UPDATE (May 15, 2023; 9:30 a.m. ET): This piece has been updated to reflect Eric Trump’s participation this weekend in the ReAwaken America Tour.
Eric Trump, the second son of former President Donald Trump, spoke on May 13 at a hotel owned by the former president. But, as noted by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow a few days earlier, Trump was originally supposed to speak at this event on the ReAwaken America Tour alongside Scott McKay and Charlie Ward, both of whom have been accused of spreading antisemitism.
After being called out, Trump tweeted this response:
.@maddow is walking a fine line. We are the most pro-Israel family in American political history — from the Abraham Accords, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights to sanctioning Iran, no one has done more for Israel than our family. Never mind, that my sister, brother-in-law and niece and nephews happen to be proud Jews. If she or anyone else even remotely suggests I am anti-semitic I will not hesitate to take legal action against them personally.
McKay and Ward were dropped from the weekend lineup, though reportedly not from the overall tour. This is a minor victory in a much bigger battle, as extremists continue to push to include antisemitism and white nationalism on mainstream GOP platforms. The consequences of this push are everywhere, from Jan. 6 to last year’s mass shooting in Buffalo.
What neither Trump seems to understand is that the vast majority of American Jews do not consider Israel their top priority when going to the polls.
Some mistakes in Trump’s 80 or so words are beyond the scope of this piece. It’s well established, for example, that antisemites can have Jewish family members or friends. Though Henry Ford published the Dearborn Independent, which regularly included antisemitic vitriol and conspiracy theories, he nevertheless considered himself a friend of his neighbor, Rabbi Leo Franklin.
But the crux of Eric Trump’s argument seems to be that nobody in his family could be antisemitic because of how supportive they are for Israel.
There are two issues with this. The first is that it conflates the state of Israel with the Jewish people. This is a move Eric’s father often made, once referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister” when speaking to American Jews, or appearing unable to understand why American Jews were not voting for him based on his policies toward Israel. Donald Trump also took to chiding all but the Orthodox for failing to love Israel enough.
This is a sort of evolution of the “dual loyalty” trope, which says that Jews are ultimately loyal to other Jews, and thus cannot really ever be loyal citizens to their own country. In this new, updated version, American Jews who fail to see their political future wrapped up in Israel — or, more particularly, with Israel as promoted by the Trump administration — are seen as falling short as American Jews.








