Donald Trump at a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on March 16. Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
By Louis Keene March 18, 2024
If former President Donald Trump’s latest broadside against American Jews sounds familiar to you, it might be because he’s said something similar at least five times before.
Trump’s assertion that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” which he made during an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump adviser, was made in response to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s controversial call last week for new Israeli elections. They sparked widespread condemnation, including from Schumer, who fired back on X — formerly known as Twitter — calling Trump’s comments “hateful.”
Trump’s words built on a central claim of his presidency and subsequent reelection defeat: that he had done more for Israel than any previous commander-in-chief, and American Jews, who predominantly vote Democrat, were insufficiently grateful for his achievements.
His public remarks along these lines, which date back to at least 2019, have often conflated Jewish and Israeli identity, including by referring to Israel as “your country” and Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister” when addressing Jewish groups. The statements have been criticized for perpetuating antisemitic notions of American Jews’ “dual loyalty” to Israel.
Here’s a timeline of Trump making such suggestions:
Aug. 21, 2019: Jewish people who vote for Democrats are ‘very disloyal to Israel’
Trump debuted his favorite language for criticizing American Jews in comments about Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“Where has the Democratic Party gone?” Trump said, speaking at the White House. “Where have they gone, where they’re defending these two people over the state of Israel? And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
The comments drew immediate backlash from Democratic leaders, and Trump was asked to clarify his comments the next day as he boarded Air Force 1. The president doubled down.
“I will tell you this: In my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel,” he said. “I cannot understand how they can do that … In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that.”
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, defended the comments by saying that the president was talking about “being true to yourself.”
Dec. 7, 2019: Some Jews ‘don’t love Israel enough’
Trump next struck in the same speech — to a gathering of the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida — in which he said that Jews would definitely vote for him because they wouldn’t want to pay a wealth tax. (Cool, cool.)
“We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more,” Trump said. “Because you have Jewish people that are great people – they don’t love Israel enough.”
The pro-Trump crowd received the comments warmly, reportedly chanting “Four more years!” in response.
Not everyone was as enthused.
“We strongly denounce these vile and bigoted remarks in which the president — once again — used antisemitic stereotypes to characterize Jews as driven by money and insufficiently loyal to Israel,” Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said at the time. (Soifer is an occasional contributor to the Forward.)
June 16, 2021: ‘I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews’
Touting his record on Israel in an interview with Orthodox community outlet Ami Magazine, Trump tried to walk back his previous comments about some Jews not loving Israel — kinda — by saying it was only non-Orthodox Jews he was talking about.
“You know what really surprised me?” Trump said. “I did the Heights,” — referring to his recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights — “I did Jerusalem, and I did Iran — the Iran Deal was a disaster, right? And I also did many other things. Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you? I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews. I believe we got 25% of the Jewish vote, and it doesn’t make sense. It just seems strange to me.”
He added: “But I did very well in Florida. I did great in Florida.”
Dec. 17, 2021: Americans Jews ‘don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel’
Not just that — evangelical Christians love Israel more.
In comments to journalist Barak Ravid, then of Axios, Trump also claimed that The New York Times “hates Israel” even though “there are Jewish people that run The New York Times” — referring to the Sulzberger family, who are ethnically Jewish but largely not practicing.
“It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress, and today I think it’s the exact opposite, and I think Obama and Biden did that,” Trump said. “And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from Jewish people, which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.”
“People in this country that are Jewish no longer love Israel,” he added. “I’ll tell you the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.”
Dec. 9, 2022: ‘How quickly Jewish Leaders forgot’
In perhaps his most bitter comments on the matter, Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out at Jewish critics of his private dinner a few days earlier with Hitler sympathizers Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. (Trump claimed he wasn’t aware of Fuentes’ views prior to the dinner.)
He blamed the “lack of loyalty” displayed by Jewish leaders for the decline of public support for Israel.
“How quickly Jewish Leaders forgot that I was the best, by far, President for Israel,” Trump said. “They should be ashamed of themselves. This lack of loyalty to their greatest friends and allies is why large numbers in Congress, and so many others, have stopped giving support to Israel.”
March 18, 2024: Jews who vote Democrat ‘hate their religion’
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said in his Monday conversation with Gorka. “They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves.”
A variation on a theme, Monday’s comments were the first time Trump has explicitly tried linking American Jews’ political allegiances to their religious identity. They were of a piece with his criticisms suggesting Jews who don’t support Israel are not being real Jews.
The prevailing reaction in Jewish spaces — indignation — was as familiar as the comments themselves.
The ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt said in response that “accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory and patently false.”
Many observers noted that Gorka, who hosted Trump for the interview, has himself been linked to antisemitic Hungarian nationalist groups — a story the Forward broke in 2017.
And some seemed content to write it off as telling as to why Trump holds a comparatively low favorability rating among American Jews — 29%, according to a Gallup poll conducted after the first round of comments.
“That’s over 70% of Jewish Americans that Trump just disrespected,” tweeted Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali.
April 10, 2024: Jewish Biden voters ‘should have their head examined’
Trump renewed his criticism of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war ahead of a campaign fundraiser in Atlanta.
“Biden has totally lost control of the Israel situation,” Trump said. “Any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”
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