At a press conference Wednesday, Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) effectively defended former President Donald Trump after the ex-president in an interview with ex-aide Sebastian Gorka used religious attacks on Jewish Americans who support Democratic candidates.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump said in the quickly extensively publicized discussion. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves.” Trump previously used similar language.
Besides the derisive attitude towards these Jewish voters’ religious and cultural positions, some also identify the ex-president’s comments as reflective of the conspiracy theory-driven idea that Jewish Americans are extensively looking toward Israel in the first place. CNN said that Trump’s comments were “again playing into an antisemitic trope that Jewish Americans have dual loyalties to the US and to Israel.”
“I don’t speak for President Trump, but I understand the sentiment that he’s trying to express,” Johnson claimed. “I mean, if you look at the voting records, you know? I mean, look at the Israel funding — we talked about the supplemental. I’ve tried on two different occasions to push the Israel funding request through. […] The president issued a veto threat over that!” Johnson then referenced the Democrats who voted against Republicans’ Israel funding pushes. “I think people interpret that for what it is. I think the facts speak for themselves,” the Speaker added.
He is completely ignoring that Democrats — and some Republicans! — have gotten behind separate proposals for security assistance for Israel that links it with aid for Ukraine and Taiwan. What Democrats are concerned with is the prospect of Republicans using a proposal that isolates the Israel funding to effectively skirt past those other needs, leaving Ukraine and others struggling. The Senate already passed a foreign aid package covering Israel, Ukraine, and others elsewhere in the world, and the GOP-controlled House with Johnson at the helm hasn’t even brought it forward for a vote.
