Amid a raging war in the Middle East, tense relations with the Jewish community, and weeks before the election, Democrat Chair Nikki Fried and Republican Chair Evan Power are rushing to spin the Jacksonville Mayor's anti-Trump "concentration camp" remarks to their own advantage.
How? By accusing one another of ignoring or inciting antisemitism.
"Unlike Republicans who refuse to condemn Neo-Nazis, [Donna Deegan] has always been a friend of the Jewish community & repeatedly denounced anti-semitism," Fried posted on social media, defending Deegan, Jacksonville's Democrat Mayor, for her suggestion that Donald Trump would create a "concentration camp" style situation for illegal immigrants.
Fried, who is Jewish, referenced a Trump Boat Parade held in Jupiter on Sunday, where some Neo-Nazis bearing swastika flags while shouting "White Power" and "Heil Trump" joined the celebration. Trump alleged these were leftists in disguise trying to "create fake news."
"Trump has made rounding up immigrants a central part of his campaign & said he’d blame Jews if he loses — Trump & Vance are no friends to the community," Fried continued, lauding Deegan for denouncing Nazi flags outside a Jacksonville tire shop over the summer. "We heard nothing from Republicans at the time. The Jewish community knows who has their backs."
GOP Chair Power disagrees.
In a statement released by the Republican Party of Florida, Power accused Deegan of evoking "harmful antisemitic language" against Trump. Power, who blamed leftist rhetoric for inciting two assassination attempts against Trump, sees this as another example of how "unhinged" the left has become.
"This is more of the same from Nikki Fried’s Florida Democrat Party," he said, pivoting to the schism caused in the Democrat Party over whom to support in the Israel-Palestine war after Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attacks on civilians. "Fried’s insistence on embracing her party’s radical fringe is even more reason why she trails the Florida GOP in polling, fundraising, volunteers, and most of all, voters.
"The question remains: When will Nikki step up and condemn her party’s radical, antisemitic base?" Power added, jabbing at the fact that there are over a million more registered Republicans than Democrats.
During a UK trade mission on Wednesday, Deegan in a London interview claimed Trump would put illegal immigrants "in what would really amount to a concentration camp-type situation to round them out of the country."
She continued, adding that it "doesn't seem to me to be a very American thing to do," she said, seemingly referencing a common accusation that Trump's migrant family separation policies "put kids in cages." While President Barack Obama in 2014 built cages at the border, the Washington Post reported, Trump is responsible for up to 1,500 children separated from their parents.
“What would we call those? It’s a concentration of people that are in a camp. I’m not suggesting anything beyond that, but I just think it seems rather inhumane to me," said Deegan when pressed further.
Her comments resulted in immediate backlash; Republican Rep. Randy Fine, the state Legislature's sole Jewish Republican announced that he will try to withhold funding from her administration if she doesn't apologize.
