The president claims ignorance of the term’s antisemitic connotations when he used it to characterize shady moneylenders during a speech.
Right after Trump returned from a rally in Iowa, he spoke to reporters, saying, “never heard it that way” and “never heard that” the word was a derogatory slur against Jews.
In Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” the villain Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who wants a pound of flesh from a debtor.
The word “evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights antisemitism. It is deeply concerning and reckless of President Trump to use the language.
In 2014, Democratic vice president Joe Biden apologized for using the term “poor choice” the day after making his comments to a legal aid group.
Combating antisemitism is an important goal for Trump’s administration. His government has claimed that it checks immigration applications for antisemitic sentiment, and it has been at odds with Harvard University over claims that the latter has allowed antisemitism to flourish.
The president, who is Republican, has a history of capitalizing on Jewish stereotypes, though.
“You want to control your politicians” was his 2015 message to the Republican Jewish Coalition, during which he also advised that the audience utilize money as a means of exerting influence.
Trump was heavily criticized for having dinner at his Florida club with a white nationalist who denied the Holocaust before he began his presidential campaign in 2024.
On many occasions last year, Trump accused Democratic Jewish Americans of betrayal due to their party’s critiques of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to its detractors, it upheld an antisemitic stereotype that Jews are split along religious lines and that there is only one authentic Jewish identity.
Trump used the phrase Thursday night in his address to the Iowa audience, when he was addressing the passage of his flagship legislation by Congress earlier in the day.
According to him, there would be no taxes on death or estates, and he warned against borrowing money from “some fine bankers” and “some shylocks and bad people” in the banking system.
“No, I’ve never heard it that way,” Trump said to a reporter’s follow-up question on the word’s antisemitic connotations and his stated intention. A high-interest moneylender is, in my view, a shylock. That’s how I’ve always heard it. I don’t see it the way you do. I’m not familiar with that.
By using the term, Trump “underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. We anticipate greater candor from our nation’s chief executive because of the weight we give to his statements.