In DC, especially in Congress, 'Israel is losing its power'

Trump says he’ll deport anti-Israel student protesters if elected — report

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate said to tell donor event that current political climate is like that before the Holocaust

Former US president Donald Trump speaks to the media outside of his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York, May 28, 2024. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)
Former US president Donald Trump speaks to the media outside of his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York, May 28, 2024. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Presumptive Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that if elected in November he will deport anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian student protesters, The Washington Post reported.

Referring to anti-Israel protests amid the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that swept US college campuses in the last seven months, the former US president vowed to defeat the “radical revolution,” according to sources who heard him speak at a May 14 donor event that he described as including “98 percent of my Jewish friends.”

“If you get me reelected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” Trump said. “It has to be stopped now.”

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” he vowed.

Trump also praised the New York Police Department for clearing up protest encampments and a building occupation at Columbia University and encouraged other cities to do the same, the report said. He has previously said it was “beautiful” to watch police move in.

The report cited donors who were present, but spoke on condition of anonymity as it was a private event.

“And you know, you go back through history, this is like just before the Holocaust,” Trump reportedly said. “If you look, it’s the same thing.”

“You had a weak president or head of the country. And it just built and built. And then, all of a sudden, you ended up with Hitler. You ended up with a problem like nobody knew,” he said.

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters walk from Columbia University down to Hunter College, May 6, 2024, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images via AFP)

Commenting on the war in Gaza, sparked by Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7 devastating attack in southern Israeli communities, Trump reportedly expressed support for Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror.”

But, he noted, “I’m one of the only people that says that now. And a lot of people don’t even know what October 7th is.”

In Washington, and especially in Congress, “Israel is losing its power,” he said.

Trump has been critical of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since he left office, including in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre that killed 1,200 people on October 7, mostly civilians. He reportedly made no mention of the Israeli leader at the donor event.

Trump was said to repeatedly tout the steps he took for Israel while in office, including moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. He also put a monetary value on the plateu, saying he was told the real estate is worth $2 trillion dollars.

“But it’s worth more than that. It is,” he said.

Trump also expressed his dismay that there are Jewish Americans who would vote for incumbent US President Joe Biden to have a second term rather than back him as the Republican candidate.

“How can a Jewish person vote for a Democrat, and Biden in particular — but forget Biden. They always let you down,” he said of Democrats.

Trump has previously panned Jewish Democratic voters, including last month when he said that they hate their religion, “hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Police mobilize near Columbia University on April 30, 2024, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images via AFP)

The Post said that Trump’s campaign did not respond to its detailed questions about the report. A spokeswoman wrote in an email, “When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”

Matthew Brooks, chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, predicted to the Post that should Trump return to the White House his relationship with Netanyahu will “flourish.”

“He’s giving the Israelis a blank check to go in and do what they need to do to destroy Hamas and eliminate the threat in Gaza from Hamas,” he assessed, adding that Trump is saying “‘do it quickly,’ because time is not Israel’s ally right now.”

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