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Kamala Harris’s campaign has ripped into Donald Trump’s latest antisemitic statements after he agreed with a right-wing radio host that the vice president’s Jewish husband Doug Emhoff is a “crappy” and “horrible Jew.”
Trump has tried to leverage division among Democrats over Israel’s war in Gaza by painting his political rivals as antisemitic, despite his own lengthy history of attacking Jewish Americans and conflating criticism of Israel’s attacks with anti-Jewish prejudice.
During an appearance on New York’s WABC radio on Tuesday, Trump said Jewish voters who support Democratic candidates are “fools” who “should have their head examined.”
“Today, it’s almost like— I mean, Schumer has become a Palestinian,” Trump said of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish.
“Chuck Schumer is officially now a Palestinian,” Trump said.
“It’s funny but it’s true. It’s sad. He is,” replied radio host Sid Rosenberg of WABC’s Sid & Friends.”
“He is, and they tell me that this Harris’s husband, Doug Embhoff, Mr President, is Jewish. He’s Jewish like Bernie Sanders is Jewish. Are you kidding me? He’s a crappy Jew. He’s a horrible Jew,” Rosenberg said.
Trump responded, “yeah” and didn’t push back against his remarks.
In a statement, Harris’s campaign called Trump “hateful, despicable, and should not be our president.”
“He roots against America. He insults America. Why would we want to put him in charge of America? Donald Trump thinks he can score points with Jewish voters by denigrating them. He is wrong,” the campaign added.
Harris spokesperson James Singer said that “America is better than the fear, hate, and despicable insults of Donald Trump.”
“Vice President Harris believes Americans want a president who unites our country instead of divides it, uses the power of the presidency to help families instead of hurt them, and has a vision for our future, instead of taking us backwards,” he added.
During Tuesday’s interview, Trump also said that Harris “doesn’t like Israel” and “doesn’t like Jewish people.”
“You know it, I know it and everybody knows it and nobody wants to say it,” he said.
“Any Jewish person that voted for her or him or whoever it’s gonna be, I assume it’s gonna be her, anybody that did that is, should have their head examined,” Trump added.
“If you love Israel, or if you’re Jewish, because a lot of Jews, people do not like Israel, and they happen to be in New York, you know that. But if you are Jewish, regardless of Israel, if you’re Jewish, if you vote for a Democrat, you’re a fool. An absolute fool,” he said.
In remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Schumer assailed Trump for repeating an antisemitic trope “that goes back centuries, one of dual-loyalty,” that has been used to “drive Jews out of their homes, to paint them as untrustworthy, to deny their basic dignity.”
“Sadly, we’ve been here before, but it must be said again: Donald Trump’s comments were reprehensible, dangerous, and proof that he is disturbingly at ease with antisemitic rhetoric,” he said.
“It might be tempting to listen to what Donald Trump said on the radio and tune it out as just another Trump insult, but that would be a mistake,” he added. “Calling Jews fools and suggesting they are bad or disloyal because of their political beliefs is not just some juvenile insult.”
Trump’s attacks targeing Jewish voters are “sowing the seeds of division” and “propagating naked antisemitsm,” Schumer said.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he believes Jewish voters who support Democratic candidates “hate Israel” and hate “their religion” while conflating criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza with antisemitism.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said in response to Democratic criticism of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year.
In 2019, he called Jewish voters who support Democrats “very disloyal.”
“I’ll tell you the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country,” he said in 2021.
Last week, in remarks to a Turning Point USA event in Florida, he said the vice president “doesn’t like Israel” and “hates” Jewish people. At a rally in North Carolina, he said Harris is “totally against the Jewish people.”
“It amazes me how Jewish people will vote for the Democrats when they’re being treated so disrespectfully and badly,” he said in North Carolina. “It amazes me. It’s shocking. I don’t, I don’t get it. I don’t get it.”
Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a vice president, has led White House efforts to combat antisemitism. In March, he pushed back against Trump’s remarks that Jewish people who vote for Democrats “hate their religion.”
“This is a disgusting, toxic antisemitic thing to say, by anyone, let alone a former president of the United States, and it must be condemned,” said in a statement at the time.
In a corresponding post on X, Emhoff said the former president “uses stereotypes to demean Jewish Americans.”
“He called Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville ‘very fine people.’ And his former Chief of Staff said he even praised Adolf Hitler,” Emhoff wrote. “This hateful and antisemitic rhetoric is toxic. Donald Trump is the one who should be ashamed.”
The Independent has requested comment from WABC.
