Top US Jewish groups, Biden and Harris slam Trump for saying Jews to blame if he loses
ADL chief says ex-president highlighted record antisemitism but then undercut that by ’employing numerous antisemitic tropes’; VP’s campaign: He made the claim ‘because he’s weak’
Former US president and Republican nominee Donald Trump was denounced Friday by prominent Jewish organizations, the White House and his rival Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for saying a day earlier that American Jews would be a leading cause of his electoral loss if more don’t back him in November.
Trump twice made the assertion on Thursday at separate events on combating antisemitism and supporting Israel, bewailing his level of support among Jewish Americans while seeking to court Jewish voters in the neck-and-neck presidential race by touting his record on Israel when in office and denouncing the surging antisemitism since Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Though Trump has frequently criticized US Jews for having long overwhelming voted for the Democratic Party, his latest comments marked an intensification of that rhetoric.
“Here we go again,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a statement posted on X that said Trump was right for highlighting the historic spike in antisemitism “but the effect is undermined by then employing numerous antisemitic tropes and anti-Jewish stereotypes — including rampant accusations of dual loyalty.”
“Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss does zero to help American Jews,” continued Greenblatt. “It increases their sense of alienation in a moment of vulnerability when right-wing extremists and left-wing antizionists continually demonize and slander Jews. This is happening on college campuses, in public places, everywhere. There are threats on all sides.”
He further warned that Trump’s comments “will likely spark more hostility and further inflame an already bad situation.”
The American Jewish Committee also condemned Trump’s claim that “if I don’t win this election… the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” noting that Jews make up only a small fraction of the American population.
“Setting up anyone to say ‘we lost because of the Jews’ is outrageous and dangerous. Thousands of years of history have shown that scapegoating Jews can lead to antisemitic hate and violence,” the group said, while decrying his description Democrats as “the enemy.”
“Divisive rhetoric like this has no place in politics,” it added, stressing “both candidates should work to earn the support of our community based on policy. But let’s not make this election and its outcome about the Jews.”
Lambasting Trump, a White House spokesperson said “it is abhorrent to traffic in dangerous tropes or engage in scapegoating at any time, let alone now, when all leaders have an obligation to fight back against the tragic worldwide rise in antisemitism.”
“Tearing the country apart and pitting communities against one another – out of smallness, fear, and selfishness – is the opposite of what the American people deserve,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told The Times of Israel.
“President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the entire administration stand together in ensuring hate has no safe harbor, and are carrying out the first-ever national strategy to counter antisemitism.”
A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign similarly denounced Trump, accusing him of “resorting to the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book because he’s weak and can’t stand the fact that the majority of America is going to reject him in November,”
“But we know that words like these can have serious consequences,” the spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
“As Trump has proven, including over the past few weeks with his lies about Springfield, Ohio, he will cling to fearmongering and intimidation, no matter the cost,” added the spokesperson, referring to lies repeated by the former president about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
“When Donald Trump loses this election, it will be because Americans from all faiths, ethnicities, and backgrounds came together to turn the page on the divisiveness he demonstrates every day.”
There was no immediate response from Trump’s campaign to the criticism, though the Republic Jewish Coalition seemingly came to his defense by releasing a statement hailing his speech on antisemitism as “a tour de force in support of the Jewish community and Israel.”
“Although many Jewish Americans vote for Democrats, he is working tirelessly to change that — and he has,” said the RJC’s leaders, adding they “fully expect President Trump to build on his historic success in this critical 2024 election.
Along with his comments on Jews shouldering a large chunk of the blame if he loses in November, Trump on Thursday ratcheted up his claim that Israel would be annihilated if Harris wins, giving the Jewish state two years left to live if he’s defeated.
Both of Trump’s Thursday’s events were in front of largely Jewish audiences and both were bank-rolled by Israeli-American casino magnate Miriam Adelson, a major campaign donor.
