Speaking to Syrian Jewish real estate developers and others on the New Jersey shoreline, former President and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump claimed Vice President Kamala Harris “hates Israel,” said Schumer “is going Palestinian” and criticized President Joe Biden on Iran.

Former President Donald Trump, speaking Sunday at a campaign event in Deal, New Jersey — home to a large Syrian Jewish population — pledged to help Israel win its war against Hamas if elected in November, reiterating his claim that “the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023 would not have happened if he were still in office.”

The minimum donation to attend the event, which was held at the Chera family’s summer home, was $3,300. Among those who contributed between $250,000 and $500,000 to host or co-host the event were real estate developers Joseph Cayer, Ben Askenazy, Henry Adjmi, Joe Moinian, and Richard Chera, who hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his home in Elberon, New Jersey, in 2020 and whose father, Stanley, was a close friend of the former president. Others included casino mogul Steve Wynn and Charles Kushner, whose son Jared is Trump’s son-in-law and owns a home on the Jersey Shore near the border, according to the Jewish Insider.

The event's non-donor hosts included Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) and former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).

Trump spoke in a large outdoor tent in front of American flags, approached the stage to the tune of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," and proceeded to talk about Israel, Iran, Jewish voters, Vice President Kamala Harris and more for 36 minutes.

On Israel, Trump said: “We had a small introductory meeting of 25 people, and a couple of them were talking about the problems we have with China and the problems we have with other countries. I said, ‘Well, we have a problem with Israel. We have to say this. Israel is in big trouble. All the things you see happening would not have happened; October 7th would not have happened if I were president.’”

“We’ll be fine with China,” Trump added. “We have a bigger problem with Israel; Israel is under siege; Israel is under attack. That was a big weapon that came in yesterday and killed 13 beautiful children and I’ve never seen death so clearly displayed not on a battlefield. They showed these little children … in a situation that — I’ve never seen anything like it … That will wake people up and they will do something about what’s going on.”

“Israel is under attack. Israel — I don’t know if I should say this, but it’s true — it’s not doing good PR. I had a meeting with Bibi [Netanyahu] at Mar-a-Lago [Florida]. We had a good meeting, a strong meeting, and he wants to be able to win this war. … He’s getting huge bribes, and when you see something like what happened yesterday, you realize that something is going to happen very, very quickly. We have to do one thing, we have to elect me because if I’m elected, it’s going to be over.”

“I got the Golan Heights [even though the Israelis] didn’t even ask for it. I recognized [Jerusalem] as the capital of Israel. I recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” he explained. “Just so you know, the Golan Heights, they’ve been chasing it for 81 years [Israel occupied it in 1967 – LH]… I asked [former ambassador to Israel] David Friedman and I asked a few other people to give me a lesson, five minutes or less, about the Golan Heights, and they did. They said it’s very important for security because of the height. It’s a very large piece of land and a very important location. I said thank you and thought about it for a day. Nobody asked me. I got the Golan Heights.”

“I got the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, and more importantly, I got the embassy built,” he repeated. Trump went on to rave about the cost-cutting of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the beauty of the Jerusalem stone, concluding: “It’s beautiful and we got it done. We spent $500,000, renovated the building and opened it. If I hadn’t opened the building, this administration would have changed it and taken the capital.”

On Jewish voters, Trump said: “I do all these things. When I first ran, I said, I understand; even though I have a wonderful son-in-law who is Jewish, a daughter who is Jewish, my grandchildren are Jewish — Charlie Kushner (his son-in-law Jared’s father) will confirm that I have Jewish grandchildren — but I have done nothing so far. Republicans usually get 20% of the Jewish vote. I got 25%, that was not good. Now, I did the Golan Heights, I reversed the Iran nuclear deal — Bibi begged Obama not to sign, it was a terrible deal, it’s a short cut to a nuclear weapon, a very short-term deal … I ended it. I did all these things for Israel, and then you add Jared who was very involved in the Abraham Accords …”

