Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said a social media post that critics condemned as anti-Semitic should not have been taken down, employing the Disney movie “Frozen” to make his point on the matter.
Mr. Trump said at a rally Wednesday in Ohio that he would have preferred to defend a since-deleted tweet that included an image of likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton along with a six-pointed star with the words “most corrupt candidate ever!” on top of a pile of money.
“They took the star down,” Mr. Trump said. “I said, ’Too bad. [You] should have left it up.’ I would have rather defended it.”
“Just leave it up and say, no, that’s not a Star of David — that’s just a star,” he said.
“It could have been a sheriff’s star. It could have been a regular star,” Mr. Trump said.
The image was posted to Mr. Trump’s Twitter account last Saturday, but it was soon deleted and replaced by a similar image, only with a circle instead of a star.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign labeled the image “blatantly anti-Semitic.” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said “anti-Semitic images” have “no place in a presidential campaign” and said Mr. Trump’s social media team needed to get its act together.
Mr. Trump’s social media director said the “sheriff’s badge” fit the theme of “corrupt Hillary,” but that he wouldn’t offend anyone and chose to remove the image.
Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump also highlighted the use of a six-pointed star, with the words “with 50 stickers!” on a book bearing characters from Disney’s “Frozen” movie, tweeting: “Where is the outrage for this Disney book? Is this the ’Star of David’ also? Dishonest media! #Frozen.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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