Senate Republicans offered mixed responses Tuesday to what their party’s presumptive presidential nominee said this week. Jewish voters He hates Israel, who supports Democrats.
Several senators criticized the former president Donald Trump‘s comments, some agreed with him, and at least two said they did not see the comments invoking a trope like American Jews dividing their allegiance between the United States and Israel.
Other senators responded with what has become common during Trump’s tenure — saying it was a poor choice of words without directly condemning him.
“I wouldn’t say any of that,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of Trump’s comments.
Sen. Mike Rounds, RSD, said, “I would say that.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R.N.C., similarly suggested that Trump could have used “more artistic language,” but argued that he was “not wrong about Democratic leaders failing the state of Israel and second-guessing them.” “.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, RS.D., said he had not followed Trump’s remarks closely, but added that he “speaks his mind.”
Asked whether Trump would back off from the kind of rhetoric he’s used this week, Thune said he would “prefer to keep people’s religious beliefs out of these discussions.”
The firestorm started when Trump said in an interview Sebastian GorkaA former Trump administration official said that “every Jew who votes for Democrats hates their religion.”
“They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel is going to be destroyed,” Trump continued, before discussing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a frequent critic of Trump, offered the sharpest criticism of Trump’s remarks.
“It’s very offensive,” he said. “We don’t attack people in this country because of their religious beliefs or their political views.”
“Mixing religion with politics is a big mistake and violates some of the fundamental principles of our government and our American history. It’s a huge mistake on his part, he really should apologize, but he won’t,” Romney added.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott echoes Trump’s position that Jewish voters are wrong to support Democrats.
“I don’t know why any Jew supports the Democrats, the Biden administration is not holding Hamas accountable,” he said.
A Pew Research Center survey A survey conducted last month found that 62% of Jewish Americans have a favorable opinion of President Joe Biden, while 21% of Jewish Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump.
Biden’s re-election campaign condemned the comments, and a campaign spokesman said Monday that “Donald Trump is openly demeaning to Jewish Americans.”
A second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish and visited Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday, called Trump’s remarks “disgusting, poisonous, anti-Semitic, as anyone but the former president would say.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is also Jewish and recently called for new elections in Israel, condemned the remarks, calling them “absolutely disgusting and a textbook example of the kind of anti-Semitism that Jews face.” dual loyalty.”
Trump accused “Liberal Jews” in a social media post last year voted to “destroy” the US and Israel.
On Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his latest remarks as he left a polling station in Palm Beach, Florida. Asked about his comments in the Gorka interview, he said, “Democrats have been very, very hostile to the Jewish people.”