Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said yesterday that if he loses the presidential election on November 5, part of the blame will be on the American people voters of Israeli origin, reported Reuters.
In his comments at the Israel-American Council summit in Washington, the former president lamented the lead that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has among American Jews.
If Harris wins, Israel probably won't last two years, and the Jews will be partly to blame for that because they have a habit of voting for Democrats, Trump said.
„If I don't win this election – the Jewish people will indeed have a great contribution if this happens, because if 40%, no, 60% of the people vote for the opponent – Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years,” the Republican told the crowd.
Trump cited a poll that found 60 percent of Jewish Americans are likely to vote for Harris.
He also lamented the fact that he won less than 30% of the American Jewish vote in the 2016 presidential election, a similar situation in the 2020 election, which he lost to the Democrat Joe Biden.
It was not clear which poll the ex-president was referring to, but a recent poll by the American think tank “Pew Research Center” found that Jewish Americans favor Harris over Trump, with 65% supporting Harris versus 34% supporting Trump.
Also last night at another event in Washington dedicated to the fight against anti-Semitism in the US, Trump made similar comments.
Trump's campaign made it a priority to win over Israeli voters in key states. For decades, American Jews have voted Democratic in federal elections, but a small shift in the Jewish vote could prove decisive in determining the winner of the November election.
In the key contested state of Pennsylvania, for example, there are over 400,000 Jews, and in the 2020 presidential election, Biden won by 81,000 votes there.