‘There is a fire in this country’: In major speech, Emhoff warns of Trump’s threat to Jewish Americans
Doug Emhoff’s closing message in the swing state of Pennsylvania describes Trump as an ‘agent of chaos and cruelty’
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff as Vice President Kamala Harris looks on on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo by TING SHEN/AFP via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh October 28, 2024
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff blasted former President Donald Trump on Monday in Pittsburgh — site of the worst antisemitic attacks in U.S. history — accusing him of using antisemitic tropes and trying to subvert the Constitution.
“There is a fire in this country,” said Emhoff, husband of Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. “Either we pour water on it, or we pour gasoline.” Excerpts of the speech were shared exclusively with the Forward Monday morning.
A senior campaign official said the 20-minute address at the University Club in Pittsburgh was Emhoff’s most extensive and direct remarks on the topic as the Democratic nominee’s key Jewish surrogate on the campaign trail. “Whenever chaos and cruelty are given a green light, Jew-hatred is historically not far behind,” Emhoff said about the Republican nominee. “That matters today because Donald Trump is nothing if not an agent of chaos and cruelty.”
Emhoff’s closing argument to Jewish voters in the crucial swing state took place one day after the sixth anniversary of the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which a gunman killed 11 worshippers.
In his remarks, Emhoff highlighted Trump’s purported admiration of Adolf Hitler, following newly confirmed statements from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that Trump privately remarked that “Hitler did some good things.”
Emhoff spotlighted Trump’s scapegoating of Jewish Americans voting for Democrats, as he has done to other ethnic groups. “It’s no coincidence that things have gotten worse for American Jews since Trump entered politics — just as they have for so many,” Emhoff said. “You do not reward someone like that with a platform or with power, and never again, with the presidency,”
Emhoff also point to his personal experiences and deep connection to his Jewishness, and spoke at length about his wife’s longtime relationship with the Jewish community and her commitment to countering hate and antisemitism. “I know what’s in her soul,” Emhoff told Jewish voters. “I know she feels what you and I and Jews across America are feeling today. She gets it. And to tell you the truth, it’s not because she married a nice Jewish boy.”
Last week, at a get-out-the-vote rally for Jewish voters in Southfield, Michigan, Emhoff said Jewish support for Trump is “shocking” and “vexing,” citing Trump’s engaging in antisemitic tropes, dining in 2022 with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, and suggesting that Jews would in large part be to blame if he loses the election. “He foments antisemitism everywhere he goes,” the second gentleman said. “He does not care about us.”
Harris and her allies intensified the attacks on Trump in recent days, warning that his re-election would endanger American democracy, as polls show a tight race in key battleground states, where Jews remain a pivotal voting bloc. A recent poll of 907 Jewish voters, conducted for the Forward by CHIP50, an academic consortium of experts in public opinion surveys, showed that 62% of them plan to vote for Harris in November and 31% plan to vote for Trump.
In his speech on Monday, Emhoff warned American Jews that Trump, “if it suited his personal interests, he would turn his back on Israel and the Jewish people on a dime — hell, he’d turn on anyone for the price of a dime.”
”We should never have to wonder where our government stands,” he continued. “We should never have to wonder whether our leaders are praising Nazis behind closed doors. So when Donald Trump says something unhinged, do not roll your eyes. Roll up your sleeves.”
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
