One of the defining characteristics of Donald Trump’s politics is the extent to which he positions himself as the arbiter of identity. Trump insists to his supporters that he will make America great again, necessarily defining “America” in restrictive, exclusionary terms. He polices what counts as “American” or “patriotic” in the same way: Those terms apply only to those who comport with his politics or, more broadly, support his candidacy.
At least he has some claim to authority on those metrics. He is American and lives in America. But he has also increasingly taken it upon himself to determine who is authentically Jewish and what constitutes authentic Judaism — an obviously fraught enterprise born of his ongoing irritation that there are people out there who don’t particularly like him.
The trigger for Trump’s insistence on this point, one offered both in an interview and a social media post in recent days, is the war in Gaza. The terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s military response increased the salience of views of Israel in American politics. That escalated further this year as colleges responded to protests on their campuses. Trump has long presented himself as a historically unique champion for Israel and the Jewish people, so he jumped right into the fray.
He hasn’t made much headway, largely because Jewish Americans vote heavily Democratic. What’s more, Trump’s positions on Israel are generally more reflective of the views of evangelical Christians, many of whom view the nation through the lens of Christian prophecy. That he views himself as having delivered on what his Jewish allies want — which isn’t necessarily what Jewish Americans want more broadly — without seeing Jewish support surge appears to frustrate him. So he simply writes off those other Jewish Americans as not (or at least insufficiently) Jewish.
Writing on social media hours after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) spoke at the Democratic convention, Trump illustrated how this works.
“The highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech talking about freedom and fighting for Comrade Kamala Harris for President, yet she hates Israel and will do nothing but make its journey through the complexities of survival as difficult as possible, hoping in the end that it will fail,” Trump wrote. “Judge only by her actions! Yet Shapiro, for strictly political reasons, refused to acknowledge that I am the best friend that Israel, and the Jewish people, ever had. I have done more for Israel than any President, and frankly, I have done more for Israel than any person, and it’s not even close. Shapiro has done nothing for Israel, and never will.”
Trump conflates “actions on behalf of Israel” with true Jewishness in part because it’s a metric on which he thinks he can make a case. It’s directly comparable to his claims that he’s done more than anyone else for Black Americans because of a short list of cherry-picked things he did as president. The starting point is that everyone should love him, so he builds a path to that point out of whatever he has at hand. In the case of Jewish Americans, it’s often things that were presented to him by conservative Jewish allies.
We can’t let the hyperbole here slide, though. Trump claiming that, “frankly, I have done more for Israel than any person, and it’s not even close” is incredible in both the literal and figurative senses of the word. That Trump’s been making similar claims for so long that it barely merits a shrug is similarly incredible.
Trump focused on Shapiro in part because of another facet of the effort to turn Jewish Americans against Democrats: suggesting that Shapiro was passed over as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate specifically because he’s Jewish.
Speaking to right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, Trump said this explicitly.
“They didn’t put him on because he’s Jewish. I think he’s highly overrated, too, by the way, but they didn’t put him on because he’s Jewish,” Trump said, before transitioning back to promoting himself. “And I just can’t believe, when you look at the polls, where I’m probably up to 50 percent, 40 percent, 45 percent, and what I’ve done for Israel, and what I’ve done, I have been the best president by far for the Jewish people. There’s never been anybody like me.”
The argument that Democrats are somehow hostile to Jewish people because Shapiro wasn’t selected has been undermined by the positive response to the person Harris did choose as her running mate. Not to mention that it’s hypocritical; Trump didn’t pick a Jewish running mate either. (He picked Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism as an adult.) Harris, of course, is also married to a Jewish man. The Democratic Party also has a number of Jewish leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
But he doesn’t count, Trump told Hewitt.
“Chuck Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said. “And yet, when it comes to elections, for whatever reason, he’ll be supported by Jewish people. He’s Jewish, and yet he’s totally given up on Israel, as far as I’m concerned. It’s shocking.”
Schumer has not “given up on Israel,” except to the extent that Trump gets to define how people view Israel. Nor is Schumer’s Jewish identity dependent on his political approach to Israel, except to the extent that Trump gets to decide who counts as Jewish.
Later, when his conversation with Hewitt shifted to the college protests, Trump again disparaged Schumer.
“I’d say 10, 12, 15 years ago, there was no more powerful, call it a lobby, but there was no more powerful lobby than the Israeli lobby, than the Jewish lobby,” Trump said, repeating a long-standing trope about powerful Jewish organizations. “Today, it’s almost the opposite. You have people like me that are big supporters, but we’re in a tremendous minority. When guys like Schumer go for Hamas and Hezbollah, I mean, look at Schumer. Why would a Jewish person be voting for Schumer?”
“It’s pretty incredible,” Hewitt (who is Christian) responded.
“Why would somebody who’s Jewish be voting for these people? If Jewish people vote for her, and I use this expression, they ought to go out,” Trump continued, “because Kamala is a person that is very anti-Israel, and very anti-Jewish. But she solves that problem by saying her husband’s Jewish, okay? But that doesn’t, her actions are the worst that we’ve ever had.”
Trump is deciding that Harris, despite her family, fails to meet his standard of support for Jewish Americans. Just as, last month, he decided that Harris failed to meet his standard of “Black.”
It’s not clear what he meant that Harris-voting Jewish people ought to “go out.” Hewitt didn’t ask. But history does not offer positive stories about political leaders who decide that they can evaluate the legitimacy of Jewish people and their families, suggesting that those who fail the evaluation should be cast out.