Former President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Monday that any Jewish person who votes for Democrats “hates their religion” and hates “everything about Israel,” again playing into an antisemitic trope that Jewish Americans have dual loyalties to the US and to Israel.
Trump was asked on a podcast hosted by his former White House aide Sebastian Gorka about criticism from the Biden administration and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump said. “I don’t think they hate him, I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat Party hates Israel.”
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
Trump directly slammed Schumer, who recently criticized Netanyahu’s government and called for new elections in a speech on the Senate floor about Israel’s war on Hamas and the resulting humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America.
“Don’t forget, when you see those Palestinian marches, even I, I’m amazed at how many people are in those marches. And guys like Schumer see that, and to him it’s votes, I think it’s votes more than anything else, because he was always pro-Israel. He’s very anti-Israel now,” Trump said.
Schumer, responding to Trump’s comments Monday, said in a post on X, “To make Israel a partisan issue only hurts Israel and the US-Israeli relationship. Trump is making highly partisan and hateful rants.”
“I am working in a bipartisan way to ensure the US-Israeli relationship sustains for generations to come, buoyed by peace in the Middle East,” the New York Democrat added.
President Joe Biden’s administration and presidential campaign both responded quickly to Trump’s comments Monday.
“As Antisemitic crimes and acts of hate have increased across the world – among them the deadliest attack committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust – leaders have an obligation to call hate what it is and bring Americans together against it,” Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement. “There is no justification for spreading toxic, false stereotypes that threaten fellow citizens. None.”
Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer also issued a response, saying in a statement that the “only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump. Donald Trump openly demeans Jewish Americans and reportedly thinks Adolf Hitler ‘did some good things’” — referring to comments the former president has reportedly made in private.
And Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an X post, “Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false. Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel.”
Trump’s campaign remained defiant over the remark Tuesday morning, with a spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, saying in a statement, “President Trump is right — the Democrat Party has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist cabal.”
Trump has long played into antisemitic tropes, lashing out at Jewish Americans he says don’t support him enough. During his first campaign for president, Trump delivered a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition that was rife with antisemitic stereotypes, and shortly after he left office in 2021, he told reporters that Jewish Americans have turned their back on Israel.
A year later, he said American Jews weren’t praising his administration’s policies toward Israel enough: “Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.” And last year, during celebrations of the Jewish New Year, Trump shared a social media post that said liberal Jews who did not support him “voted to destroy America & Israel.”
At least 63% of American Jews said their place in American society is less secure than a year ago, according to a report released last month by the American Jewish Committee. The Anti-Defamation League tracked a total of 3,283 antisemitic incidents in the three months following Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, CNN previously reported, a 361% increase compared to the same period the prior year.
Jewish Americans have for decades been a largely Democratic and politically liberal constituency, identifying with Democrats over Republicans by a wide margin, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey. While Orthodox Jews lean heavily Republican, American Jews of other denominations, including the Reform and Conservative branches, have identified with or leaned toward the Democratic party.
This story has been updated with additional details and reaction.
CNN’s Jack Forrest, Nicole Chavez, Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.