Trump: 'Only weak people' think I'm wrong to smear Jews for not supporting me

For the second day in a row, Trump attacked American Jews, accusing them of “disloyalty” for supporting the Democratic Party and opposing him, and then insulting them for criticizing his anti-Semitic attacks.

Trump’s latest attacks came Wednesday as he made his way to leave the White House on Marine One.

“In my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel. I cannot understand how they can do that,” Trump said and then accused Democrats of wanting to do “bad things” to Israel.

“In my opinion,” he continued, “if you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that.”

Not surprisingly, some of Trump’s loudest critics have been American Jews.

“What @POTUS said was #antiSemitic. The charge of disloyalty or dual loyalty has been used against Jews for centuries,” wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.

“This is yet another example of Donald Trump continuing to weaponize and politicize anti-Semitism,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, responding to Trump’s disloyalty attack on Tuesday.

“This is a free country. Jews aren’t a monolithic bloc, nor single-issue voters. Some will vote Democratic, others Republican. As Americans, that’s their right. Please keep loyalty out of it,” said David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee.

But Trump refused to even acknowledge the criticism.

“I haven’t heard anybody say that. Just the opposite,” he insisted. “I think if you vote for a Democrat, you’re very, very disloyal to Israel and to Jewish people.”

For decades, American Jews have voted overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats, with over 75% of Jewish voters backing Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.

Trump’s repeated use of anti-Semitic tropes and affiliation with bigots like former Klansman David Duke turned off Jewish voters in 2016, with 71% of Jewish voters supporting Hillary Clinton.

In office, Trump has appealed to bigots, and described neo-Nazis as “very fine people” not long after omitting mention of the Jewish people on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Trump’s response shows a concerted effort to dig deeper into anti-Semitism, rather than rejecting or renouncing it.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.