White House: Trump’s anti-Semitism condemnations ‘never good enough’
Responding to Anne Frank Center, Press Secretary Sean Spicer says: ‘I wish they had praised the president for his leadership in this area’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s comments on anti-Semitism will never please some people, the White House said Tuesday, hours after the president issued a long-awaited condemnation of anti-Jewish hatred.
“It’s ironic that no matter how many times he talks about this that it’s never good enough,” said Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who had been asked to respond to the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which called Trump’s earlier statement Tuesday “too little, too late.”
During his daily press briefing, Spicer fended off the withering criticism by the US Jewish group, saying Trump has commented on anti-Semitism before, but never to the satisfaction of all.
“I saw that statement,” he said, referring to the Anne Frank Center. “I wish that they had praised the president for his leadership in this area. Hopefully, as time continues to go by they recognize his commitment to civil rights, to voting rights, to equality for all Americans.”
In a Facebook post, the organization’s executive director, Steven Goldstein, said the president’s statement was “a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting anti-Semitism.”
Trump’s “sudden acknowledgement is a band-aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Trump explicitly addressed recent anti-Semitic incidents in the US, which included dozens of bomb threats against Jewish community centers over the past five weeks and the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis. “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community centers are horrible and are painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” he said while visiting the National Museum of African American History in Washington.
Earlier, he also told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin that “anti-Semitism is horrible, and it’s going to stop and it has to stop.”
Last week, Trump was asked twice to comment on this trend and declined on both occasions. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he boasted about his electoral college victory instead of commenting on anti-Jewish sentiment — to which the Israeli premier granted him cover.
“There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than Donald Trump,” Netanyahu said. “I think we should put that to rest.”
Trump’s statement Tuesday came just a few days after he drew the ire of the American Jewish community for not only declining to address anti-Semitism but for shouting down an ultra-Orthodox reporter for asking about it, calling calling his question “unfair” and telling him to be “quiet.”
“It’s not a simple question, not a fair question,” Trump said. “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you have ever seen in your entire life.”

At another point in Spicer’s press briefing, he was asked what Trump plans to do about the perceived resurgence of anti-Semitic abuse in the United States.
“I think the president is going to do what he’s talked about since election night,” Spicer said. “It’s through deed and action, talk about how we can unify this country and speak out against hate, anti-Semitism, racism. And he’s going to continue to do that.”
While Spicer did not cite any specific policy or approach to deal with the issue, he said the president will unify Americans.
“I think he will show you, over the course of months and years, through what he does in terms of his policies and his speech, that he is going to be a president that brings people together, that unites them, and speaks very, very forcefully against those who are seeking to do hate or to tear people down,” he said.
Spicer declined to answer a question about whether the president planned to ask the Justice Department to investigate anti-Semitic attacks.