“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss” for the GOP presidential ticket in November, should that come to pass, Donald Trump said at a campaign event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Speaking at a “Fighting Antisemitism in America” event hosted by the Israeli American Council, Trump said that Jewish voters should overwhelmingly support him, due to his policies on Israel. The former president only received 24 percent of the Jewish vote, a paltry number considering his support for Israel, he added.
“I’m not going to call this a prediction, but, in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40 percent,” Trump said. “. . . You can’t let this happen. Forty percent is not acceptable, because we have an election to win.”
The former president’s Thursday evening comments are reminiscent of similar ones he made in March, when he said during an interview that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
During the speech, Trump also vowed to bring back a travel ban barring individuals from Gaza from entering the U.S., a continuation of his controversial program that limited immigrants coming into the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
“I will ban refugee resettlement from terror infested areas like the Gaza Strip, and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” he said. “Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world . . . We’re not taking them from infested countries.”
Trump’s comments come one day after CNN alleged that the gubernatorial candidate he endorsed in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, made comments on a pornography messaging board referring to himself as a “black NAZI!” Robinson denies the claim. Trump has not yet commented on the allegations.
The Republican candidate also said on Thursday that he would strip accreditation and federal tax credit support from universities that fail to “end antisemitic propaganda,” referencing the pro-Hamas encampments that sprung up on college campuses following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“I’m the one that’s protecting you,” Trump said, adding that Democrats “are going to destroy you.”