President Trump has argued that pro-Israel lobby groups no longer have the same influence on Capitol Hill as they did nearly two decades ago.
Published August 12, 2026
President Donald Trump criticized the waning power of pro-Israel lobbying groups in Congress and across the political spectrum in Washington in an exclusive, pre-recorded taping of the nonpartisan show “America Speaks” on the MAGA-friendly network Real America’s Voice (RAV).
In an interview that aired Tuesday, when host Wayne Allyn Root was asked about the “problem” of a “communist color revolution” taking over “America’s biggest city,” President Trump said the biggest change he had observed in the past decade was “Israel. “If you go back 20, 25 years, they had the most powerful lobby in Washington. Now everyone…if you look at the House of Representatives…if you look at the House Democrats…in fact, we’ve never seen anything like this.”
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The comments came after a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that support for the U.S. ally has declined dramatically, with growing opposition from Democrats and signs of polarization among the Republican base.
This was not the first time the president acknowledged Israel’s declining support in American politics. In a September 2025 interview with White House correspondent for the Daily Caller, a right-wing website founded by former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, President Trump acknowledged that he was aware of declining support for Israel among young Republicans, later explaining to the Caller that staunch support for Israel in Congress was now a thing of the past.
In a 42-minute audio clip with RAV, President Trump went on to disparage Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history and a reliably pro-Israel voice, telling the Caller, “Look at Schumer. He’s effectively become a Palestinian.”
President Trump has made similar remarks in 2025. During an Oval Office meeting in March 2025, Trump told reporters, “As far as I know, Mr. Schumer is Palestinian,” a comment he repeated at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in July. He lashed out at the Democratic Party, which he once claimed was “100 percent for Israel.”
At the time, Trump’s derogatory remarks drew widespread disapproval and drew condemnation from Jewish and Muslim groups for what many saw as a xenophobic slur, with the president’s attempt to frame “Palestinians” as a political insult against Schumer.
In March 2024, the Senate Minority Leader called for a shake-up of Israel’s leadership, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “too tolerant of civilian casualties in Gaza.”
This was the Jewish-American Democrat’s most vocal criticism of Israel since the genocidal war in Gaza first began in October 2023, while also expressing support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The veteran senator is typically a staunch defender of Israel.
Most recently, Schumer scolded the president for his response to the US-Israel war on Iran, noting that the president’s “wash and repeat approach is not a strategy” but a “prescription for complete disaster,” adding, “We keep going backwards…It’s incredible how much of a failure this war is.”
