Donald Trump’s Record on Antisemitism
The Trump administration has cut vital funding for combating antisemitism, including:
– Freezing the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which helps keep synagogues, day schools, Jewish community centers, and other places of worship safe from attacks.
– Canceling funding for efforts to avert hate crimes against Jewish Americans.
– Cutting funding to agencies that work to prevent antisemitism, including on college campuses.
– Planning to eliminate the role of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, the most senior administration official focused on the threat of antisemitism.
– Ending DHS programs designed to thwart lone-wolf terrorist attacks like those carried out at the Capitol Jewish Museum and in Boulder, Colorado.
Trump has appointed people with histories of antisemitism, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism to key positions:
– Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, said he has a “Nazi streak” and espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric. When these facts came to light, making his nomination no longer viable, the Trump administration allowed Ingrassia to remain in his current White House role.
– Members of the Republican Party have increasingly made antisemitic statements or invoked Nazi imagery while the president and many top Republican officials have said nothing. Recent incidents include Young Republicans who joked about gas chambers and claimed “I love Hitler,” an advisor to Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli who claimed the campaign “isn’t taking money from Jews,” and a swastika seen in a Republican congressional office.
– Elon Musk has a history of making disturbing comments about Nazis and Jews.
– FBI Director Kash Patel has ties to controversial figures known for promoting racism, antisemitism, and conspiracy theories.
– Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth supports a new Christian crusade, and under his authority, the Department of Defense signed a $200 million contract with Elon Musk’s AI company to begin using Grok, an AI chatbot that recently praised Hitler and spewed antisemitic rhetoric.
– Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. peddled baseless conspiracy theories that undermined public health, including that Jews engineered COVID-19.
– Kingsley Wilson, a prolific purveyor of antisemitic conspiracy theories, was promoted to press secretary at the Department of Defense in May 2025 despite widespread condemnation from the Jewish community. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth continues to praise Wilson even as more evidence of her antisemitism emerges.
– A top Justice Department attorney praised ‘Mein Kampf.’ The same attorney is responsible for lawsuits dealing with antisemitic incidents.
– A Trump nominee for a key State Department position repeatedly shared the “Great Replacement” theory online.
– Multiple Trump White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists, according to a report on May 14, 2025.
– Joe Kent, who was confirmed by the Senate as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has ties to neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
Trump’s antisemitism has manifested itself in other ways:
– The Trump White House is implementing the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” which uses antisemitism as a pretext for deporting foreigners and systematically attacking higher education.
– Under the Trump Administration, recruitment materials for ICE have included a number of antisemitic and white supremacist dogwhistles and references to antisemitic works.
– Trump openly used a centuries-old antisemitic slur to describe bankers at a rally in July 2024.
– Trump has repeatedly invoked Hitler and the Nazis.
– Trump dined with Kanye West and white nationalist/Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes in 2022 at Mar-a-Lago.
– Trump said that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 Charlottesville march that featured white supremacists chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
None of this is surprising: Trump has a long record of antisemitism, including accusing Jews of disloyalty and other antisemitic tropes.
Click here to read an expanded version of Trump’s record on antisemitism.