Donald Trump says anti-Semitism 'is horrible, and it's going to stop’ after wave of bomb threats

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Donald Trump has spoken against anti-Semitism days after another wave of bomb threats targeted Jewish centres around the country.

“Anti-semitism is horrible, and it’s going to stop”, he told MSNBC.

He continued that anti-Semitism was “age-old, and there’s something going on that doesn’t fully allow it to heal. Sometimes it gets better and then it busts apart.

“But we want to have it get very much better, get unified and stay together.”

The President was speaking at the National Museum of African American History, which he said was “doing tremendous numbers” of visitors and “getting that divide and bringing it much closer together”.

His first remarks on the subject follow another wave of bomb threats on Jewish community centres around the US, following similar threats in January.

The attacks prompted his daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism for her husband, Jared Kushner, tweeted a plea to American people for “tolerance”.

The President gave a speech after visiting the museum, mentioning the bomb threats and vowed to “fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all its forms”.

“[The bomb threats] are a painful and very sad reminder of the work that must be done to root out hate, prejudice and evil,” he said.

Last week at his first solo press conference since his Inauguration, he told a Jewish reporter, who had asked him about anti-Semitic attacks, to “sit down”.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, he released a statement which did not mention the Jewish people.

Vice President Mike Pence sent a remembrance tweet a few hours later which rectified this mistake.

On the same day, he signed en executive order to temporarily ban travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries. The order was blocked by a federal court eight days later.

The JCC Association of North America reported that there have been 69 incidents at more than 50 Jewish community centres around the US in 2017.

On 9, 18 and 31 January, Jewish centres reported waves of phoned-in threats, prompting large-scale evacuations. None of the threats resulted in a bomb or injuries.