August, 21 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ayan Ajeen, 202-774-0770, aajeen@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com
CAIR Condemns Trump's Anti-Semitic 'Disloyal' Slurs Targeting American Jewish Community
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned Trump's doubling-down on his recent anti-Semitic slurs targeting the American Jewish community as "disloyal" if they vote for the opposing political party.
Earlier today, Trump said Jews who vote for Democrats are "very, very disloyal to Israel," invoking a "dual loyalty" trope widely viewed as anti-Semitic. On Tuesday, Trump said that "any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat" shows "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."
WASHINGTON
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned Trump's doubling-down on his recent anti-Semitic slurs targeting the American Jewish community as "disloyal" if they vote for the opposing political party.
Earlier today, Trump said Jews who vote for Democrats are "very, very disloyal to Israel," invoking a "dual loyalty" trope widely viewed as anti-Semitic. On Tuesday, Trump said that "any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat" shows "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."
Video: Trump Doubles Down on Anti-Semitic Slur Targeting American Jewish Community
"Trump's anti-Semitism and Islamophobia go hand in hand with his white supremacist and anti-immigrant agenda," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. "We condemn Trump's anti-Semitic slurs accusing American Jews of 'disloyalty' to a foreign nation if they exercise their constitutionally-guaranteed right to support his political opponents."
Hooper noted that CAIR and the American Muslim community have in the past expressed solidarity with Jewish, Christian, Native American, Hispanic, African-American, migrant, and Sikh communities in New Mexico, Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Alabama, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Ohio, Texas, and many other states following acts of hate, threats, violence, vandalism, arson, or bombings.
The Washington-based civil rights organization has reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.
CAIR-Florida Welcomes Arrest of Neo-Nazi Who Threatened to Exterminate Miami Hispanics
https://www.cair.com/cair_florida_welcomes_arrest_of_neo_nazi_who_threatened_to_exterminate_miami_hispanic
CAIR-Georgia Joins Columbus Muslim Community in Condemning Anti-Semitic Hate Targeting Local Synagogue
https://www.cair.com/cair_georgia_joins_columbus_muslim_community_in_condemning_anti_semitic_hate_targeting_local_synagogue
CAIR-NY Calls on Colonie Police to Probe Threats to Kill Muslims as Hate Crime
https://www.cair.com/cair_ny_calls_on_colonie_police_to_probe_threats_to_kill_muslims_as_hate_crime
CAIR Seeks Hate Crime Charge for Threat to Shoot D.C. Muslims
https://www.cair.com/cair_seeks_hate_crime_charge_for_threat_to_shoot_d_c_muslims
On November 9, CAIR will hold its 25th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C.
SEE: CAIR's 25th Annual Gala
https://www.cair.com/25th_anniversary_banquet
CAIR's mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La mision de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprension del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
(202) 488-8787LATEST NEWS
Senators Want to Know Why RFK Jr. Dined With Pharma Execs at Trump's Private Club
"You owe the American public an explanation for why you took part in PhRMA's influence-peddling events with President Trump," wrote Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Bernie Sanders.
Mar 11, 2025
A group of progressive U.S. senators on Monday pushed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, to disclose what he and President Donald Trump discussed with pharmaceutical executives at recent private dinners as the industry pressures the new administration to end Medicare drug price negotiations.
In a letter to Kennedy, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed to Wall Street Journalreporting from last month on the millions of dollars that healthcare industry executives spent to dine with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida ahead of his inauguration.
Kennedy, according to the Journal, "attended several of the dinners, but largely stayed quiet as Trump and others talked."
Warren, Wyden, and Sanders wrote to Kennedy that "the dinners may have served as an opportunity for Big Pharma to gain insider access to both you and President Trump" and asked the HHS chief to reveal information about the meetings with industry executives, including how many there have been since the November election and whether Medicare drug price negotiations or other critical matters were discussed.
