Trump criticized for using antisemitic slur in Iowa speech
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — President Donald Trump celebrated the passage of his massive tax and policy bill during a “Salute to America” event in Des Moines, Iowa, a day ahead of the Fourth of July.
Jewish advocacy groups slammed President Donald Trump for using an anti-Semitic descriptor on Thursday during his Iowa speech celebrating the passage of his spending bill.
Trump used the term “Shylocks,” which evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jewish people and greed, to talk about the tax changes in the bill.
“No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and bar exam from, in some cases a fine banker, and in some cases Shylocks and bad people, but they took away a lot of family. They destroyed a lot of families, but we did the opposite,” he told the crowd.
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, July 3, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
Shylock is a reference to the name of the Jewish moneylender and villain in playwright William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” who demands a “pound of flesh” from protagonist Antonio.
The Anti-Defamation League on Friday morning criticized the president, reiterating that the term is “extremely offensive and dangerous.”
“President Trump’s use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible. It underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words from our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States,” the organization said in a statement.
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, also condemned Trump’s comments, saying in a statement it was one of “the most quintessential antisemitic stereotypes.”
“This is not an accident. It follows years in which Trump has normalized antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories — and it’s deeply dangerous,” she added.
Trump was asked about his use of the word after he returned to Washington D.C. early Friday. The president, who has made combating antisemitism in schools a priority in his administration, claimed he has “never heard it that way.”
“To me, Shylock is somebody that’s a money lender at high rates. I’ve never heard it that way. You view it differently than me. I’ve never heard that,” Trump claimed.
This is not the first time that an executive branch member came under fire for using the term.
In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden took heat for using the term during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Legal Services Corporation, referring to predatory bankers as “these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas.”
Biden apologized after then-Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman criticized the use of the term.
“He’s correct, it was a poor choice of words, particularly as he said coming from ‘someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden.’ He’s right,” Biden said in a statement.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has reached an agreement in principle to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a pro-Trump rioter who was shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The details of the proposed settlement were not made clear during a Friday hearing before federal Judge Ana Reyes, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Babbitt’s family members sued the government in January 2024 seeking $30 million for what they allege was her wrongful shooting death by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd.
Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing following an internal investigation into the actions leading up to his shooting of Babbitt as she tried to climb through a broken window that led to the House Speaker’s Lobby, where several lawmakers and their staff were sheltering from rioters.
Babbitt’s attorneys disclosed the agreement in principle was reached during the hearing, which was convened on an emergency basis after one of Babbitt’s prior attorneys sought a preliminary injunction on Friday to ensure he received payment for his work on the case if a settlement was formally announced.
Robert Sticht, the lawyer for Babbitt’s family, said he expected the family to sign the formal settlement agreement within the next three weeks.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his solidarity with Babbitt’s family and called for “justice” for what he has said was her “murder” at Byrd’s hands — in line with his broader vocal support for the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In March, Trump said in an interview with Newsmax he wasn’t aware of the lawsuit brought by Babbitt’s family but promised he would “look into” it.
“I’m a big fan of Ashli Babbitt, OK, and Ashli Babbitt was a really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan, and she was innocently standing there — they even say trying to sort of hold back the crowd,” Trump said. “And a man did something unthinkable to her when he shot her, and I think it’s a disgrace. I’m going to look into that. I did not know that.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is hosting South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday amid tensions between the two nations over the U.S. resettlement of white South Africans.
Trump and other top officials have claimed that a race-based “genocide” is unfolding against white farmers in the country. South African officials, including Ramaphosa, have vehemently pushed back, arguing that is not the case.
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” President Trump said last week. “Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”
That same day, the first flight of Afrikaners arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport.
Ramaphosa responded that the individuals who went to the U.S. “do not fit the definition of a refugee” — someone who is leaving their country out of fear of persecution due to race, religion, political opinion or nationality.
“And I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone, and I — he asked, he said, ‘What’s happening down there?'” Ramaphosa said. “And I said, ‘President, what you’ve been told by those people who are opposed to transformation back home in South Africa is not true.'”
The South African government, in a statement last week, said its police statistics on farm-related crimes “do not support allegations of violent crime targeted at farmers generally or any particular race.”
The dozens of Afrikaners who arrived in the U.S. last week had their applications fast-tracked under an executive order issued by Trump in February titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.”
The order contends the South African government passed a law allowing it to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation” in a “shocking disregard of its’ citizen rights.” It instructs that the U.S. will not provide aid or assistance to the nation, and that the U.S. “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees.”
The law passed by South Africa cited by the administration aims to address land injustices established during apartheid. It states land can be expropriated in the public interest and in most cases must be subject to compensation, the amount of which must have been agreed to by the owners or approved by court. Experts say the law is comparable to similar legislation around the world regarding eminent domain.
In addition to Trump’s executive order, his administration expelled South Africa’s Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from the U.S. earlier this year.
