Skip to main content
President Donald Trump—"the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen in your life," according to himself—today told a gathering of state attorneys general that a wave of terroristic threats targeting Jewish community centers around the country that the crimes were perhaps staged to make to make certain non-Jews "look bad."
"Sometimes it's the reverse, to make people—or to make others—look bad," Trump said, in comments related to reporters earlier today by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who had asked Trump about anti-Semitic hate crime.
Trump's comments led to an immediate demand for clarification from the Anti-Defamation League, and a condemnation from the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which declared that Trump had "gone over the anti-Semitic deep end" and demanded an apology on behalf of America's 8 million Jews.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum was at the meeting in the East Room of the White House with "most" of her colleagues from other states. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to the co-owner of WW's parent company.)
Rosenblum tells WW that she would also like President Trump to clarify his remarks. "I was pretty stunned. To be honest, I really wasn't sure what he meant at first," Rosenblum says. "I was confused. I still am. Because he said it was terrible what happened. He was acknowledging what happened but, at the same time, suggesting it was the reverse, and to make others look bad.
"It seemed like he was really questioning whether it was done by anti-Semitic people," she adds.
"I was shocked. Both Josh Shapiro and I are Jewish. There are other Jewish attorneys general in the room. I haven't spoken to them all. You don't have to be Jewish to be shocked by a statement like that," Rosenblum goes on.
She hopes that Trump will clarify what he meant in his remarks to the country tonight. "It will be important to hear what he says," she adds. "I just hope and pray he doesn't say that [again] tonight."
Rosenblum says Trump seemed excited to show the AGs around the Oval Office and that he was less bombastic and more charming than in his televised persona. "It had a feeling of being a part of his victory tour a bit, even though we were visiting there," Rosenblum says.
As for the other burning question for Oregonians: "Marijuana policy definitely did not come up with Trump," Rosenblum says. However, at a meeting earlier today with US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, it came up unprompted.
"No one asked [Sessions] about it. A few of us were maybe thinking about it. Oh my gosh—he just doesn't like marijuana," Rosenblum says. "He kinda made fun of something he had heard about marijuana being an answer to the opioid epidemic. He clearly hasn't been well briefed on the marijuana issues as they currently stand in the states. I think he's not making the connections that are important to make in terms of what's happening in the industry. I think…legalizing marijuana actually reduces the drugs going across the border."