Bernie Sanders Releases Campaign Video Casting Donald Trump As Threat To Jews
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has released a campaign video casting President Donald Trump as a threat to Jews, reports Haaretz.
In the four-minute video, Sanders — who would be the first Jewish president in United States history — talks about his roots and heritage, depicting Trump as a key figure in the growing threat of white nationalism. The social media advertisement is a compilation of Sanders’ statements juxtaposed with footage of the senator campaigning across the country.
The clip is narrated by Joel Rubin, the Sanders campaign’s Jewish outreach director.
“Jewish values teach us that community matters, that tolerance matters, that engaging the other matters,” Rubin states in the video, noting that friends of his parents were among the victims of the 2018 The Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
The narrator also touches upon Trump’s rhetoric and policies, calling the president a “white nationalist.”
“We live in a perilous time where not only are white nationalists attacking our synagogues and raising hate speech on the internet, we have a white nationalist right now sitting in the White House.”
“We need to have someone in office who gets it, gets it in his kishkes, understands what it really means to ensure that we are healing our world,” Rubin says in the video.
Sanders has emphasized his Jewish roots throughout the 2020 campaign, which he was reluctant to do in 2016 when he first ran for president. He ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As Haaretz notes, the latest Sanders campaign video does not address Israel policy, but the candidate has previously said that he would be willing to leverage military aid to Israel in order to force the country to change its official policy toward the Palestinian people.
I'm very proud to be Jewish and I look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country. pic.twitter.com/P4ARCyMZJG
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 24, 2020
Sanders is one of the leading Democratic White House hopefuls. The senator appears to be surging at just the right time, and he is now leading the field in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, according to most recent polls.
Polling at 25 percent in the Hawkeye State, Sanders has a seven-point advantage over his closest competitor, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Sanders has also surged in New Hampshire, where he has a commanding, double-digit lead over Buttigieg. In national polls, former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the field.
Polling also suggests that the senator would be a clear favorite in a general election against Trump. According to a recently leaked recording of Trump’s private conversations, the president considers Sanders to be a formidable opponent, and feared running against the senator in 2016.
