President Trump had a resounding no for any antisemites claiming to be part of the Republican Party or his MAGA movement.
“I think we don’t need them,” he told The New York Times in an interview. “I think we don’t like them.”
His comments, made in a Wednesday interview but published on Sunday, came after a series of high profile ultra-conservative figures have made controversial comments about the Jewish people and antisemitic speech has split Republicans.
Trump said: “I condemn” antisemitism.
He said he’s an ally of Israel and was awarded its Israel Prize, considered the country’s highest honor.
“Look, if you talk about the antisemitic views, there’s been nobody better for us. As an example, I just got the Israel award, which is the biggest award they give. It was just given to me. First time it was ever given to anybody outside of Israel,” Trump said.
The president also noted that daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and the couple’s three children are Jewish.
“My daughter happens to be Jewish, beautiful, three grandchildren are Jewish,” he said. “I’m very proud of them. I’m very proud of the whole, that whole family. I am the least antisemitic person probably there is anywhere in the world.”
But the Republican Party has been roiled by series controversies that have garnered wide-spread public attention.
A group of young Republican leaders, in the fall, were revealed to praise Adolf Hitler in a series of chat groups.
And the Heritage Foundation, a premier conservative think tank in Washington DC, was roiled by a staff outcry after President Kevin Roberts defended a far-right figure who made anti-semitic remarks.
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Roberts sparked the wave of resignations among the think tank after defending Tucker Carlson for interviewing Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his platform.
Fuentes has been designated by the Anti-Defamation League as a “white supremacist leader.” In the October interview with Carlson, Fuentes denounced the influence of “organized Jewry” in American politics.
“I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said of the interview, which got millions of views on social media.
The president defended Carlson at the time, saying he can interview whoever he wants. And he’s stayed close to him. Carlson was spotted at the White House last week, attending the president’s meeting with oil executives.
But Trump also distanced himself from Fuentes, who was with him at a dinner in Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
“I had dinner with him, one time, where he came as a guest of Kanye West. I didn’t know who he was bringing. He said, ‘Do you mind if I bring a friend?’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’ And it was Nick Fuentes? I don’t know Nick Fuentes,” the president told The Times.
He’s also no longer close with Candace Owens, a prominent right-wing political commentator, who’s faced multiple accusations of antisemitism due her public statements and posts on social media. Owens was named “Antisemite of the Year” in December by watchdog StopAntisemitism.
But she has become a prominent Trump critic who spewed conspiracy theories after Charlie Kirk’s assassination and was previously dismissed from the Daily Wire.
Meanwhile, he Trump administration has spent the past year defending Israel and leading a crackdown on universities, accusing them of spreading antisemitism and taking away millions in federal grants.
