Former President Donald Trump on Friday urged Jewish voters to support his candidacy — blasting Vice President Kamala Harris for her “disrespectful” comments about Israel — as he hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“I think her remarks were disrespectful, they weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her,” Trump, 78, told reporters — after Harris, whose husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish, slammed Israel Thursday for killing “far too many” civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“She’s a radical-left person — San Francisco, destroyed San Francisco,” Trump also said about his likely Democratic rival in the Nov. 5 election. “She’s really a destroyer. She doesn’t know how to build.”
Netanyahu, seated across from the Republican presidential nominee, implied that Harris may have derailed a pending US-backed ceasefire plan with her strident comments, in which she declared “I will not be silent” on civilian deaths and widespread hunger in Gaza.
“We’re trying to get [a ceasefire deal] and I think to the extent that Hamas understands that there’s no daylight between Israel and the United States, that expedites the deal. And I would hope that those comments don’t change that,” Netanyahu said.
The Biden-Harris administration-backed plan calls for an end to Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip before the Hamas terrorist group is militarily defeated and experts question whether Netanyahu is seriously pursuing the concept or waiting to see if Trump wins the election.
Trump vowed to staunchly back Israel and oppose Iran if he wins — saying the Biden-Harris administration did too little to enforce oil sanctions on Iran, which provides funding and training to Hamas and other anti-Israel armed groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi movement.
“We terminated the Iran nuclear deal… but unfortunately the Biden administration didn’t do anything,” Trump said. “We had all the cards. Iran was not using terror at all because they didn’t have the money … Nobody was buying their oil and now they’re a rich country.”
With the Israel-Hamas conflict approaching its one-year mark in October, Trump claimed that a vote for him could prevent WWIII.
“If we win, it’ll be very simple: it will all work out and very quickly. If we don’t, you’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war.”
Harris, 59, faulted Israel’s conduct after she and President Biden met separately with Netanyahu at the White House a day before — following 81-year-old Biden’s Sunday decision to end his bid for a second term and instead endorse Harris.
She couched her criticism by also pledging “unwavering” support for the Jewish state’s right to exist and condemning Hamas terrorists for starting the war on Oct. 7 — but also faced criticism from her own party afterwards.
“Look, I disagree with those comments,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said Friday on Fox News.
Trump previously courted Jewish voters and complained bitterly after exit polls showed the religious minority overwhelmingly supported Biden’s successful 2020 campaign — and fumed when Netanyahu congratulated Biden when Trump was still challenging the election results.
As president, Trump enacted a series of pro-Israel policies, including recognizing Israel’s disputed annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria and moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, brushing aside longstanding concerns about the disputed status of the city.
Trump’s administration also brokered diplomatic relations between Israel and five Muslim-majority countries — Bahrain, Kosovo, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
But Trump also has been criticized by Jewish leaders for dining at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 with antisemitic rapper Kanye West and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who has praised Adolf Hitler. Trump said he “knew nothing about” Fuentes after that dinner.
Trump’s attempt to make support for Israel a campaign issue comes after fellow Democrats criticized the incumbents for not doing more to counter Iran.
A group of 62 House members — including prominent Democrats such as Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California — asked Biden in January to fully enforce US sanctions on Iranian oil sales after those exports surged, roughly doubling Iran’s annual export levels in 2019 and 2020.
“Iran now exports more than 1.4 million barrels of crude oil daily, over 80% of which goes to China. From February 2021 to October 2023, the regime has taken at least $88 billion from these illicit oil exports,” the group wrote.
Harris’ vice presidential office and the Harris campaign did not immediately offer comment on Trump’s remarks.
Josh Christenson contributed to this report.