Donald Trump has compared the rise of antisemitism in America to Nazi Germany in 1938, warning that anti-Jewish hatred had reached levels he never expected to witness in the United States.
“I’m amazed to see it,” the US president told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday. “This is like Germany in 1938 or whatever. It’s, like, crazy what’s going on.”
The comparison came just days after the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the nationwide Nazi pogrom of November 1938 that marked a decisive escalation in the persecution of Germany’s Jews.
Trump pointed to the disproportionate number of antisemitic attacks in America. “When you look at the attacks on people, the racial attacks and the attacks, they’re, I guess, 57 per cent on Jewish people, and you wouldn’t believe it,” he said.
According to the FBI, Jews were the victims of 63 per cent of all reported religion-based hate crimes in 2025, despite accounting for only about two per cent of the US population.
Anti-Jewish hatred surged following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, although Trump suggested that the trend had begun considerably earlier, during Barack Obama's presidency.
Asked what his administration was doing to combat antisemitism, Trump highlighted its campaign against universities accused of failing to protect Jewish students.
“Harvard’s antisemitic,” he declared, pointing to the financial penalties faced by universities over their handling of anti-Jewish discrimination.
His administration has used the threat of withdrawing federal research funding to pressure universities into taking tougher action, while also pursuing financial settlements.
Trump suggested that much of the prejudice remained concealed from public view.
“When you go around, you don’t see it so much. It’s very much hidden,” he said. “It’s amazing. Maybe that’s the worst kind.”
The president also expressed bewilderment at the support Jewish voters had given Abdul El-Sayed, the newly elected Democratic senator from Michigan. El-Sayed is an outspoken opponent of Israel who has called for an end to American military assistance to the Jewish state.
“If you look at El-Sayed in Michigan, he got more votes than the Republican candidate got by quite a bit from Jewish people,” Trump said. “It’s not even understandable. It’s a tough group to get.”
During his campaign, El-Sayed appeared alongside anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker. A political action committee associated with Piker's uncle, Cenk Uygur, also financed an advertisement linking rising grocery prices to American aid for Israel that was widely denounced as antisemitic.
El-Sayed has also faced criticism over his response to an attack on Temple Israel synagogue near Detroit in March. Although he condemned the assault, which the FBI described as “Hezbollah-inspired”, El-Sayed also pointed to the family circumstances of the attacker, Ayman Ghazali, whose relatives had reportedly been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, including a brother whom the IDF identified as a Hezbollah commander.
“Hurt people hurt people,” he said at the time, remarks for which he subsequently apologised.
Trump's comments followed another controversy in Philadelphia, where pro-Palestinian activists organised a bicycle ride targeting Jewish-owned businesses for boycott on the eve of the Kristallnacht anniversary.
Local Jewish organisations condemned the protest as antisemitic, citing its focus on Jewish businesses and its timing. Organisers insisted that the date had been chosen coincidentally.
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