Trump slams Harris for doing “absolutely nothing” to combat anti-Semitism, calls on her to disavow her support for “Hamas sympathizers”
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced Vice President Kamala Harris for having done “absolutely nothing” to combat the alarming rise of anti-Semitism and challenged the Democratic candidate to “disavow the support of all Hamas supporters” backing her campaign.
“Despite presiding over this explosion of anti-Semitism, Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing,” the 78-year-old Republican candidate said in remarks at a “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” event in Washington, DC.
“She has not lifted a finger to protect you or to protect your children or even to protect them with words,” Trump continued.
The former president criticized Harris for expressing sympathy toward anti-Israel protesters who set up camps on college campuses across the country and allegedly terrorized Jewish students earlier this year.
“Kamala Harris said that radical protesters on college campuses were saying, ‘Human emotions should be like this.’ That’s her message,” Trump said.
The Republican candidate was referring to an interview the vice president conducted with him in July. “The Nation”, in which he said the campus disruptors were “showing exactly what human emotion should be, in response to Gaza.”
Harris went on to note that “there are things that some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject,” but that she “understands the emotion behind it.”
Trump denounced the vice president's message as “dangerous” and “unbecoming” of a presidential candidate.
“I call on Kamala Harris to officially renounce support for all Hamas sympathizers, anti-Semites and Israel haters on college campuses and everywhere else,” he said.
“She's not going to do it. You know that. She's not going to do it,” Trump told the crowd.
The event was hosted by Miriam Adelson, co-owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and widow of Republican megadonor and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson praised Trump during his appearance, calling him “a president who keeps his promises.”
He praised Trump for moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognising the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, scrapping the Iran nuclear deal and negotiating the ground-breaking Abraham Accords in his first term.
“Trump is doing the right thing: straight and simple,” Adelson said.
Throughout his speech, the former president lamented that despite the achievements Adelson listed, American Jews “still vote for Democrats.”
“It pains me to say it, you’re going to continue to vote for Democrats,” Trump said. “And that doesn’t make sense.”
“Any Jewish person who votes for her or the Democratic Party should have their head examined,” he argued, suggesting that American Jews vote Democratic out of “habit.”
“With all I’ve done for Israel, I only received 24 percent of the Jewish vote,” Trump said, referring to the 2016 election.
He noted that his support among Jewish voters rose to 29% in 2020 and currently stands at around 40%. Trump argued that he “should be at 100%” with Jewish voters.
Trump promised that if elected, “anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas bigotry and hatred will be pushed back and crushed.”
“It will be a bright new day for the Jewish community in the United States,” he said.
The former president further promised that in his “first week back in the Oval Office,” he would take steps to withhold accreditation and federal support from universities that promote “anti-Semitic propaganda”; enforce civil rights laws when Jewish students are harassed or threatened on college campuses; and ban the resettlement of refugees from “terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip.”
