Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer during the March for Israel rally on the National Mall on Nov. 14, 2023 Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By Rebecca Massel August 1, 2024

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania  — Former President Trump falsely called Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the nation, a “proud member of Hamas.”

The taunt, at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, came hours after Trump falsely told a Black journalists’ conference that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has always identified as a Black woman with Indian heritage, has only recently called herself Black.

And the remark follows weeks of Trump using the word “Palestinian” against Schumer as if it were a slur. During last month’s presidential debate, Trump also tried to denigrate Biden as “a Palestinian.”

Trump linked his Hamas remark to Schumer’s decision not to shake hands with Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress last week on Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terror group. Schumer nodded toward him instead.

“Chuck Schumer refused to shake the Israeli prime minister’s hand. Chuck Schumer has become a Palestinian. Can you believe it? He’s become a proud member of Hamas,” Trump said to thousands of cheering supporters at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center.

Schumer, a staunch supporter of Israel, later explained that withholding a handshake reflected his disagreement with the prime minister’s conduct of the war.

“The lower he drops in polls, the more unhinged he becomes,” Schumer said of Trump’s remarks, in a statement after the rally, referring to Harris’ rising poll numbers.

Trump at the rally also noted that Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s address. “Instead of sending a clear signal that the United States would never abandon an ally, a very important one, Kamala chose to politicize the moment, to grandstand, make a show of refusing to attend,” Trump said.

Harris instead attended a Black sorority’s conference in Indiana. But she met with Netanyahu the next day and affirmed her support for Israel’s security. She has also expressed empathy for the toll on Palestinians’ 

The day before the rally, Trump on a radio show said Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people” and seemed to agree when the host called Doug Emhoff, Harris’s Jewish husband “a crappy Jew.”

Trump has repeatedly questioned Jewish American intelligence and connection to Israel for voting for Democrats, which they have historically done in overwhelmingly numbers.

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