Donald Trump hosted an orthodox Jewish group Friday without addressing his recent dinner with the antisemitic rapper formerly known as Kanye West and white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
The former president’s speech — his first to a Jewish group since his Nov. 22 meeting with Ye and Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago resort — took place at Trump’s National Doral club in Miami. Speaking for nearly half an hour at the Torah Umesorah Presidents Conference for educators, Trump boasted about all he did for Israel while he was in the White House. He also repeated his call for Jews to be more “loyal” to him.
“You have to treat your friends with dignity, and you have to be loyal to those friends,” he said.
In its coverage of Trump’s speech, the Times of Israel reported the 45th president refers to Israel as “your country” when speaking to Jewish Americans.
Trump complained Friday that despite what he’s done to support Israel politically, Jewish voters in the U.S. turned up for him in low numbers when he ran for office in 2016 and 2020 — in which he lost the popular vote in both campaigns by a total of nearly 10 million ballots.
The friendly crowd in Miami on Friday frequently interrupted Trump with applause. In addition to calling himself “the best ally you’ve ever had,” he said some Democrats in the U.S. were “very much opposed to Israel and frankly to Jewish people.”
In the aftermath of his controversial Thanksgiving meeting with Ye, Trump claimed he invited the “Black Skinhead” rapper to dinner but didn’t know he was bringing Fuentes, an avowed Holocaust denier.Trump has since declined opportunities to denounce his Mar-a-Lago dining companions.
Ye has been slammed for a recent series of antisemitic remarks. On a Dec. 1 interview with Alex Jones, he declared “I like Hitler” and credited him as an innovator in various fields.
Trump and Ye have both announced they’re running for president in 2024.
———
