From 'highly offensive' to 'he's not wrong,' GOP senators respond to Trump's remarks about Jewish voters

Senate Republicans offered a variety of responses Tuesday to their party's presumptive presidential nominee's saying this week that Jewish voters who back Democrats hate Israel.

A handful of senators criticized former President Donald Trump's comments, some appeared to agree with him, and at least two insisted they hadn’t seen the remarks, which invoked a trope that American Jews have divided loyalties between the U.S. and Israel.

Other senators responded with what became a common refrain while Trump was in office — saying it was a poor choice of words without directly condemning him.

“I wouldn’t say any of that,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of Trump's comments.

“It’s not what I would say,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., similarly suggested that Trump could use “more artful language” but contended that he is “not wrong about, I think, Democratic leaders’ failing the Israeli state and, and second-guessing them.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said he hadn’t closely followed Trump's remarks but added that he “speaks his mind.”

Asked whether Trump should back off the kind of rhetoric he used this week, Thune said he’d “prefer to keep people’s religious faith out of these discussions.”

The firestorm started when Trump said in an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, that "any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion."

“They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves, because Israel will be destroyed,” Trump continued, before he discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a frequent Trump critic, offered some of the most pointed criticism of Trump's remarks.

“That’s highly offensive," he