"Big Pharma stands to profit immensely from a second Trump administration, especially if they can convince you and President Trump to abandon policies like Medicare drug price negotiations and patent reform that would save Americans hundreds of billions of dollars on lifesaving drugs," the senators wrote. "Indeed, the executives that attended these dinners have called on him to 'pause drug negotiations'—negotiations that are expected to save taxpayers $100 billion by 2032."
"You owe the American public an explanation for why you took part in PhRMA's influence-peddling events with President Trump, what happened at these meetings, and whether they will affect your commitment to ensuring that Americans receive the relief they deserve from high drug prices," the senators added.
RFK Jr. said he'd "clean up corruption" as HHS Secretary. So why'd he have dinner with Big Pharma executives at Mar-a-Lago with Trump? The American people deserve to know what kind of deals might have been made at those "million-dollar" dinners.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) March 10, 2025 at 7:29 PM
The Journal reported that the CEO of Pfizer, which pumped $1 million into Trump's inaugural committee, was among the executives who attended the private Mar-a-Lago dinners. Eli Lilly's chief executive also joined at least one of the dinners.
Though Kennedy, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, has vocally criticized Big Pharma and its political influence, the industry did not lobby against his nomination to lead HHS, which oversees the Medicare drug price negotiations that began during the Biden administration.
Last month, the head of the pharmaceutical industry's biggest lobbying group and several pharma CEOs met with Trump as part of a campaign to weaken the price negotiations, which threaten drugmakers' ability to jack up prices at will.
The negotiations have yielded significant results, but Trump's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—an agency within HHS—has signaled it is open to altering the program.
"The Trump administration's statement is far from an embrace of drug price negotiation," Wyden and other senators warned earlier this year, "and appears to be opening the door to changes that could undermine Medicare's ability to get the best price possible on drugs."
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Trump Attacks Public Service Workers With 'Blatantly Illegal' Loan Forgiveness Order
"Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order intended to limit a program that forgives the federal student loans of borrowers who take public service jobs has grown since he signed it on Friday.
Opponents frame the order as yet another attempt by Trump to quash dissent. The Republican president directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, in coordination with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to exclude "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."
The order targets employers "aiding or abetting" violations of federal immigration law and the administration's definition of illegal discrimination, engaging in a pattern of violating state law such as disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways, "supporting terrorism," and "child abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary states for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents."
Student Defense president Aaron Ament said in a statement that "when PSLF was created by a bipartisan act of Congress and signed into law by [President] George W. Bush, it was a promise from the United States government to its citizens—if you give back to America, America will give back to you."
"In the nearly two decades since, across administrations of both parties, Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the U.S. keeps its word," Ament continued. "Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine."
Nadine Chabrier, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, similarly highlighted "serious" First Amendment concerns, saying that "by penalizing individuals seeking loan forgiveness for their associations and the expressive conduct of their employers, new rulemakings could infringe on fundamental rights to speech and association."
"The executive order also undermines the very purpose of PSLF, which Congress established to encourage careers in public service across a broad range of fields," she said. "Stripping PSLF eligibility from nonprofit employees based on the nature of their work will deter skilled professionals from pursuing careers that benefit the public good, weaken critical services for underserved populations and hamper efforts to strengthen vulnerable communities."
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten explained that "PSLF is based on the idea that borrowers who make 10 years of repayments, and who often forgo higher wages in the private sector, can avoid a lifelong debt sentence."
The teachers union sued the Trump's first-term education secretary, Betsy DeVos, "and rogue loan servicers for their failure to administer the program—and we won," Weingarten noted. "This latest assault on borrowers' livelihoods is a cruel attempt to finish the demolition job that DeVos started. The goal is to sow chaos and confusion—separately, the PSLF application form has already been taken offline, making it effectively inaccessible."
The Economic Policy Institute pointed out Monday that "since the creation of the PSLF program, more than 1 million borrowers have received student loan forgiveness, largely due to fixes made under the Biden administration."
"More than 2 million individuals currently qualify for the PSLF program, according to the Department of Education," the think tank added. "The executive order could potentially narrow which organizations qualify for the program."
Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce blasted the order as "blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump's MAGA agenda."
"It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities," Pierce warned. "Teachers, nurses, service members, and other public service workers deserve better than to be used as pawns in Donald Trump's radical right-wing political project to destroy civil society. This will raise costs for working people while doing nothing to make America safer or healthier."
In addition to scathing critiques, some groups threatened to challenge the order. Weingarten vowed that "the AFT won't stop fighting, in court and in Congress, until every single public service worker gets the help the law affords them."
Ament declared that "if the Trump administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court."
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'Free Mahmoud Khalil': Progressives Demand Release of 'Disappeared' Columbia Grad
"If the feds can snatch up an American green card holder for speech they don't like and get away with it, they won't stop here. They'll be able to erase the right to speech they don't agree with and kidnap anyone who dares resist."
Mar 10, 2025
Condemning the Trump administration and immigration officials for detaining and imprisoning Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a warning for those who believe the arrest is an isolated incident rather than an indication of the president's approach to dissenters.
"If the federal government can disappear a legal U.S. permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear U.S. citizens too," said the New York Democrat. "Anyone—left, right, or center—who has highlighted the importance of constitutional rights and free speech should be sounding the alarm now."
Khalil, a graduate of Columbia who was a student at the school until December, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday evening as he was returning home to his university-owned apartment with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. He is reportedly being held in Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, over a thousand miles away from home, while the Trump administration works to revoke his green card under the State Department's "catch and revoke" initiative launched last week with the goal of deporting students who are deemed to be "pro-Hamas."
Khalil, who is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, was an organizer of the solidarity encampment that was erected on Columbia's New York City campus last spring to demand the school divest from companies that have supported Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Jewish-led rights groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow were among those demanding his release on Monday, and a group of Columbia faculty members were preparing to give a press conference alongside Jewish leaders and immigrant rights defenders to speak out against "the unprecedented and unconstitutional arrest of a permanent resident and Columbia graduate student in retaliation for his political activity."
IfNotNow said that ICE had "abducted and disappeared" Khalil and that the attack on his constitutional rights "enables [President Donald] Trump's authoritarian consolidation of power against his political opponents.
The group condemned the Trump administration for "carrying out this authoritarian lurch under the guise of fighting for Jewish safety."
In New York, hundreds of people gathered Monday afternoon in front of the city's ICE office to demand Khalil's release.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, said the arrest and efforts to deport Khalil are "an assault on our First Amendment and freedom of speech."
The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also spoke out against Khalil's arrest, noting that after he was taken away, his pregnant wife had "no idea where" he was. She attempted to visit him at a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she was told he was being held, but he was not there.
"This should terrify everyone," said the Democratic lawmakers. "So pro-'freedom of speech' that Republicans will DETAIN you if you disagree with them."
While Columbia University officials released statements in recent days about "reports of ICE around campus" and said the Ivy League school "has and will continue to follow the law," administrators have not spoken out about Khalil's detention or demanded his release.
Columbia administrators faced condemnation last year for their crackdown on student protests against the United States' support for Israel's assault on Gaza, which had killed tens of thousands of Palestinians when the demonstrations started, with ample evidence that Israel was targeting civilian infrastructure and not just Hamas targets.
Zeteoreported that Khalil reached out to the administration the day before his arrest, asking officials to "provide the necessary protections" and expressing fear over the Trump administration's threats.
Khalil told officials he had been "subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation."
"I haven't been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm," Khalil wrote.
New York City Council member Chi Ossé said that "every Democratic politician and American with a conscience" should speak out against Khalil's detention.
"They're not doing this despite his rights," said Ossé. "They're doing this because of his rights—they're violating the Constitution on purpose, testing the fragile system to see what they can get away with... If the feds can snatch up an American green card holder for speech they don't like and get away with it, they won't stop here. They'll be able to erase the right to speech they don't agree with and kidnap anyone who dares resist."
Ossé called on all those who support civil and constitutional rights to "flood the phones" of members of Congress and demand they push for Khalil's release.
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