Donald J. Trump met with roughly 30 reporters for Jewish media outlets and with Orthodox Jewish activists in his office on Thursday afternoon. It did not go entirely smoothly, according to published reports.
Midway through the meeting, according to the publication The Forward, Mr. Trump was asked how he would refer to what are commonly described as the West Bank settlements. Mr. Trump turned to Jason Greenblatt, who is not a campaign adviser, but is the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization.
Midway through the meeting, according to the publication The Forward, Mr. Trump was asked how he would refer to what are commonly described as the West Bank settlements. Mr. Trump turned to Jason Greenblatt, who is not a campaign adviser, but is the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization.
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| Donald J. Trump spoke at the New York State Republican Gala at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday. Damon Winter/The New York Times |
“Jason, how would you respond to that?” Mr. Trump said. He said that Mr. Greenblatt would better understand the issue. Mr. Greenblatt, in turn, said that he would not describe the land as “occupied” and that there was little reason to get “hung up on terminology,” according to The Forward’s account. Mr. Trump never directly answered the question.
The moment evoked a similar reach-for-an-aide episode, when, in an interview with reporters in September 2003, the retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a Democratic presidential candidate, struggled to answer questions about whether he would have supported the congressional authorization for the Iraq invasion that year.
“Mary, help!” Mr. Clark called out to his press secretary as they rode in his campaign plane. “Come back and listen to this.”
Mr. Trump did not make such an overt plea. But he struggled to answer a basic question about a tumultuous issue.
Later in the meeting, The Forward wrote, Mr. Trump described President Obama as “tremendously disloyal to Israel. Tremendously. And yet my Jewish friends go out and have fund-raisers for him.”
Mr. Trump also praised his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who had faced a battery charge in Florida, until prosecutors said on Thursday that they would not pursue it; he was accused of forcibly grabbing and bruising a reporter last month. The issue swamped the campaign and ate up attention and energy from Mr. Trump just as he was hoping to transition to a new phase of the race.
“Now tell my friends from, in some cases, Israel, how loyal was Mr. Trump to you?” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Lewandowski, according to the report.
“More than I could possibly fathom,” Mr. Lewandowski said. “I am so grateful.”
Mr. Trump told Mr. Lewandowski that he was proud of him, before adding, “He wasn’t quite as effective for the past couple of months.”
Yossi Gestetner, a Rockland County activist and a co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, said he had arranged the meeting, arguing that some politicians in New York “shun the Jewish community.”
Mr. Gestetner also disagreed with the take of the Forward piece. “I don’t think he struggled,” Mr. Gestetner said. “He smartly found a good way not to answer, which whatever he would have said would anyway be criticized by another segment involved in this issue.”
Maggie Haberman - www.nytimes.com