Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) broke his silence on weeks of taunts from former President Donald Trump, who has taken to calling him a “Palestinian” for his criticism of Israel’s leader.
“The lower he drops in polls, the more unhinged he becomes,” Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in Washington, said in a brief statement circulated on Wednesday night.
Trump, who has been making the refrain since at least early June, repeated it at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this time accusing Schumer of being a member of Hamas, the terrorist group that sparked a war with its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel.
“Chuck Schumer has become a Palestinian. Can you believe it? He has become a proud member of Hamas,” Trump said on Wednesday.
But Schumer’s statement also hinted at a new development: Vice President Kamala Harris replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Trump is known for his inflammatory remarks. Hours earlier, he cast doubt on Harris’s black identity and said she might be a “DEI hire” to a conference of black journalists.
But Republicans are wringing their hands over fresh polling showing Harris closing the gap with Trump in critical battleground states. Democrats have cast Trump’s controversial remarks as him flailing politically at the very moment Republicans want him to be message-disciplined.
“The more she pulls ahead, the more you’re going to see Trump revert to the only thing he knows how to do when he’s trying to get attention, which is to get more and more outrageous,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a surrogate for Harris, said Wednesday on MSNBC.
Trump had been relatively circumspect in the weeks before Biden bowed out of the presidential race in July over his disastrous debate performance. Arguably, Trump’s restraint in that debate helped highlight the 81-year-old Biden’s frailty as a candidate.
But Trump has since returned to outrage-stoking comments, including his promise to Christian voters that they will never need to vote again if he is elected in November, painted by Democrats as a vow to install himself as a dictator.
Trump’s “Palestinian” remark plays on Democratic divisions over Israel. Schumer is a longtime supporter of the Jewish state but has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his casualty-heavy war against Hamas. In March, he called for new elections in Israel.
Those tensions were on display in July, when congressional leaders hosted Netanyahu for a joint address. Schumer signed on to the invitation and attended the speech but made headlines for nodding at Netanyahu instead of shaking his hand.
Trump pointed to the lack of handshake in questioning his Jewish heritage, but he has also made ethnically tinged comments at Jews writ large, accusing them of hating their religion because they disproportionately vote for Democrats.
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Schumer suggested Trump was being antisemitic in March, shortly after Trump said Schumer and other Jewish Democrats should be “ashamed of themselves” for criticizing Netanyahu.
“The former president’s comments were utterly disgusting and a textbook example of the kind of antisemitism facing Jews, pushing the dangerous antisemitism trope of dual loyalty,” Schumer said at the time.