Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Ex-Trump Official Blames ‘Political Correctness Run AMOK’ for Furor Over Star of David Tweet

Corey Lewandowski, the recently fired campaign manager for Donald Trump, pooh-poohed the controversy over the Republican frontrunner’s Tweet of an image that many Jews find anti-Semitic — even as it emerged that the image was first posted on a site aimed at white supremacists.

The former official said he saw little wrong with the image of rival Hillary Clinton alongside a pile of money and the Star of David.

“This is political correctness run amok. If this were to be a star next to Hillary Clinton without the cash behind it, no one would be questioning this,” Lewandowski said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, reported by Politico.

Mic reported Sunday that the meme was originally created by /pol, an online clearinghouse for neo-Nazi and white supremacist posts.

Lewandowski asserted that the six-pointed star was intended to evoke law enforcement.

“You’re reading into something that isn’t there,” he said.

Trump quickly took down the Tweet, which accused Clinton of political corruption, and replaced the star with a circle. Although the shift appeared to confirm that Trump realized the star was offensive, Lewandowski insisted it meant the initial message was valid.

“The message is the same,” he said. “The message is that Hillary Clinton is corrupt.”

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

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.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.