Trump ‘joked’ about Kushner being more loyal to Israel, new book claims
Image by Official White House Photo by Benjamin Applebaum
By Jacob Kornbluh September 17, 2021
During his presidency, Donald Trump referred to Israel as “your country” and described then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as “your” ambassador when addressing American Jewish audiences — discomfiting many with what sounded like dual loyalty charges.
He subjected his Jewish son-in-law to the same, but more explicitly, according to “Peril,” the new book on Trump’s presidency by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
“Jared’s more loyal to Israel than the United States,” Trump remarked during a staff meeting following the 2020 presidential election, according to the book, which is scheduled for release on September 21. The authors described the comment as Trump trying to make a “joke.”
Trump, who entrusted Kushner with Israeli-Palestinan issues when he entered the White House in 2017, has often complained about his lack of American Jewish support despite his pro-Israel record. In 2019, he came under fire for suggesting that the 70 percent of Jews voting for Democrats are “being disloyal to Jewish people” and “very disloyal to Israel.”
Woodward and Costa also describe a tense phone call between Trump and former House Speaker Paul Ryan following his criticism of the president’s “both sides” statement in reaction to the 2017 alt-right march and ensuing violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which white nationalists shouted “Jews will not replace us.”
“You’re not in the foxhole with me,” Trump reportedly screamed in a phone call to Ryan.
Ryan shot back, saying that as president, Trump was should not have implied moral equivalency between the neo-Nazi marchers and the counter-protest. “These people love me. These are my people,” Trump responded. “I can’t backstab the people who support me.” When Ryan pointed out that there were white supremacists and Nazis in the crowd, Trump said they were “bad people” and he’s “all against that.” But he maintained that “some of those people” at the protest “are for me. Some of them are good people.”
Woodward and Costa wrote that then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told Ryan he did the right thing in criticizing the president.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
