President Trump lashed out at a group of progressive lawmakers at a rally with evangelical supporters Friday, accusing the freshmen congresswomen of being anti-Semitic.
“These people hate Israel. They hate Jewish people,” Trump said at a campaign event in Miami launching his “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition.
“I won’t name them. I won’t bring up the name of Omar, Tlaib, AOC. I won’t bring that name up. Won’t bring it up. I will not bring it up,” he added, referring to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
The lawmakers, who make up three-fourths of the group of progressive congresswomen known as “the squad,” are a favorite target of Trump’s, who has repeatedly gone after the House member’s criticism of Israel amid his early reelection efforts.
Trump sparked outrage on Capitol Hill in August when he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should block Tlaib and Omar from visiting the country. Israel later did so, despite earlier vows by officials to welcome any members of Congress to the country.
The president also said in July the four progressive women should “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came” in a tweet that was widely panned as racist. All four are U.S. citizens, and only Omar was born abroad.
Omar in particular has raised eyebrows with her comments about Israel, suggesting that powerful Jews inside and outside of Congress are pushing “allegiance to a foreign country” over their support for the state.
Those comments stirred debate in the Democratic caucus last year and led to the House passing a measure broadly condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred, a resolution that the Minnesota lawmaker herself ended up supporting.