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Trump launches new religious advisory council with a complaint about Jewish voters

Trump launches new religious advisory council with a complaint about Jewish voters

While Donald Trump has yet to officially announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, he and his surrogates have been dropping hints, sending out fundraising pleas, and holding rallies as if it’s already a fait accompli.

Of course, by not officially announcing his next presidential bid, Trump can solicit donations that are not subject to the restrictions that apply to declared candidates, so it is in his own interest to act as if he is running without an official declaration.

As part of his exploratory moves in regards to 2024, the disgraced ex-president has set up a National Faith Advisory Board to shore up his support among various religious factions in America for a potential campaign.

The board spoke with Trump earlier this week for the first time, and the former guy immediately undermined his own efforts by launching into a rant about the disloyalty of Jewish voters after everything he did for Israel, according to a report from Religion News Service.

While Trump’s appeal among evangelical voters remained robust in his 2020 election debacle, he lost ground among both the Catholic and Jewish electorates, with a 7% drop in the Catholic vote in rust belt swing states and only 21% to 30% support among Jewish voters, depending on whose analysis you choose to believe.

According to Religion News Service:

“Trump referenced hypothetical future scenarios “if we’re able to get back in,’ while repeating the widely discredited claim the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. In discussing the Catholic vote, he acknowledged he had lost ground with the bloc in his four years in office.”

“‘I’m a little bit surprised that we didn’t do better with the Catholic vote,’ Trump said. ‘I think now they would give us a vote. I think we got about 50% of the vote. And yet, we did a lot for the Catholic vote. So we’ll have to talk to them. We’re gonna have to meet with the Catholics.'”

The absence of support from Jewish voters really rankled Trump, who felt that he had done more than enough to woo this group with his virtual partnership with the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Look what I did with the embassy in Jerusalem and what I did with so many other things…Irael has never had a better friend, and yet I got 25% of the vote,” Trump lamented. “I think they have to get together. There has to be a little bit more unity with the religious groups all represented on this call,” he said.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand that American Jews do not necessarily agree with the right-wing policies of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and, as a frequent target of discrimination in this country, have a strong tradition of supporting the sort of social justice initiatives that are anathema to trump and other conservative Republicans.

Whether Trump really does decide to run again — rather than just dangling the possibility as a fund-raising enticement — probably largely depends on whether he is going to spend the majority of his remaining days serving out the prison sentence that he surely deserves.

Perhaps the members of Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board need to spend a little more time reviewing the Bible passages — present in both the Christian and Jewish versions of the scriptures — that prohibit the worship of false idols.

If they truly understood that commandment, then they likely wouldn’t be able to support any attempt by the former guy to regain his golden throne atop the U.S. government.

Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter. 

Original reporting by Jack Jenkins at Religion News Service.

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Vinnie Longobardo
Managing Editor
Vinnie Longobardo is the Managing Editor of Occupy Democrats. He's a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.

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