Trump has been scrutinized for prioritizing Afrikaners while moving to restrict immigration from elsehwere, including from Afghanistan, Venezuela and Haiti.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked to defend the administration’s position while testifying before a Senate panel on Tuesday.
“I think those 49 people that came strongly felt they were persecuted, and they passed every sort of check mark that needed to be checked off,” Rubio said. “The president identified it as a problem and wanted to use it as an example.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said he believed the claim there is persecution of Afrikaner farmers was “completely specious” and noted the U.S. hadn’t let in Black South Africans during apartheid.
“I think that the United States has a right to allow into this country and prioritize the allowance of who they want to allow it come in,” Rubio responded.
Elon Musk, a South African native and a top adviser to the president during his second term, has also been vocal about the plight of South African landowners, amplifying claims of “white genocide.”
Ramaphosa on Tuesday projected optimism about the upcoming talks with Trump.
“We’re always ready and we hope to have really good discussions with President Trump and his fellow government colleagues. Looking forward to a really good and positive meeting, and we’re looking forward to a really good outcome for our country, for our people, for the jobs in our country and good trade relations,” Ramaphosa told reporters as he arrived at the South African Embassy in Washington.
He said trade is the “the most important, that is what has brought us here” and that they want to strengthen economic ties between the two nations in a video posted to X. Ramaphosa also said he and Trump will discuss Israel as well as Russia and Ukraine.
Ramaphosa didn’t mention the United States’ prioritization of the resettlement of white South African refugees in the videos posted to social media, though he vowed to protect South Africa’s sovereignty.
“We will always do what is best for South Africans,” he said.
ABC News’ Shannon Kingston contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — More than 900 former Justice Department employees sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday urging lawmakers to vote down the nomination of Emil Bove, the controversial top DOJ official who formerly served as President Donald Trump’s defense attorney, to a seat on the powerful Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
“We are all alarmed by DOJ leadership’s recent deviations from constitutional principles and institutional guardrails. We also share a grave concern over the senseless attacks on the dedicated career employees who are the backbone of the Department,” the employees wrote in their letter. “Emil Bove has been a leader in this assault.”
The letter was organized by Justice Connection, a group that has sought to provide legal support for DOJ employees fired or otherwise targeted by the Trump administration.
It comes just one day before Bove’s nomination is set to be voted out of the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, where Republican members appear to be unanimous in their approval of him being confirmed for the lifetime appointment on the appeals court that oversees districts in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Bove has repeatedly drawn criticism from Democrats in the opening six months of Trump’s presidency for cultivating a reputation as one of President Trump’s chief enforcers at DOJ.
He has fired scores of one-time career officials at Main Justice and the FBI, including prosecutors who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump as well as the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Bove also was at the center of the department’s controversial decision to drop the federal corruption case against New York Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, which led to the resignations of multiple prosecutors who argued the effort appeared to be a ‘quid pro quo’ to secure Adams’ cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions.
Adams and Bove have both denied any such ‘quid pro quo’ arrangement, but in agreeing to drop the charges the federal judge overseeing Adams’ case dinged the Justice Department writing, “Everything here smacks of a bargain.”
“Mr. Bove’s trampling over institutional norms in this case, and in others, sent shockwaves through the ranks — cratering morale, triggering mass departures, and eroding the effectiveness of DOJ’s vital work,” the more than 900 prosecutors wrote of Bove’s actions. “Prosecutorial authority carries profound consequences on individuals’ lives and the integrity of our public institutions; wielding it without impartiality is a flagrant abuse of that power.”
More recently, however, Bove’s actions have come under scruitny as the subject of a whistleblower complaint by fired DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who has accused Bove and other top DOJ officials of repeatedly discussing how they could potentially disobey court orders that seek to restrict the Trump Administration’s immigration actions.
Reuveni’s complaint alleged that in one meeting Bove suggested saying ‘f— you’ to courts who may try to block deportations under the ‘Alien Enemies Act.’
During his confirmation hearing, Bove disputed much of Reuveni’s complaint — though he only said he could “not recall” using such an expletive to describe their response to a court order.
“Each one of the undersigned would testify, under oath, that we have never — and would never — tell a Justice Department attorney to consider defying a court order,” the letter said. “Moreover, the Justice Department’s later defiance of judicial mandates in the cases where Mr. Bove previewed doing so further suggests that disregarding court orders was Mr. Bove’s intent all along.”
Republicans on the committee rushed to Bove’s defense in the wake of the whistleblower complaint, and accused Reuveni of partnering with Democrats in seeking to tank Bove’s nomination by filing it with the committee just 24 hours before he was set to appear publicly before them.
Responding to the letter Wednesday, DOJ official Brian Nieves attacked Justice Connection as a “political hit squad masquerading as a support network” and said “they certainly don’t speak for DOJ.”
“They speak for a bitter faction angry they no longer call the shots,” said Nieves, a deputy chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Their attacks on Emil Bove are dishonest, coordinated, and disgraceful.”
