Trump criticised for using antisemitic term to describe money lenders
Mr Trump told reporters early on Friday after returning from an event in Iowa that he had 'never heard it that way' and 'never heard that' the term was considered an offensive stereotype about Jews.
Shylock refers to the villainous Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice who demands a pound of flesh from a debtor.
The Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat antisemitism, said in a statement that the term 'evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous. President Trump's use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible'.
Democrat Joe Biden, while vice president, said in 2014 that he had made a 'poor choice' of words a day after he used the term in remarks to a legal aid group.
Mr Trump's administration has said cracking down on antisemitism is a priority. His administration said it is screening for antisemitic activity when granting immigration benefits and its fight with Harvard University has centred on allegations from the White House that the school has tolerated antisemitism.
But the Republican president has also had a history of playing on stereotypes about Jewish people.
He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that 'you want to control your politicians' and suggested the audience used money to exert control.
Before he kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr Trump drew widespread criticism for dining at his Florida club with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist.
Last year, he made repeated comments accusing Jewish Americans who identify as Democrats of disloyalty because of the Democratic leaders' criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics said it perpetuated an antisemitic trope about Jews having divided loyalties and there being only one right way to be Jewish.
On Thursday night in his speech in Iowa, Mr Trump used the term while talking about his signature legislation that was passed by Congress earlier in the day.
'No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing some from, in some cases, a fine banker and in some cases shylocks and bad people,' he said.
When a reporter later asked about the word's antisemitic association and his intent, Mr Trump said; 'No, I've never heard it that way. To me, a shylock is somebody that's a money lender at high rates. I've never heard it that way. You view it differently than me. I've never heard that.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
24 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Musk is about to unleash more havoc on America
In the 2004 comedy Team America, a group of freelancing Thunderbird-style puppets romp around the world, saving mankind from a coalition of terrorists and liberal Hollywood actors. It was hard not to bring the film to mind last night when Elon Musk announced a new 'America Party'. That was my first thought. My second was: thank God Rupert Lowe doesn't have $400 billion. It is, as my mother often says, 'very easy to mock'. Nonetheless, although such a party would be unlikely to win a future election – if it did, it would be the first time in history that a third-party candidate became president – it could unleash even more chaos upon the American political system and even more volatility upon the world. That could be the whole point. The announcement of the America Party was the latest escalation in a war of words between the two most powerful men on Earth over Donald Trump's signature megabill. As the legislation made its way through the Senate, Musk became furiously opposed to it. 'Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their heads in shame!,' he posted on X on Monday. 'And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.' Not to be outdone, Trump fired back on his own social media site, Truth Social. 'No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE,' he wrote. 'Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!' The bill was signed into law on July 4. Then came the announcement of the America Party. We mock at our peril. As the richest man on Earth, Musk's net worth is the equivalent of the GDP of mid-ranking countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. To put that in context, the 2024 presidential election was the second most expensive since 1998, behind only the 2020 race, which was the most costly on record. Donald Trump's latest victory cost about half-a-billion dollars in candidate committee cash, and about a billion in outside money. Musk could comfortably drop three or four times that sum on the America Party without his eyes watering. He could also fund a private army the size of Britain's Armed Forces (annual budget: £57 billion) to go with it, should his ambitions take a more Team America turn. With a political megaforce like this unleashed upon the United States, unpredictable numbers of votes would be hijacked both from the Democrats and Republicans. We would witness a three-way rhetorical battle, with Donald Trump's legendary bile haemorrhaging in all directions and the whole catastrophe given rocket boosters – almost literally – by social media. But there are big caveats. Although Musk's post on X seemed unequivocal – 'By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it! Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom,' he wrote – no paperwork has been filed to the Federal Election Commission for the formation of a political entity by that name. Given the impulsiveness that social media encourages and the volatile characters of the two big beasts, it is quite possible that by this time next week, Musk will have abandoned his political ambitions and once again be a card-carrying member of Team Trump. On the other hand, it is just as likely that the feud may have gone interstellar. All of this is terrible for America. In the final analysis, this latest bombastic move is a gesture of spite by a man with a gold-plated god complex and a social media platform. But it is more than a fight between two Thunderbird-style caricatures competing for the attention of America. The tragedy of the episode is that Musk's poll on X revealed that a majority of users felt that no political party was speaking for them. That is a real problem, and it is one that Musk's America Party would never solve. Whether it becomes a reality or not, it is hard to avoid one conclusion. The United States deserves better than this.
