Schumer: Trump ‘redefined chutzpah’ by calling Dems an ‘anti-Jewish party’

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) hammered President Trump on Friday for calling Democrats an “anti-Jewish party,” pointing to his widely criticized response to the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

“For the president, who when neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville in front of a synagogue and said ‘burn it down’ and he said ‘both sides’ are to blame, this is a new divisive low,” Schumer wrote in a Facebook post. 

“His comments show the president is only interested in playing the politics of division and not in fighting anti-Semitism. Mr. President, you have redefined chutzpah.” 

{mosads}Schumer’s pushback came after Trump slammed House Democrats on Friday after they introduced and passed a resolution condemning a wide range of discrimination rather than singling out Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for comments she made about pro-Israel groups that were widely condemned as anti-Semitic.

Omar’s remarks threw the House Democratic Caucus into turmoil, with some Jewish members calling for legislation that named Omar and focused solely on anti-Semitism, while Omar’s progressive allies pushed for a broader resolution in light of threats the Minnesota Democrat, who is Muslim, has faced. The progressives ultimately prevailed, rankling some of the conference’s moderates. 

“I thought yesterday’s vote by the House was disgraceful,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party.”

Trump’s comments Friday drew widespread rebukes from Democrats, who suggested he was exploiting claims of anti-Semitism for his own political benefit.

“I condemn the use of anti-Semitism by my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, AND by your campaign,” Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) tweeted in response to Trump. “This isn’t political. It’s life and death. Please stop.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) added that Trump was “lucky” he was not singled out himself in the House resolution in light of controversial comments he has made.

The president was broadly condemned for his comments about the 2017 Charlottesville clashes, in which he appeared to equivocate between neo-Nazis and counterprotesters.

“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” Trump said at the time.

White supremacist marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us” and carried Nazi and confederate flags before the violent clashes, which killed one counterprotester, began.