Former President Donald Trump charged Thursday that Vice President Kamala Harris has done “absolutely nothing” to combat the startling surge in antisemitism, and challenged the Democratic nominee to “disavow the support of all Hamas sympathizers” backing her campaign.
“Despite presiding over this explosion of antisemitism, Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing,” the 78-year-old Republican nominee said in remarks at a “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” event in Washington, DC.
“She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children or to even protect you with words,” Trump continued.
The former president called out Harris for expressing sympathy toward the anti-Israel protesters who erected encampments on college campuses across the country and allegedly terrorized Jewish students earlier this year.
“Kamala Harris said that the radical demonstrators on college campuses were, ‘human emotion should be this way.’ This is her message,” Trump said.
The GOP nominee was referencing a July interview the vice president did with “The Nation,” in which she said the campus disruptors were “showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.”
Harris went on to note that “there are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject” but that she “understand[s] the emotion behind it.”
Trump denounced the vice president’s message as “dangerous” and “unbefitting” of a candidate for president.
“I’m calling on Kamala Harris to officially disavow the support of all Hamas sympathizers, anti-Semites, Israel haters on college campuses and everywhere else,” he said.
“She won’t do it. You know that. She’s not going to do it,” Trump told the crowd.
The event was hosted by Miriam Adelson, the co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and widow of GOP megadonor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson praised Trump during her introduction, calling him “a president who keeps his promises.”
She lauded Trump for moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, scrapping the Iran nuclear deal and negotiating the groundbreaking Abraham Accords in his first term.
“Trump does what is right – straight and simple,” Adelson said.
Throughout his speech, the former president lamented that despite the accomplishments Adelson rattled off, Jewish Americans “still vote for Democrats.”
“It hurts me to say it, you’re going to still vote for Democrats,” Trump said. “And it doesn’t make sense.”
“Any Jewish person that votes for her or the Democratic Party should have their head examined,” he argued, suggesting that American Jews vote Democrat out of “habit.”
“With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24% of the Jewish [vote],” Trump said, referring to the 2016 election.
He noted that his support among Jewish voters grew to 29% in 2020 and is currently at about 40%. Trump argued that he “should be at 100%” with Jewish voters.
Trump pledged that if elected, “ugly anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas bigotry and hate will be turned back and crushed.”
“It will be a bright new day for the Jewish community in America,” he said.
The former president further promised that in his “first week back in the Oval Office,” he would move to withhold accreditations and federal support for universities that promote “anti-Semitic propaganda;” enforce civil rights laws when Jewish students are harassed or threatened on college campuses; and ban refugee resettlement from “terror infested areas like the Gaza Strip.”
Trump followed up his speech at the fighting antisemitism event with an address to the Israeli American Council’s 2024 national conference, also in Washington, DC, where he continued to court Jewish voters and go after Harris.
“You will have the most anti-Israel president by far” if Harris wins, Trump declared.
“Kamala Harris has repeatedly demanded an immediate cease-fire to save Hamas,” he told the crowd, adding that the vice president on Wednesday ”reaffirmed her support for blocking major arms shipments.”
The remark was in reference to Harris telling the National Association of Black Journalists that she is “entirely supportive” of President Biden’s decision to withhold 2,000-pound bombs to the Jewish State.
“She pandered to the Hamas supporters and the anti-Semites in her own party,” Trump said of Harris, arguing that Israel and the Jewish people have “no chance” if she’s elected president.
