Report: Trump golf club twice hosted speeches by Nazi sympathizer who stormed Capitol
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, jailed for participation in Jan. 6 riots, reportedly told co-workers ‘Hitler should have finished the job’; Trump campaign denies affiliation
Former United States president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, twice featured speeches this summer from Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a Nazi sympathizer who was convicted of storming the Capitol, NPR reported Thursday.
One of those events was a fundraiser for a group that has supported Capitol riot defendants and was personally endorsed by Trump in a video message.
“All of the people there, you’re amazing patriots,” NPR quoted Trump as saying in the video. “Have a great time at Bedminster.”
Hale-Cusanelli, who worked as a security contractor at a Navy base when he joined the pro-Trump mob on January 6, was also convicted of disorderly conduct and other misdemeanors. He was sentenced to four years in prison and secured his release in December 2023.
Hale-Cusanelli is known as a Nazi sympathizer who at one point wore a Hitler mustache.
According to NPR, prosecutors in his criminal case over his involvement in the January 6 mob said that he told his coworkers that “Hitler should have finished the job” and “babies born with any deformities or disabilities should be shot in the forehead.”
In 2020, he reportedly posted a lengthy online video in which he complained of a “Hasidic Jewish invasion” of New Jersey, comparing Orthodox Jews to a “plague of locusts.”
Other antisemitic incidents attributed to Hale-Cusanelli cited by the report include posting the address of a Jewish man online and saying he would go there on the Sabbath; referring to the Anti-Defamation League as “parasitic opportunists and Jewish supremacists”; and calling Democrats “kikes” following the 2020 election.
Hale-Cusanelli reportedly denies hating Jews, saying his comments amount to trolling intended to provoke audiences.
Trump, who is the Republican candidate in the November elections, denied knowledge of Hale-Cusanelli.
A Trump campaign official told NPR that the former president is “not even aware of this individual.” Nevertheless, Trump supports the nonprofit Patriot Freedom Project, which was founded in response to Hale-Cusanelli’s arrest.
Since entering politics, Trump has repeatedly linked himself to high-profile antisemites. In 2020, he hosted Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, both outspoken antisemites, for a dinner at his private residence. At a presidential debate in 2020, he refused to condemn the antisemitic group the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.” In 2016, he initially declined to refuse the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
At the same time, his son-in-law Jared Kushner is Jewish and his daughter Ivanka converted to the religion.
