Following an interview that aired on April 8 during which Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee, said, “Any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel and, frankly, should be spoken to,” has raised criticism from progressive voices.
As USA Today reported, Trump also said that Biden is firmly on the side of the Palestinian people, “How a Jewish person can vote for Biden – or a Democrat. Because they are on the side, 100%, of the Palestinians, and he doesn’t know how to get out of it. He’s stuck.”
Haile Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, issued a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, concerning Trump’s penchant for engaging in anti-Semitism. “American Jews aren’t voting for Biden ‘out of habit,’ and every time Trump talks to — or about us — he invokes antisemitic tropes.”
Trump did not limit himself to speaking about Jewish voters. He also argued that Black Americans support the Democratic Party out of habit.
“A lot of it’s habit. Jewish people, by habit, they just they vote for the Democrats, and Black people vote for the Democrats.”
James Singer, a Biden campaign spokesperson, told NBC News that Trump’s comments are not new and was confident that voters would
reject his rhetoric in November. “This is what Trump does, using division and hate as political weapons while seeking power for himself,” Singer said. “Voters of all stripes will reject his chaos, violence, and unhinged threats once again in November.” Singer also described Trump as “a man who has praised neo-Nazis” and “dined with anti-Semites.”Rev. Al Sharpton, in an appearance on MSNBC’s The Morning Joe, criticized Trump’s record on civil rights and common human decency.
“Even in his condescending, insulting statement, he can’t help but offend Black Americans, and at the end of his statement, he says, ‘I could have done more than Abraham Lincoln, but a lot of people thought it wasn’t good.’ Well, what is that supposed to mean, who are a lot of other people and what are the good?” Sharpton asked.
Rev. Sharpton continued to question Trump’s claims that he has done the most for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln, remarking that since Trump’s conservative majority Supreme Court has been in existence, what it has done has been in the service of rolling back progress created by the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, including the Voting Rights Act.
Sharpton closed his comments after he remarked that during the aftermath of
the 2020 murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department, instead of urging police reform as part of a comprehensive reform package for the criminal justice system, Trump tweeted out, ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts.’Sharpton summarized his views on Trump’s record regarding civil rights, saying, “Not only does he miss the runway, he missed the airport when it comes to decency and civil rights.”