WASHINGTON — President Trump sent a powerful message to those who doubt his will to fight anti-Semitism — and to his own supporters in the white nationalist movement — during an annual Holocaust remembrance at the Capitol Tuesday.
The president, who was slow to denounce campaign endorsements by racists including David Duke, made an unequivocal statement of support for Israel and pledged to “confront anti-Semitism’’ in a speech attended by lawmakers and survivors of Hitler’s war on European Jewry.
“We pledge — never again,’’ Trump said, invoking the phrase adopted by Jewish leaders after World War II. “We must never shrink away about telling the truth about evil in our time. We know that in the end, good will triumphs over evil.’’
The president, flanked by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer — a US-born former Republican operative close to US conservatives — vowed to protect the Jewish people in the United States and abroad and criticized those who deny the mechanized murder of 6 million Jews ever happened.
“Those who deny the Holocaust are complicit in it,’’ the president said.
Some Jewish groups have criticized the president for what they say is a flirtation with the far right — a tolerance of anti-Semitic sentiment in service of retaining the support of fringe conservatives. They have repeatedly expressed concern about the White House chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, who was accused by a former wife of making anti-Jewish comments. Several groups have also called for Trump to fire a Bannon deputy, Sebastian Gorka, who has been accused of having links to far-right groups in Europe.
“I do not claim to know what is in Trump’s heart,’’ said Simon Greer, a progressive Jewish activist who opposed Trump’s participation in Tuesday’s ceremony. “But, I do believe that many of the people and ideas populating this administration could pose a threat to us. And something must be done.’’
The controversy over Trump’s relationship with the Jewish community is one of the more bewildering story lines in a young administration brimming with paradox. In January, the White House released a Holocaust remembrance statement that did not mention Jews. Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, added fuel to the controversy by playing down the significance of the omission. This month, Spicer said incorrectly that Hitler had not used chemical weapons against his own people. Spicer later apologized.
The president is clearly seeking a reset in his relationship with the Jewish community, and his public statements on the issue have become increasingly emphatic, emotional, and rooted in the historical suffering of the Jewish people.
On Sunday night, in a video shown to a World Jewish Congress event in New York, Trump gave his most extensive remarks so far on the Holocaust:
“We mourn, we remember, we pray and we pledge: Never again. I say it, never again. The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror and the loss. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear.’’
