Model Elizabeth Pipko said that she’s focusing her efforts on convincing American Jews to leave the Democratic Party after a number of instances of anti-Semitism among Democratic politicians.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is among the Democratic leaders who have voiced anti-Semitic tropes in recent months, multiple times sparking backlash by claiming some officials have dual loyalty to Israel and America and claiming that American officials only support Israel because they get paid for their support.
Lifelong Democrat Andrew Stein, a former New York state assemblyman, was among those who said they were leaving the party over the anti-Semitic remarks.
“Apologies are no longer enough. That is why I am calling on my fellow Jews to join me in pulling our support from the Democratic Party,” he wrote in a Fox News op-ed. Trump and the Republicans are now “the true friends of Israel and the Jewish people” and have “embraced values that were once embraced by the Democratic Party,” Stein said, giving the example of relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
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Pipko, 23, received press coverage earlier this year after announcing she supported President Donald Trump and that she’d co-founded the Jexodus movement, now known as the Exodus movement.
She told Fox News in a new interview that she’s doubling down on her efforts to encourage Jews to leave the Democratic Party.
“[The Exodus Movement is] hoping to inspire Jews, and I think all people actually, to vote with their conscience and their beliefs and not with any fears whatsoever,” Pipko said. “I think the further the Democrats shift to the left, the harder it is for any religious person, I think, to align with them.”
“[The Democrats’] failure to condemn the anti-Semitism—there’s a lot of things that are happening in our country that are proving how divided we are and I thought it was time to unite people of similar beliefs,” she added. “Any time you turn on the TV, you’re told that you’re wrong if you disagree with what [the Democrats are] telling you. You’re told that you’re wrong if you’re religious in any way and I thought it was time to unite those people.”
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Pipko said Trump’s recent move to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights helped spark interest in her movement but said the No. 1 reason people become interested in leaving the Democratic Party is the behavior by Democratic officials.
She also said that people in the modeling industry have largely given her the cold shoulder after her public support of Trump.
“The [response from the] modeling industry was exactly what I expected. A lot of the photographers and people that I had grown super close with kind of blocked me on social media and distanced themselves,” she said.
Pipko’s campaign sparked a number of responses, including from the president himself. Trump referenced her appearance on “Fox & Friends” in March, quoting her as saying: “Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti-Israel policies start under the Obama administration, and it got worse & worse. There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.”
“Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse. There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.” Elizabeth Pipko, Jexodus.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2019
In an op-ed in the New York Post in January, Pipko said that she worked full-time on Trump’s presidential campaign before the 2016 election but hid that fact from her colleagues.
“It was clear from the start that, if I wanted to survive in modeling, I couldn’t tell anyone about my new job,” she wrote. “Once, after working a 10-hour-day on the Trump campaign, I went to meet with my manager (who was not affiliated with a modeling agency). He and a colleague were enraged, screaming about how much they hate Trump. My manager kept saying how evil the people who work for him must be and that he would never work with anyone who supported him.”
She said that she told people that she was coaching ice skating when she was actually working at Trump Tower in New York City. She said that she decided two years was long enough and wanted to go public with her support for Trump, noting that she met her husband while working for the campaign.
“I think Trump is great for women. He’s always promoted women to leadership positions at his real estate company and at the White House,” she wrote. “And as for the alleged pay-offs to various women—it’s none of my business. I care about what President Trump has done and will do for my country.”