MSNBC’s Jen Psaki asked second gentleman Doug Emhoff if he fears Donald Trump is “putting a target on the backs of Jewish Americans” with the former president’s warning that Jewish voters will be partly to blame if he loses the 2024 election to Emhoff’s wife, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Emhoff, who is Jewish, was unequivocal with his reply.
“He is,” Emhoff, who made history in 2021 when he became the first Jewish spouse of an American president or vice president, told Psaki in a preview clip of an interview that MSNBC aired on Thursday.
“I mean, take him at his word,” Emhoff continued about Trump. “He lies about a lot of things but you gotta take him at his word on things like this. So, yeah, this is a disgusting trope, this so-called dual loyalties. It’s an outrage. And it’s not just Jewish people that should be outraged.”
Trump, who has a lengthy history of antisemitic comments, last week said any American “Jewish person” who votes for Harris is a “fool” and “should have their head examined.”
The Republican nominee warned, “The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss. It’s only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you.”
Psaki asked Emhoff if he believed Trump is being “antisemitic when he says things like that. Do you look at him and see the repetition of this type of words and language as antisemitic?”
“Of course it is,” Emhoff replied.
Emhoff has frequently campaigned against antisemitism via his second gentleman role and, earlier his year, slammed Trump as “a known antisemite” for sharing a video online with references to a “unified Reich.”
Trump, meanwhile, in July agreed with an interviewer who described Emhoff as “a crappy Jew, he’s a horrible Jew.”
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