LAS VEGAS, NV – Former President Trump urged that he might win as much as half of the Jewish vote within the 2024 election as he criticized Jewish Individuals who don’t assist him in his showdown with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We’re probably around the 50 percent mark,” Trump mentioned on Thursday in live-streamed feedback as he addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual management assembly in Las Vegas, Nevada.
And the previous president and GOP nominee claimed, with out proof, that Israel “will no longer exist” if Harris wins the White Home in November’s election.
Trump addressed the group of Republican Jewish leaders, donors, and activists, days after the our bodies of six Israeli hostages, together with Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, have been recovered in Gaza. The hostages have been taken by Hamas final October throughout an assault on Israel that ignited the eleven-month-long warfare in Gaza.
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The Harris marketing campaign, responding to Trump’s tackle, pointed to the previous president’s previous criticism of Israeli chief Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his 2020 election victory over Trump.
“Donald Trump has made it obvious he would turn on Israel in a moment if it suited his personal interests, and in fact he has done so in the past,” Harris nationwide safety spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein wrote in a press release. “Meanwhile, the Vice President has been incredibly clear: She has been a lifelong supporter of the State of Israel as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people.”
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Whereas supportive of Israel’s proper to defend itself, President Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu has grown more and more strained in the course of the present warfare. On Monday, the president mentioned he didn’t suppose the Israeli chief was doing sufficient to assist foster a hostage cope with Hamas.
The vice chairman has aimed to steadiness her assist for Israel – which she spotlighted final month throughout her tackle on the Democratic Nationwide Conference – together with her acknowledgment of the excessive civilian demise toll brought on by Israel’s army offensive in Gaza. Whereas Republicans are unified in assist of Israel, many progressives within the Democratic Occasion have been vocal of their criticism of Israel’s warfare with Hamas.
Trump, who has repeatedly questioned how Jewish Individuals might vote for the Democrats, reiterated “I don’t understand how anybody can support them — and I say it constantly — if you had them to support and you were Jewish, you have to have your head examined.”
“Who are the 50 percent of Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don’t like the Jewish people?” Trump requested as he as soon as once more charged that the Democrats “have been very bad to you.”
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Ari Fleischer, a Republican Jewish Coalition board member, spotlighted the rising Jewish assist for GOP presidential candidates as he spoke with reporters following Trump’s speech.
Fleischer, a longtime Republican strategist, former White Home press secretary and Fox Information contributor, mentioned that former President George H.W. Bush gained 11% of the Jewish vote in 1992, however that his boss, former President George W. Bush, gained 25% of the Jewish vote in his 2004 re-election. Trump gained roughly 30% of the Jewish vote 4 years in the past.
Fleischer wouldn’t predict what share of the Jewish vote Trump would seize this yr, however mentioned it might close to 50% in some battleground states, as they think about casting Republican ballots.
“The ears of the Jewish community are open this cycle more than previously, because of the events around the world and what we see in America,” Fleischer mentioned. “It’s one thing for it to be theoretical, it’s now physical. It’s palpable on the American street.”
He added that “what’s changed in this cycle is this palpable sense of fear because of what’s happening in America, because of what’s happening on campuses, because of what happened in Israel on October 7, and every day since…the American Jewry has never had their ears more open to potentially voting Republican than in this cycle.”
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Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks informed reporters that the group’s political arm has beefed up its information operations by constructing what he touted as “the only real viable voter file of Jewish voters in the country” to turnout the vote.
“We have quietly been building under the radar over the last several years. We have been putting staff and deploying resources,” Brooks shared. “So we now have staff in Nevada, we have paid staff in Georgia, we have paid staff in Michigan, we have paid staff in Pennsylvania and in Arizona. And we have been doing this quietly since the last election, building up to this moment.”
Brooks mentioned the group is spending tens of millions of {dollars} on digital and TV advertisements, junk mail, cellphone calls and door knocking and different canvassing efforts to get out the vote – what he described as “the whole gamut.”
Trump was launched on the gathering by Miriam Adelson, the billionaire Republican megadonor, who alongside together with her late husband, on line casino magnate Sheldon Adelson have been main backers of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Adelson, who’s presently serving to bankroll an excellent PAC that helps Trump, referred to as him “our best friend” and added that she’s “eagerly awaiting for him to enter the White House and to save the Jewish people.”