THE REAL NEWS IN THAT TRUMP SPEECH IS NOT THE ANTI-SEMITISM

This won't matter in the long run:

US President Donald Trump told a pro-Israel conference Saturday night that some American Jews don’t love Israel enough. He also noting that he did not have to worry about getting his audience’s votes, because they would cast ballots with business interests in mind.

Those comments, to the Israeli American Council advocacy group in Florida, drew quick criticism from opponents and were derided as anti-Semitic.

How do I know it won't matter in the long run? Because this didn't:

The comments were reminiscent of remarks he made in August when he said that Jews who vote for Democrats were disloyal, drawing a vociferous backlash.

A vociferous backlash that everyone forgot about one or two news cycles later.

Here's the real breaking news in this speech:

Wading into the 2020 campaign, Trump said the crowd would not vote for one of his potential Democratic opponents because she would take their wealth away.

“You have to vote for me, you have no choice,” Trump said. “You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that,” referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, in a dig at her claiming Native American ancestry.

“You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax,” he went on. “Let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away. No, no. Even if you don’t like me — and some of you don’t; some of you, I don’t like at all, actually — and you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes.”

Trump, speaking to the Israeli American Council: "You're not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You're not going to vote for the wealth tax!" pic.twitter.com/IXoaVUw6MU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2019

The news here is that Trump's description of the wealth tax is "Let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away." The wealth tax, in Warren's version, is 2% on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% on wealth over $1 billion. The Bernie Sanders version of the wealth tax has several brackets, starting at 1% for fortunes of $32 to $50 million and ending at 8% for fortunes of $10 billion or more. But even 8% is much lower than 100%.

It's likely that Trump will continue to describe the wealth tax as a 100% tax. This could begin to show up in all of his rally speeches. Trump will use this as an attack on Warren and Sanders, and if he gets a good reaction to it, he might keep it in the speech even if those two candidates fade. If one of them is the nominee, he'll be saying "100%" until November.

If I'm right about this, no one in the GOP or the right-wing media will ever correct him. Maybe Republican politicians won't echo him exactly, but they'll use words like "confiscation" instead. They'll soon begin to realize that their job is to reinforce the "100% tax" message. And they'll do it.

In time, Trump's supporters (and a number of swing voters) will believe that the wealth tax is a tax designed to "take 100 percent of your wealth away."

I could be wrong, but Trump really does enjoy lying with numbers. Trump may not lie in every one of his utterances, but he does seem to lie in every utterance that includes a number. And this number is a doozy.