Stefanik booed at ADL summit for claiming Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened under Trump
Nominee for US envoy to UN mostly applauded as she warns that ‘the antisemites at the United Nations better buckle up,’ pledges further crackdown on campus antisemitism
US Representative Elise Stefanik, President Donald Trump’s nominee for American ambassador to the United Nations, on Monday drew mostly applause but also a round of boos at the annual Anti-Defamation League summit in New York City.
Stefanik’s statement that the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel “would never have happened” under US President Donald Trump sparked widespread boos in the audience of hundreds.
“I believe, and I think it’s quite obvious to the world, that if President Trump had remained in office, October 7 would never have happened,” she said.
Following the boos, she added, “He has brought his pro-Israel policies to the White House, and in just a month, the world has watched as President Trump reasserted America First, peace-through-strength foreign policy.”
Dozens of people walked out following Stefanik’s statement. In the hall outside the auditorium, attendees were abuzz with discussion about what they had heard.
Stefanik, a Republican from New York, received applause for many other parts of her speech, though, including for discussing her questioning of university presidents last year that led to the resignations of several Ivy League leaders.
During that questioning, Stefanik asked university presidents whether calling for the genocide of Jews was a violation of their campus policies. The university leaders said it depended on the context, causing a major uproar.
Stefanik, at the ADL summit, said the query was an off-the-cuff question she scribbled down minutes before she asked it, and not part of her prepared remarks. She says she did not anticipate the “earthquake” caused by the responses.
“It was truly the question and horrific answer heard around the world,” she said.
Her calls to further crack down on campus antisemitism, deport foreign students who engage in antisemitism and support of terror, and eliminate UNRWA also drew applause.
“The antisemites at the United Nations better buckle up because I’m coming. The university presidents were just a warm-up,” she said.
The fulsome reception Stefanik received at the convention — ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called her “exactly what we need” at the United Nations — accentuates how the ADL has shifted its approach to Trump since he entered the White House for his first term. The ADL was consistently critical of Trump at that point, and at the “Never is Now” conference following Trump’s 2016 election, alluding to Trump floating the creation of a registry of Muslims, Greenblatt had vowed to register as a Muslim in solidarity.
Much of Greenblatt’s address Monday morning also focused on the rise of anti-Israel activity as well as antisemitism since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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