Trump fundraiser drops Candace Owens after backlash over her embrace of antisemitism
Owens claimed she left the fundraiser for an unrelated reason
Candace Owens, conservative political commentator, speaks on stage during “Turning Point’s The Peoples Convention” on June 14, 2024 at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — An upcoming fundraiser for Donald Trump dropped far-right commentator Candace Owens from its guest lineup Tuesday, following blowback over Owens’ record of embracing antisemitic rhetoric and Holocaust denial.
The fundraiser on Friday is backed by a cryptocurrency called “MAGA Again” founded by Trump supporters with the aim of promoting his policies. It will feature Donald Trump Jr. as a headliner. Promotional materials for the fundraiser listed Owens as a prominent guest until she was abruptly removed from the lineup.
According to media outlets including Jewish Insider, which first reported Owens’ role at the event, her removal was due to pressure on the fundraiser’s organizers from Jewish critics of her appearance. Since the news was reported, a range of Jewish commentators, including several on the right, castigated the event for giving Owens a platform.
“Unless there is some missing context, it’s a disgrace for @DonaldJTrumpJr to appear with one of the leading antisemitic conspiracists online,” tweeted Philip Klein, the editor of National Review Online.
Owens herself denied that she had been dropped, writing on X that she voluntarily withdrew because she would have been asked to promote a cryptocurrency as a condition of attending.
“I was definitively not cancelled from any event over ‘Jew hatred’, least of all because of anything to do with Trump’s campaign,” she wrote. She also shared a series of text messages with unidentified recipients discussing crypto as “proof,” adding, “Since you guys tend to lie like it’s a genetic condition.”
Requests for comment to a law firm associated with the MAGA Again cryptocurrency were not immediately returned. The fundraiser is set to take place in Nashville, where neo-Nazis have marched down city streets and disrupted city council meetings in recent weeks, drawing concern from local Jewish communal leaders.
The 34-year-old Owens was once a rising star in the conservative movement, but has become increasingly controversial as she has embraced antisemitic rhetoric. Earlier this year, Orthodox Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro, one of the most prominent conservative media personalities, fired her from his company over her accusation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Owens is one of a handful of right-wingers who have harshly criticized Israel’s conduct and has also flirted with antisemitic rhetoric in her public fights with other conservatives. including “liking” a tweet accusing one of her opponents of drinking Christian blood. In 2022, she defended rap star Ye, previously known as Kanye West, after he went on an antisemitic tirade.
In the months since Owens and Shapiro parted ways, she has leaned more heavily into antisemitic beliefs. She has listed President Joe Biden’s Jewish cabinet members as a means of defending Nick Fuentes, an avowed white supremacist and Holocaust denier, after he said “Jews” were “in control” of the Biden White House.
“I don’t accept Jewish supremacy,” Owens said in another recent episode of her podcast in which she sought to defend her rhetoric around Jewish people. In the episode, she said she believed “the Jewish community post-Oct. 7 has gotten a little snowflake-y” and “they’re just calling everything antisemitism.”
Earlier this month, on an episode of her podcast titled “Literally Hitler: Why Can’t We Talk About Him?”, Owens claimed, “We are not allowed to discuss Adolf Hitler” and said, “They’ve turned him almost into Lord Voldemort,” referring to the “Harry Potter” villain. Owens went on to minimize many historical aspects of the Holocaust, claiming German prisoners of war suffered more under Americans than Jews did under the Nazis and suggesting that historical documentation about Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s experimentations during the Holocaust are “bizarre propaganda.” The episode has nearly half a million views on YouTube.
It isn’t the first time Owens has defended Hitler. Years ago, she said at an event, “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, Ok, fine. The problem is that he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize.”
Most recently, Owens joined TikTok with a video defending Palestinian-American model and frequent Israel critic Bella Hadid, who was dropped from an Adidas sneaker campaign commemorating the 1972 Munich Olympics after Jewish groups complained (Adidas has since also apologized to Hadid over the incident). Owens said Hadid was “being consistently harassed for entirely no reason.”
Jewish Trump supporters cheered Owens’ removal from the rally.
“Candace Owens is not just intellectually challenged, but a Hitler-loving antisemite who should play no role in normative politics,” tweeted Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent graduate of Harvard University’s divinity school who spoke at this month’s Republican National Convention. “Grateful for this positive outcome. Let’s continue to call out far-right and far-left antisemitism, this should never be partisan!”
For much of the nine years since he entered political life, Trump has been dogged by associations with far-right figures who spout antisemitic beliefs, and his reluctance at times to disavow them. In 2022, Trump hosted Ye and Fuentes for a dinner, later claiming he didn’t know who Fuentes was. Trump has also continued to associate with former advisor Mike Flynn, who has called for the United States to have “one religion” at a Christian event, and blamed Jews for boarding trains to Nazi death camps.
Democratic Majority for Israel, a Jewish pro-Israel Democrat group, sought to link the planned Owens fundraiser to this history in a statement Tuesday. “Candace Owens is a vicious antisemite — full stop,” the group’s CEO Mark Mellman said in a statement. “Her planned appearance at a rally with the disgraced former President’s own son on Friday betrays the Trump campaign’s desperate attempt to attract far-right support by appealing to an antisemitic, anti-democratic, and extremist forces.”
Trump and his defenders roundly reject the notion that he is antisemitic, and he has frequently claimed that Jews who vote for Democrats are betraying Israel — an idea he repeated this week.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
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.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
