Trump was citing a poll that he said showed Harris polling at 60 per cent among American Jews. He also lamented winning less than 30 per cent of the vote among American Jews in the 2016 election, which he won, and the 2020 election, which he lost to Democratic President Joe Biden.
It was not clear what poll the former president was citing, but a recent Pew Research Survey found American Jews favor Harris over Trump, 65 per cent to 34 per cent.
Trump made similar comments at a separate summit earlier in the evening, also in Washington, which was dedicated to fighting antisemitism in America.
The Trump campaign has made winning over Jewish voters in key battleground states a priority. United States Jews have leaned heavily towards Democrats in federal elections for decades and continue to do so, but just a small shift in the Jewish vote could determine the winner in November.
In the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania, for example, there are over 400,000 Jewish people, in a state Biden won by 81,000 votes in 2020.
In a statement before the speech, Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, criticised Trump for at times associating with anti-Semites. Trump has rejected all accusations of anti-Semitism, noting during his speeches on Thursday that he has a Jewish son-in-law.
During his comments, Trump did not address a CNN report published earlier in the day regarding the Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, Mark Robinson. That report alleged Robinson once called himself a “black NAZI!” in comments posted on a pornography website and that he advocated for the return of slavery.
