Abe Foxman Takes Aim at Trump’s Policies in U.S. Capitol Speech Marking Holocaust Remembrance

Condemns Book Bans, Attacks on Immigrants, & Political Extremism

Edited by:  TJVNews.com

In a stirring and sobering address delivered at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Abe Foxman, former longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and himself a child survivor of the Holocaust, issued a powerful warning about the resurgence of antisemitism and illiberalism in the United States. Speaking at the 2025 Days of Remembrance commemoration organized by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Foxman offered both pointed criticism at President Trump and cautious praise for American leaders, reflecting on the Holocaust’s legacy amid modern threats to democracy and Jewish life.

As reported by The Jewish Insider, Foxman did not mince words as he reflected on the political climate and drew troubling parallels between today’s discourse and the ideological climate of pre-Nazi Europe.

“As a [Holocaust] survivor, my antenna quivers when I see books being banned, when I see people being abducted in the streets, when I see government trying to dictate what universities should teach and whom they should teach,” he said to sustained applause, as was indicated in The Jewish Insider report. “As a survivor who came to this country as an immigrant, I’m troubled when I hear immigrants and immigration being demonized,” Foxman added.

Foxman’s words, laden with historical weight and personal testimony, resonated deeply in a room filled with lawmakers, Jewish community leaders, diplomats, and Holocaust educators. The Jewish Insider report emphasized that Foxman’s remarks emphasized the central message of this year’s Days of Remembrance: that the lessons of the Holocaust are not theoretical—they are urgently relevant today.

While his remarks included criticism of the current political climate—particularly censorship, authoritarian rhetoric, and xenophobia—Foxman acknowledged efforts by both former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump to address antisemitism head-on.

“We live in very chaotic times, where our values, our history, our democracy are being tested,” Foxman said. “As a survivor, I’m horrified at the explosion of antisemitism — global and in the U.S. I’m appreciative of President Biden’s historic initiative on antisemitism and thankful to President Trump’s strong condemnation of antisemitism and his promise to bring back consequences to antisemitic behavior.”

This nuanced perspective, as The Jewish Insider noted, highlighted Foxman’s enduring insistence on bipartisan moral clarity in the face of antisemitic threats—whether they arise from the political left or the right.

The Jewish Insider report noted that in the most chilling portion of his remarks, Foxman drew historical analogies between today’s political rhetoric and the conspiracy theories and ideological rot that predated the Holocaust.

“We look around us and what do we see? Rampant antisemitism on college campuses and in cities worldwide in the aftermath of that horrific terror attack on our cherished Jewish state, Israel,” he said. “We see social media algorithms that promote extreme views, conspiracy theories… just one click away from antisemitism.”

He continued:  “We also see forms of antisemitism that seemed unthinkable: Holocaust denial, distortion, civilization exploitation and even glorification.”

“Here in America, we see antisemitism on both the far left and the far right. The 20th-century history of Nazism and communism should be an alarm bell as to just how dangerous this is—not just for us Jews, but for all of society.”

Foxman emphasized that the rise in domestic antisemitism has alarming historical echoes, warning that today’s rhetoric is “not so different from the conspiracy theories that permeated Europe for centuries, long before Hitler was born.” As The Jewish Insider report reflected, Foxman’s warning framed antisemitism not just as a Jewish concern, but as a barometer for the health of democratic civilization itself.

Also speaking at the Capitol event was Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a prominent Jewish philanthropist and 9/11 survivor, who offered an emotionally charged address comparing the ideological hatred behind the Holocaust to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel and the 9/11 terror attacks.

“The Holocaust was a failure of humanity. But as we all know, no matter how hard we try, that kind of hatred continues to exist, just in many, many other forms,” Lutnick stated, according to The   Jewish Insider report.

Lutnick, visibly moved, called the October 7 attack “carried out with the same genocidal hatred that fueled Auschwitz,” and likened it to the Islamist extremism that underpinned the September 11 attacks. “It’s just the same hate, it just comes at a different time with a different name,” he said.

He concluded his remarks with a strong endorsement of President Trump’s defense of the Jewish people, pledging that Trump “will never back down from defending the Jewish people, never.”

The Jewish Insider report emphasized that this year’s Days of Remembrance was not simply a commemoration of the past—it was a call to action in the face of an increasingly hostile climate for Jews worldwide. With Holocaust denial, campus radicalization, terror glorification, and political polarization reaching new highs, leaders such as Foxman and Lutnick used the Capitol ceremony to sound the alarm for a generation once believed to be immune to such hatred.

“This isn’t just about memory,” Foxman concluded. “It’s about moral responsibility.”