the most serious antisemitic violence of recent years, including the deadliest attack in history on U.S. Jews, the 2018 massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Trump and top Republicans have peddled versions of the theory.
Trump also praised Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who has drawn accusations of antisemitism from Hungarian Jews, as “a very strong person.”
