Someone who claims to be a holocaust historian btw, says they basically agree with Trumps deportations, repeatedly cannot meaningfully answer the obvious question of why would these people genuinely care about antisemitism when they're hanging with white nationalists, invokes "Trump Derangement Syndrome" when talking about deportation without due process...it just goes on.
Liberals, shut the fuck up about how Democrats are "better". These are the people within the admin who were listened to.
Are you pleased that the Trump Administration is talking so much about antisemitism?
I’m pleased that they’re addressing it, because that’s what I did for the past three years, which was to really push the Biden Administration to seriously address it. So I am very, very pleased that it’s on their agenda.
And what do you see that agenda as being?
Well, I guess I’ve gone through a transition. Let me step back for a minute and say that from my first day in office, one of the things that I called for was for institutions—such as governments, universities, and the media—to take antisemitism seriously. I talk about antisemitism as a multi-tiered threat. One is the threat to Jews and Jewish institutions. But it’s also a threat to democracy. And I know that’s a very easy thing to throw around. People will say food insecurity is a threat to democracy. Which is true. But there’s a very direct link in terms of antisemitism. And that direct link is the fact that antisemitism is a conspiracy theory, in contrast to any other form of discrimination. Its distinctive characteristic is as a conspiracy theory.
What do you think the Trump Administration is doing to fight antisemitism and, in that sense, uphold democracy?
It’s calling universities to account. And, if you look at the first demands it made of Columbia, what’s striking about those things, like an end to encampments and masks—those were things that Columbia students have been asking for for a very long time. So I was pleased by that because they were asking the university to live up to its own standards. I’ve been told by people who are close to university presidents and administrators that many of them felt those were legitimate demands that should have been seen to earlier. So I didn’t have any gripe with those.
You are a smart person. Do you seriously believe that the Trump Administration cares about antisemitism? I’m a little confused here.
Yeah, I don’t . . . I don’t know. They haven’t spoken to me, they haven’t consulted with me. So all I can judge is by—
But Deborah, your entire career has been judging people for antisemitism, in some cases very effectively. The President hosted white supremacists for dinner. Elon Musk made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Surely you can look into their souls here.
I have called that out.
O.K., but more broadly can you make some sort of judgment?
Yes, no, there’s been . . . there certainly has been a disturbing tendency, whether it’s whatever Elon Musk was doing with his arm, or when he appeared on video at a campaign event for the far right in Germany. There are a lot of examples. They’re disturbing and they’re bothersome.
[...]
Well, that right there makes me wonder. I’m just a little confused why people who care about antisemitism are friends with Donald Trump.
It is confusing. It is confusing, you know, but I can’t . . . In speaking to him, my sense is, with the little I know about him, which is very little, that he truly is concerned about fighting antisemitism. I also think there are many Jews, and some non-Jews, too, but many Jews who are disappointed by how universities have behaved since October 7th, and they see a strong—to use Passover terminology—a strong hand being used. Now, whether that hand is being used properly or not raises certain questions about what’s happening. To answer your question, a lot of people were relieved to see this forceful approach. I think, in many respects, it’s going too far.
You said some nice things about Secretary of State Marco Rubio. What has your reading been of him?
As a senator, he had a very strong track record on fighting antisemitism. I know there are many people, including Democrats in Florida, who appreciated his stance. What’s happening now is, I think, you know, I can’t judge, you know, but let me put it this way: I would hope that he would continue to maintain the strong stance he took while he was a senator.
You can judge him about, say, tweeting happily about people being sent to a horrific prison in El Salvador, right?
Look, there’s no reason . . . Look, when you take someone off the street who’s not supposed to be taken off the street, and you deport them, you make a mistake. I come from a tradition and a personal belief that when you make a mistake, you say, I made a mistake, and we’re gonna fix it. And that’s disturbing.
They may not care that they made a mistake. That’s the issue.
Off the record and not for quotation: [Goes off record.]
Is there a reason you don’t want to say that on the record?
Yeah, I don’t, because I’m still, you know . . . I don’t want to give people the chance. You know, there’s some people I know, including good friends of mine, who suffer from what the Republicans would call, what is it, “Trump Derangement Syndrome”? You know, anything he does is bad. Look, he moved the Embassy to Jerusalem. So I give him credit for that. I do give him credit for that. I’m not gonna say just because it’s the Trump Administration it’s bad.
I wasn’t asking you to say just because it was the Trump Administration that it was bad. I was just pointing out that they’re sending people without any sort of due process to a horrible prison in El Salvador.
You know, that is something that I find disturbing and I would hope that, you know, that they would, they would recognize that, because that’s not what this country is all about.
So we have all these horrific things with immigration, with DOGE dismantling the federal bureaucracy, with Trump basically destroying the Atlantic alliance. But we also have, on the other side of the ledger, moving the Embassy to Jerusalem in the first term. It shouldn’t be all black and white.
No, it’s not all black and white. It’s not all black and white. And, if you paint it only black, here’s what happens: then I have to wonder which of your criticisms are valid and which aren’t. That doesn’t mean you should go look for white when there isn’t any. But I think there are some places where, and that’s why initially I said, you know, there are some things that I applaud. But you can’t, you know, you can’t just ignore our laws. We’re a nation of laws. It wasn’t tolerance that allowed Jews to thrive here. Jews have flourished in this country because it is a nation of laws. When students feel they have no place to bring their grievances, or that when they bring their grievances, nobody cares, then you open up the door for this kind of action. So much of what’s going on could have been avoided had the universities really cared and taken antisemitism seriously.
