President Donald Trump’s latest anti-Semitic trope is going to make it “much much harder” for Republicans to hold control of the White House in 2020, the former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) explained on MSNBC on Tuesday.

Michael Steele was interviewed by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on “Hardball.”

“There’s a long-respected leader of what’s called Jewish Republicans, Matt Brooks — I’ve known him for a long time — this guy has the job of helping get votes, Republican votes, in the community, which generally votes Democrats,” Matthews noted. “What is he going to deal with this baby, this assault on religious identity and trying to claim you must vote your group?”

“You already had the Republican Jewish group come out and sort of back the president up, so you’re going to have reinforcements that way,” Steele noted.

In fact, Brooks himself defended the president.

As I said there’s a significant distinction between questioning one’s loyalty to themselves and their community (Trump) and questioning one’s loyalty to your country (Lieu) https://t.co/fMOgCJgD3n

— Matt Brooks (@mbrooksrjc) August 20, 2019

.@mbrooksrjc defends Trump’s statement: “Of course the president was not trafficking in dual loyalty and antisemitism.” https://t.co/nG6kq3IQFd

— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) August 20, 2019

“What else is he going to do, what can he do? The reality is Trump has consistently put the party in a position where it has to defend the indefensible, to a point where it is so weak-kneed, it has no other choice but to stand next to him, and go, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh, what he said,’” Steele explained.

“The reality for us politically on the right, on the Republican side, going into next year’s election is that now you’ve got one more group, one more, you know, community of individuals that are going to make that conversation much much harder to get their vote for our candidate,” Steele added.

“All I hear is gunfire on 5th Avenue, he keeps shooting people on 5th avenue and he keeps getting away it,” Matthews added.

Watch:

A Miami police officer is suspended after video surfaced showing him tossing Jewish items into a pile of garbage.

the officer, Sgt. Roberto Destephan, is shown on video tossing a case into a pickup truck bed filled with garbage. The case is carved with a Star of David. As he discards the box, he says, “we don’t need this (expletive) either man.”

He then tosses a Tanakh — a book of Jewish holy texts, including the Torah — into the pile.

“This crap, (expletive) this,” he says on the tape as he discards the book. He then turned the camera on himself, saying “Take out the trash, dawg.”

In response, Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina has suspended Destephan pending an investigation by internal affairs. The chief called the actions of Destephan “anti-Semitic” and “inconsistent with the mission and values” of the local police” in a press release from the department.

The Miami Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police claims that the video is “heavily edited” and “doesn’t capture the full and entire conversation,” stating that it was filmed several years ago during a mold and termite cleanup at a FOP union office.

The FOP also says the video’s release is “political blackmail” against Destephen, who serves as the union’s Vice President.

Watch the video below:

Image via screen capture from video source.

Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers was a regular poster to the social media website Gab, even posting in the minutes leading up to his deadly attack that left 11 people dead.

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in,” said Bowers in his last post on Gab before he opened fire on congregants celebrating a bris in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s largely Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

He sent his post to Gab at 9:49 a.m. Police received the first 911 call about the shooting at 9:54 a.m., just five minutes later.

Gab has long been a refuge for members of the far right. Promoting themselves as a “free speech” alternate to Twitter, the site was created in August of 2016 after concerns that Facebook was “suppressing” conservative speech. It gained prominence in far-right circles after Twitter issues permanent suspensions for many far-right accounts.

In the wake of the shooting spree, Gab had suspended Bowers’ account, and issued a statement saying that the site “unequivocally disavows and condemns all acts of terrorism and violence.”

PayPal and Stripe did not feel Gab did enough to curb the activity of Bowers and others, and cut off their support of Gab. This effectively stifled Gab’s revenue streams: Gab doesn’t have advertising and relies of the sales of “Pro” accounts.

Gab’s host, Joylent, is also moving to suspend the service for Terms of Service violations, giving Gab 24 hours to find another host. They lost their previous hosting service, Azure, in August.

Bowers had showed off several photos of his weapons to his social media account. He also had made several angry comments focused on Jewish people, refugees, and even President Donald Trump.

He felt Trump was “too soft” on Jewish people.

HAIS — mentioned in his final post to Gab — refers to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization dedicated to protecting refugees who have had to flee their homelands to remain safe.

Bowers appears to be an adherent to the far-right belief that Jewish people, most notably George Soros, are funding refugees and other immigrants in order to cause a “great replacement” of the predominately white majority from Europe and the United States.

Gab has called on President Trump to help them in the wake of their suspensions.

Image via social media