WATCH: Bernie Sanders Slams Trump’s Remarks About ‘Disloyal’ Jews
Senator Bernie Sanders, the most high-profile Jewish figure running for the Democratic presidential nomination, offered a retort to President Trump on Tuesday night, a few hours after the president said that Jews who vote Democratic were either uninformed or show “great disloyalty.”
“I am a proud Jewish person, and I have no concerns about voting Democratic,” Sanders said at a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa. “And in fact, I intend to vote for a Jewish man to become the next president of the United States.”
My message to Trump: I am a proud Jewish person and I have no concerns about voting Democratic. pic.twitter.com/vNEQfRnb5f
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 21, 2019
President Trump made his remarks from the Oval Office in response to a journalist’s question about Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were barred from entering Israel last week, a move that Trump supported. Sanders and other Democratic presidential candidates condemned the Israeli government for the move.
Many American Jewish organizations condemned Trump’s language, saying that it echoed anti-Semitic tropes.
“It’s unclear who [Trump] is claiming Jews would be ‘disloyal’ to, but charges of disloyalty have long been used to attack Jews,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted. “As we’ve said before, it’s possible to engage in the democratic process without these claims. It’s long overdue to stop using Jews as a political football.”
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink