By James J. Devine
As the world watches the tragic conflict unfold in Israel and the greater Middle East, disgraced former President Donald Trump has shamefully seized the opportunity to exploit what might become the last world war for his own political gain.
On October 7, 2024, he plans to host an event at Trump National Doral in Miami, purportedly to commemorate a day that marks the tragic loss of Jewish lives. Yet, beneath the surface of this commemoration lies a cynical attempt to leverage the suffering of others to reignite his faltering political career.
This is not new behavior from the fraudster and rapist who wants to be the first convicted criminal elected to the White House. Trump recently destroyed an earnest bipartisan attempt in the Senate to deal with the chaotic and catastrophic situation on the border because his campaign benefits from fear over immigration.
In a press release, Trump proclaimed October 7 as “the day in which the most Jewish people were murdered since the Holocaust,” linking the atrocities committed by Hamas and other Iranian-backed groups to a broader assault on “our shared values.”
This rhetoric is not just hyperbolic; it’s a calculated move designed to manipulate the emotions of a community in mourning.
By conflating his political narrative with a humanitarian crisis, Trump seeks to position himself as the savior of American values—an absurd claim given his history of inflammatory rhetoric and divisive policies.
Let’s not forget that Trump’s presidency was marked by chaos and contradiction.
He repeatedly claims, “We had no terrorist attacks at all during my four years,” a statement that is both historically inaccurate and grossly misleading.
Major terrorist incidents, such as the Pensacola Naval Air Station shooting and the New York City truck attack, occurred under his watch.
These events highlight a fundamental truth: terrorism did not cease during Trump’s presidency; rather, his administration’s approach was ineffectual at best.
Moreover, Trump’s insistence that the withdrawal from Afghanistan has led to the current global chaos is disingenuous. Trump repeatedly promised to end the Afghanistan War but he failed to take American troops and our allies out of the country, leaving another mess, like inflation and Covid, for his successor.
A U.S. review led by the National Security Council of the chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan largely lays the blame on Trump, saying President Joe Biden was “severely constrained” by his predecessor’s surrender to the Taliban in February 2020.
“Our secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban,” said H.R. McMaster, a former Trump national security adviser. “This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”
It was during Trump’s tenure that tensions with Iran escalated, culminating in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani—a decision that destabilized the region.
It is impossible to pinpoint Soleimani’s death as the cause of Israel’s conflict since there was also a Ramadan incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem in April 2023. However, there’s no doubt that Trump authorized a murder that emboldened the Islamic Republic, which is financing and supplying America’s enemies, including Russia, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and more.
From 2012-2018, Iran spent $16 billion propping up the Assad regime and supporting its other terror partners in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestinian Territories. While this spending decreased during the coronavirus pandemic, it has since increased to record highs.
The United States made a deal during the Obama administration to prevent a nuclear Iran but since Trump abandoned the multinational treaty, Tehran aggressively and assiduously advanced its program so there is now a high risk it could build a nuclear weapon.
Trump reimposed sanctions but as oil sales have soared, Iran’s financial support to Hamas has increased to $350 million annually.
Where does proxy war end — and World War III begin?
Now, as Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin condemns Iran’s recent missile strikes against Israel, Trump attempts to rewrite history, framing himself as a bastion of security in a world he helped destabilize.
The timing of this event is no coincidence.
As he trails his Democratic rival in the election, there are only a handful of battleground states in play and those are extremely close, so Trump wants to rally support by invoking fears and leveraging a tragedy that affects not just Israelis but the global community.
By surrounding himself with “Jewish community leaders,” he is attempting to cloak his ambitions in a veneer of legitimacy, all while pandering to his base with rhetoric designed to evoke a sense of impending doom—one that he alone can resolve.
It is a profound irony that a man who has been linked to extremist groups and who has promised pardons to January 6 defendants—individuals connected to a network of hate and violence—would now seek to position himself as a champion against terrorism.
This is not leadership; it is exploitation.
Trump’s actions in the face of genuine global crises reveal a disturbing pattern: whenever he finds himself cornered, he resorts to fear-mongering and divisive politics.
As he prepares to capitalize on the current conflict, we must ask ourselves: should we+ allow a disgraced former president to use the suffering of others as a stepping stone back to power? The answer should be a resounding no.
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