Trump Keeps His Word to the Jews: Exclusive interview with the man behind the Executive Order which shook the world

Exclusive Interview with Rabbi Yehudah Kaploun, a long-time ally of President Donald Trump who was instrumental in the president’s decision to sign an executive order this week to deport people who engage in antisemitic protests or who target Jews. He spoke with Belaaz about the executive order and how it came to be. 

By Matis Glenn

What can you tell us about how the executive order that Trump signed yesterday came to be? 

This executive order is a testament to what the President promised that he would do at meetings with Jewish leaders during the campaign, and the President is keeping his word exactly as to the details of what he discussed during the campaign, like at the events that took place in Bedminster with Dr. Miriam Adelson, myself and 300 various Jewish leaders.

Rabbi Kaploun added that: The President laid out a campaign to combat antisemitism; how he would do it, as if, if he was elected President of the United States, and he laid out a very specific plan. If you were a student on a foreign visa, and you were doing something that was illegal, or going to an event to promote terrorism, and you were arrested, you’re going to be lose your visa and be deported. If you’re a university that doesn’t provide safety for Jewish students and allows these protests that are pro terroristic behavior to move forward, then you’re going to lose your government funding. And what the President did was clearly lay out his agenda straight up, that it’s not okay to write “free Hamas” on a U.S. monument, that those people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Jewish community as a whole is going to be protected with religious liberty and rights for all that have been promised, and if a campus is going to be so radical that they’re not going to defend the Jewish students and allow Jewish students to be bullied on campus, the result will be the loss of their government funding.

Schools and high schools and other places that deal with education materials that are not vetted or that teach hatred are going to be removed out of the system, and they will lose their funding as well. 

How does the Executive Order work in colleges are located in sanctuary cities that have vowed to not cooperate with ICE, or even to, in some cases, even, not only not cooperate, but even to protect people from deportation. 

First of all, the executive order has nothing to do with ICE and immigration. The executive order is very, very specific in what it is. This is about college campuses who receive federal or anybody that receives federal money and protecting Jews. This is a federal order that requires the colleges to provide safety and security for Jewish students. This has nothing to do student who is arrested in a sanctuary city, I’m sure that the list will be givenand the President has instructed, as part of the executive order for these organizations, the federal organizations, to compile a list of these students, and then he’ll do whatever is necessary, or ICE will do whatever is necessary. 

I don’t know the technical details of how that’s going to happen, but I’m certain that, as you see now, even in sanctuary cities as we speak, they are busy picking up illegal immigrants and deporting criminal, violent criminals, and getting them back for the countries where they came from.

Even those that have not done so, they are still deporting and arresting people in. Those cities and states, nobody has stopped them from arresting anybody. The issue is whether they’re having assistance or not from the state or local governments. But not an issue, not an issue of having an impediment. 

What definitions will be used in determining what constitutes antisemitism? Are they going to use IHRA? 

I don’t know. It’s not something that I’ve been in the technical weeds with on any part of that. I think it’s a very clear definition. If there’s a protest and it’s protest for “free Palestine” and doing those types of behaviors, and having violent behaviors that have existed in the past, and not letting Jews walk through a campus, I think that’s going to be very clearly defined of what antisemitism is, being called a “dirty Jew” and having a rock thrown at them, or having someone yell, All-h Akbar while they’re attacking a Jew? Yeah, I think would be considered antisemitic behavior, right? 

You’re going to have pushback from people who are going to cite concerns of freedom of expression, how do you plan to deal with it?

Sure that there’ll be aspects of this that will be challenged in court. But the bottom line is when people see how steadfast the president is and the promises that he made to the 300 Jewish leaders at those events, both at Bedminster and again in Washington, DC and again in Mar a Lago on October 7, where the President was visibly moved when he saw the pictures of the worst day since the holocaust, with 1,200 Jews being killed and 110 empty chairs [symbolizing] the hostages. I think it’s very, very apparent to all that the President is not going to tolerate this type of behavior of pro terrorism, pro antisemitism. Anybody that is going to be antisemitic is going to feel the consequences of the wrath of the federal government, which for the last four years has not existed and simply, purely on behalf of Dr.Adelson and myself, who we were able to have and host these events with the President. I think it’s important that that, you know, there’s a thank you that we extend our thank you’s on behalf of all the attendees and all the Jewish community within America that the President took these quality, quantitative and measurable steps that show the world that antisemitism will not be tolerated. 

How did you broker the meetings with Trump and Dr. Adelson?

In a nutshell, the President, I have a long standing relationship with both the President and the Adelson family for many, many years, and basically over a dinner meeting, the president and I spoke about how we could try and connect to the Jewish community as a whole, not just the Orthodox community, but the entire Jewish community, to understand the dangers that were happening right now in America by seeing what was going on in the Democratic Party, seeing that the college campuses were full of unrest. Jewish students were being attacked. The President felt that he needed a stronger Jewish support in terms of the election, and that historically, Jews voted Democrat. We spent conversation with my partner, Ed Russo, and myself and the president and some other individuals about trying to increase that. We discussed doing events where the President could highlight what his agenda would be moving forward and explain it clearly to the Jewish community the differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and that’s how it came about.

Is there any talk of getting, in order to help facilitate this order, a Jewish community liaison?

Typically, every administration will have a Jewish liaison. I think that first the President is focused on the cabinet and those positions. And I think before he gets into the weeds of those positions, the Attorney General will have more of an input, and say, of how you enforce the executive order of the President, rather than a Jewish liaison. I think the Attorney General is much more, together with the FBI and homeland security and those places that are cabinet level officials, will be determining the right way and structure of how to move forward the President’s executive order.