Servet Günerigök
06 September 2024•Update: 06 September 2024
WASHINGTON
Former US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats should have their heads "examined," warning "Israel is gone" if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November.
During his address to Republican Jewish Coalition donors in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump said "Israel will no longer exist" if Harris becomes president and that she will abandon Israel.
"If they win, Israel is gone. Just remember that. If they win, Israel is gone," he said, urging Jewish Americans via a livestream address to vote for him. "If they don’t, I think it’s going to be a very terrible situation.”
"I don’t understand how anyone can support them…And I say it constantly: if you had them to support and you are Jewish, you have to have your head examined. They have been very bad to you," said Trump, referring to President Joe Biden and Harris’s administration.
Trump, who as the Republican presidential nominee is seeking reelection on Nov. 5, reiterated that the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel would have never happened if he had been president.
In response to his remarks, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying Trump "openly demeans" Jewish Americans.
Trump has "made it obvious he would turn on Israel in a moment if it suited his personal interests," and "he has done so in the past," said the campaign.
The former president also claimed that he could win about half of the votes of Jewish Americans, saying: "We're probably around the 50% mark.”
Turning to pro-Palestinian campus protests, Trump said that "colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support.”
He said he “will ban refugee resettlement from terror infested areas like the Gaza Strip and arrest pro-Hamas thugs who vandalize federal properties and will put every single college president on short notice that the American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil.”