“I do all these things. No president has ever been as good to Israel as I have been, and I got 26%. I went from 25 to 26%. I’ve been watching for the last two years, watching you get destroyed by this stupid human being in the White House. He’s a stupid president, corrupt Joe Biden… What happened is, think about it, I do all these things. This is not a trade-off. I was incredible for Israel. I got an extra point.”…

“For all of this, I ended up with 26%. I will say this, I did very well in Miami… but this shouldn’t happen. We have to win this election. We need Jews to vote for Trump. If you don’t have Jews voting for Republicans, including people in the House, including people in the Senate, you’re not going to have Israel for a long time.” He stressed: “Jews should vote for Donald Trump, and if they don’t – I’ll tell you what Bibi Netanyahu agrees with. I said, ‘Bibi, I have to ask you a question. How do Jewish people vote for Democrats?’ He said it’s a habit.”

“Democrats hate Israel. Democrats hate the Jewish people to a great extent; it is time for the Jewish people to step up and vote Republican and vote for Donald Trump and we will save Israel.”

On Iran: “[The Trump administration] had absolutely no problem with terrorism because Iran was broke when I was president. You couldn’t buy oil there and if you bought oil or anything else and helped them, you were under sanctions like no one had ever seen before. If you bought, you couldn’t do business with the United States. I was picked by four countries… They were cut off immediately and then they were very nice and very good. Iran had no money.”

“Whether it’s Hamas or Hezbollah, they all get their money from Iran, and nobody wants to talk about it. Biden is pathetic, he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“So you got the embassy, you got the Golan Heights, you got the Abraham Accords. The biggest thing, frankly, was to end the Iran nuclear deal. The problem is, Biden didn’t do anything with it. Iran was bankrupt. “If that [2020] election hadn’t been rigged, we could have had a deal in a week with Iran, and what did you want? One thing. You can’t have a nuclear weapon. Everybody would have been happy. You could have done that. But when the election was different than they envisioned, we had a big problem. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

“Iran didn’t play with me either. We took out [Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem] Soleimani… Israel was under no pressure — there were no attacks, no money, no one had money and no money for terrorism. Frankly, Iran was broke. They had $200 million and now they have $300 billion and they did it in a short period of time, 3.5 years from the time I left office. China was allowed to come back. China wasn’t buying any oil [before] because I said if you buy oil, there’s no business with the United States and there’s a 100 percent tariff.”

Regarding Vice President Kamala Harris (the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to face Trump), the former president said: “I’ll tell you the bad news, she [Harris] hates Israel.”

“We have this new [candidate] who wants to defund the police… They tried to eliminate all the defunding the police and all the other things she wants to do. She should be easier than him [Biden]… There’s a reason she was bad the first time [she ran for president, in 2020]. Why is she better now? She has the shield of the press… She was seen as one of the dumbest people, one of the worst people… And now they’re making her look like Margaret Thatcher. … She’s not smart. But she’s fierce. She has a new way of dealing with it. There’s been no one fiercer than Joe Biden. When he picked her, I was surprised because she called him a racist with the bus, remember.”

On Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y., Jewish) and other Democrats' positions on Israel: "What about [Sen. Chuck] Schumer? I know him. As you know, I gave him great support in his first political contribution. ... Now he's a Palestinian. What happened to this guy? He's not for Israel."

“You have a lot of people, Jews in this country who hate Israel. Somebody has to teach these people who hate Israel that Israel is a good thing, not a bad thing. You have people at the New York Times, which is basically run by a Jewish family, and they hate Israel. They treat them very badly. I’ve read articles and now that I’m interested in it a lot, I’ve read a lot… The level of hatred they have for Israel is unbelievable. You have people like Schumer, you have politicians who are really going the other way. I think there might be more voices or something like that. “Fifteen years ago, Israel was the most powerful lobby in the United States. You couldn’t say anything bad about Israel. If you said anything bad about Israel, you were thrown out of politics… You were gone, you didn’t have a chance. Today, it’s almost the opposite. Jews who are elected as officials like Schumer are afraid to say anything good about Israel.”