Trump: ‘I Am The Least Anti-Semitic Person You’ve Ever Seen’

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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President Donald Trump said Thursday that he finds questions about whether his administration has incited anti-Semitic acts “insulting” and that he is “the least anti-Semitic person you’ve ever seen.”

“Sit down,” Trump told a reporter during a press conference. “Number one, I am the least anti-Semitic person you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person.”

Trump said that he did “very well” relative to other Republican candidates, and shouted over the reporter’s interjection.

“Quiet, quiet, quiet. See, he lied that he was going to get up and ask a straight, simple question, so, you know, welcome to the world of the media,” Trump said.

He said that he finds charges of anti-Semitism “repulsive.”

“I hate even the question because people that know me, and you heard the prime minister, you heard Netanyahu yesterday, did you hear him,” Trump said, referring to a joint press conference he held Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Bibi, he said, ‘I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time.’ And then he said, ‘Forget it’,” Trump said. So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.”

Trump later claimed that his “opponents” are committing anti-Semitic acts to fuel outrage against him.

“Some of the signs you’ll see are not put up by the people that love or like Donald Trump. They’re put up by the other side and you think it’s like playing it straight, no, but you have some of those signs and some of that anger is caused by the other side,” he said. “They’ll do signs and they’ll do drawings that are inappropriate. It won’t be my people. It will be the people on the other side to anger people like you.”

“What are you going to do about it?” another reporter asked.

“I’m working on it,” Trump said.

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Notable Replies

  1. Oh, c’mon. I’ve met AT LEAST one or two persons less anti-semitic than Trump.

  2. From Daily Kos account

    “I want to find a friendly reporter. Are you a friendly reporter?”
    Reporter makes giant point that he doesn’t think Trump is anti-Semitic but asks about an outbreak in anti-Semitism and how he’ll handle it.
    Trump attacks him for asking not a simple question, then denies being an anti-Semite, which the reporter specifically said he was not alleging, and does not answer about how he’d handle other people’s anti-Semitism.

    Trump brought this up, not the reporter. Trump took the question and made it about him.

  3. I believe that Albert Speer was actually less anti-Semitic than Trump

  4. Someone should remind Trump about one very reliable rule of thumb: a person who finds it necessary to repeat over an over “I have Jewish friends” or “I am not an anti-semite” is most likely an anti-semite. (Obviously it applies to other forms of racism too.)

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