Speaking to reporters in Atlanta on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump said that any Jew who “votes for Biden should have their head examined.”
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Former President Donald J. Trump’s comments on Wednesday marked the third time in the last month that he has cast aspersions on Jewish voters who support Democrats.
Former President Donald J. Trump once again criticized Jews who back Democratic candidates on Wednesday, saying that “any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”
His comments, made to reporters in Atlanta as he was attacking President Biden’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza, marked the third time in the last month that Mr. Trump has cast aspersions on Democrat-supporting Jewish voters, a group that in the past he has accused of disloyalty.
Mr. Trump has received blowback over such remarks for years, with critics saying that they revive an antisemitic trope that Jews have a “dual loyalty” and are more loyal to Israel or their religious beliefs than to their own countries.
A Biden campaign spokesman, James Singer, condemned Mr. Trump’s comments as divisive. “Jewish Americans do not need to be ‘spoken to’ or threatened by Donald Trump,” Mr. Singer said, adding, “This is what Trump does, using division and hate as political weapons while seeking power for himself.”
Mr. Trump has for years been trying to peel American Jews, a substantial majority of whom are liberal, away from the Democratic Party. Those efforts have intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, which exposed divisions among Democrats over how the Biden administration has handled it.
But in seeking recently to win Jewish voters’ support, Mr. Trump has repeatedly castigated American Jews who do not support his candidacy as insufficiently loyal to Israel. On Monday, during an interview on the right-wing channel Real America’s Voice, Mr. Trump said that “any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel, and frankly, should be spoken to.”
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Source: nytimes.com
