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For second day in a row Trump addresses Jews and loyalty

Well, this makes it pretty clear what Trump meant:

On Wednesday, Trump thanked a conspiracy theorist, Wayne Allyn Root, for saying Jews in Israel love the president “like he’s the King of Israel” and doubled down on his efforts to pit American Jews against one another, accusing Jewish voters of disloyalty if they voted for Democrats.

It was the second day in a row that Trump addressed Jews and loyalty, a theme evoking an anti-Semitic trope that Jews have a “dual loyalty” and are often more loyal to Israel than to their own countries.

“If you want to vote Democrat, you are being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,” Trump said Wednesday at the White House.

“It is the height of hypocrisy to use Christian theology to bully Jews and to push out some messianic complex — literally, it’s hard to think of something less kosher than telling the Jewish people you’re the king of Israel, and therefore, we should have some fidelity to you for that reason,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, said Wednesday on CNN. “I don’t know if he’s read the Bible, but in the Old Testament, that’s not what we believe.”

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Trump Accuses Jewish Americans Who Vote Democrat Of ‘Disloyalty’

Trump said Tuesday that Jewish people in the U.S. who vote for members of the Democratic Party are not loyal.

Trump did not specifically say to whom Jewish Americans who vote Democrat are disloyal.

“If this is about Israel, then Trump is repeating a dual loyalty claim, which is a form of anti-Semitism,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, in a statement to HuffPost. “If this is about Jews being ‘loyal’ to him, then Trump needs a reality check. We live in a democracy, and Jewish support for the Republican Party has been halved in the past four years.”

According to the Pew Research Center, about 79% of Jewish voters in America voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections.

Emily Mayer, a spokesperson with progressive Jewish organization IfNotNow, said that Trump’s remarks are “an explicit dual loyalty charge” that is “a bullhorn to his white nationalist base.”

Aaron Keyak, former head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said Tuesday that Trump’s comments are “dangerous, reckless, and wrong.”

“Jews have had a long history of being in countries where we are accused of being disloyal,” he said in a statement. “Just because President Trump is deeply unpopular in our community is no reason to slander us with echos of some of the most insidious attacks against our people. We’ve seen where this road has led before.”

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Trump lies about Jewish reporter’s question, tells him to sit down and then brags in unrelated answer

In a pathetic state of childish temperament, Donald Trump lashed out at a Jewish reporter, twisted the question he was asked and told the reporter to sit down, accusing him of being unfair.

Jake Turx, a reporter with Ami Magazine, which bills itself as “a new standard in Jewish media” prefaced his question by saying he did not see evidence the President or his staff were anti-Semitic. He even mentioned Trump’s Jewish grandchildren.

He then launched into the thrust of his question about bomb threats to dozens of Jewish Community Centers last month.

“What we are concerned about, and what we haven’t really heard being addressed, is an uptick in anti-Semitism and how the government is planning to take care of it,” Turx said.

As Turx continued, Trump interrupted, “See, he said he was going to ask a very simple, easy question, and it’s not.”

The reporter said, “It’s an important one.”

“Not a simple question. Not a fair question. OK, sit down. I understand the rest of your question,” Trump said. “So here’s the story folks. No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. No. 2, racism. The least racist person. ”

Turx raised his hand again and spoke up.

“Quiet, quiet, quiet,” Trump replied. “See he lied about — he was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question. So, you know, welcome to the world of the media.”

Turx shook his head, and Trump continued as if he himself had been accused of anti-semitism.

“But let me just tell you something: I hate the charge. I find it repulsive. I hate even the question because people that know me — and you heard the Prime Minister, you heard Benjamin Netanyahu, did you hear him, Bibi? He said, ‘I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time,’ and then he said, ‘Forget it.’ So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and director of the Anti-Defamation League, blasted Trump’s comments in an interview with CNN following the news conference and called on Trump to answer the questions about what he termed the “crisis” of rising anti-Semitic acts and take “concrete steps” to resolve the issue.

In an appearance with Netanyahu at the White House Wednesday, Trump answered a question about anti-Semitism by talking about his electoral victory and mentioning his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish.

ref: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/donald-trump-news-conference-anti-semitism/index.html