The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Elon Musk's ‘America' party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats
The new US political party that Elon Musk has boasted about bankrolling could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress. Tesla and SpaceX's multibillionaire CEO mused about that approach on Friday in a post on X, the social media platform he owns, as he continued feuding with Donald Trump over the spending bill that the president has signed into law. On Saturday, without immediately elaborating, the former Trump adviser announced on X that he had created the so-called America party. 'One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,' wrote Musk, who is the world's richest person and oversaw brutal cuts to the federal government after Trump's second presidency began in January. 'Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring they serve the true will of the people.' Musk did not specify any seats he may be eyeing. In another post on Friday, when the US celebrated the 249th anniversary of its declaration of independence from the UK, Musk published a poll asking his X followers whether he should advance on his previously stated idea of creating the America party to contend against both Republicans and Democrats. More than 65% of about 1.25m responses indicated 'yes' as of Saturday morning. 'Independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two-party (some would say uniparty) system!' Musk also wrote in text accompanying the poll, which he promoted several times throughout Friday. Musk on Saturday then posted on X: 'Today, the America party is formed to give you back your freedom.' He also wrote: 'By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party, and you shall have it! When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.' One of the replies to Musk's announcement that he reposted showed a picture of a two-headed snake near the word 'uniparty' as well as the logos of the Democratic and Republican parties. 'End the Uniparty,' the reply said. Musk in turn responded to the reply with: 'Yes.' He also suggested the party would run during the 2026 midterms. New political parties do not have to formally register with the Federal Election Commission 'until they raise or spend money over certain thresholds in connection with a federal election'. Musk's posts on Friday and Saturday came after he spent $277m of his fortune supporting Trump's victorious 2024 presidential campaign. The Republican president rewarded Musk by appointing him to lead the unofficial 'department of government efficiency', or Doge, which abruptly and chaotically slashed various government jobs and programs while claiming it saved $190bn. But Doge's actions may also have cost taxpayers $135bn, according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan non-profit dedicated to studying the federal workforce. Musk left Doge at the end of May and more recently became incensed at Trump's support for a budget bill that would increase the US debt by $3.3tn. He threatened to financially support primary challenges against every member of Congress who supported Trump's spending bill – along with promising to 'form the America Party' if it passed. The House voted 218 to 214 in favor of the spending bill, with just two Republicans joining every Democrat in the chamber in unsuccessfully opposing it. In the Senate, JD Vance broke a 50-50 deadlock in favor of the bill, which Trump signed on Friday hours after Musk posted his America party-related poll. The Trump spending bill's voting breakdown illustrated how narrowly the winning side in Congress carries some of the most controversial matters. Trump has warned Musk – a native of South Africa and naturalized US citizen since 2002 – that directly opposing his agenda would be personally costly. The president, who has pursued mass deportations of immigrants recently, publicly discussed deporting Musk from the US as well as cutting government contracts for some of his companies. 'Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head to South Africa,' Trump posted on his own social media platform, Truth Social. The president also told a group of reporters in Florida: 'We might have to put Doge on Elon. Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn't that be terrible.'
The Herald Scotland
43 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Israeli air strikes kill 33 Palestinians in Gaza
US president Donald Trump has floated a plan for an initial 60-day ceasefire that would include a partial release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for an increase in humanitarian supplies allowed into Gaza. The proposed truce calls for talks on ending the 21-month war altogether. Some 20 people were killed and 25 wounded after Israeli strikes hit two houses in Gaza City, according to Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa Hospital that services the area. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to fly to Washington for talks at the White House aimed at pushing forward ceasefire efforts (Leo Correa/AP) In southern Gaza, 13 Palestinians were killed by strikes in Muwasi, an area on Gaza's Mediterranean where many displaced people live in tents, officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis told The Associated Press. Five of the dead belonged to the same family, according to the hospital. The Israeli military made no immediate comment on the individual strikes, but said it had struck 130 targets across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours. It said the strikes targeted Hamas command and control structures, storage facilities, weapons and launchers, and that they had killed a number of militants in northern Gaza. The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry. US president Donald Trump has floated a plan for an initial 60-day ceasefire (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) The ministry, which is under Gaza's Hamas government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties. The strikes occur as efforts to reach a ceasefire deal appeared to gain momentum. Mr Netanyahu's office said his government would send a negotiating team to Qatar on Sunday to conduct indirect talks, adding that Hamas was seeking 'unacceptable' changes to the proposal. The planned talks in Qatar come ahead of Mr Netanyahu's scheduled visit to Washington on Monday to meet Mr Trump to discuss the deal. It is unclear if an agreement will be reached ahead of the Israeli prime minister's White House meeting. Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war's end, while Mr Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the militant group's destruction.
