Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democrat running in the competitive Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), said on Tuesday that she attributes “a lot of” the antisemitism in the United States right now to former President Donald Trump.

Alsobrooks, who is facing Republican former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in an expensive and closely watched contest, made the comment at a virtual town hall organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington on Tuesday after being asked how she would work to address the rise in Jewish hate as a senator. 

“It’s a very disturbing trend,” Alsobrooks said of the surge of antisemitism since Oct. 7. “I attribute a lot of the hate and division that we have seen to former President Trump, who normalized in too many instances hate, including antisemitism. None of us can forget what we saw in Charlottesville, where he called people who were there [espousing] antisemitic tropes ‘good people.’ This kind of division and hatred comes from poor leadership.”

Alsobrooks also referenced concerns about the safety of Jewish students on college campuses amid continued anti-Israel protests in Maryland and across the country. 

“We are in a disturbing time where parents like me are concerned about children on college campuses. I have a daughter who’s a sophomore and I can tell you, I feel like every parent that our children deserve to be safe and to feel safe on college campuses. We should not tolerate on any level, hate speech, threatening behavior, assaulting behavior. It’s going to be really important that we stamp it out, antisemitism and hatred of all kinds, everywhere that we find it and that includes college campuses,” she continued. 

Asked about her positions on supporting Israel and deterring Iran, Alsobrooks referenced discussions with Cardin, a pro-Israel stalwart, on the issue. 

“I’ve been able to have really amazing conversations, for example, with Sen. Cardin,” Alsobrooks said. “Part of what we’ve discussed is the need, on a long term basis, to make sure that we are building those multilateral relationships with [the] UAE and Jordan and Saudi Arabia that will allow us to isolate Iran and to thereby create the kind of peace and stability that’s going to be needed on a long term basis in the Middle East. Those relationships are going to be critically important, and I am of course very hopeful that we will be able to build on those relationships and to achieve that kind of stability and peace.”

She made no mention of Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who has also backed her candidacy. Van Hollen has become a leading critic of Israel in the Senate, an issue Hogan has honed in on amid waning support for Maryland’s junior senator within the state’s large (and majority Democrat) Jewish community. 

Alsobrooks added that she believes it’s important for Israel to maintain the bipartisan support it has had for decades.

“The United States and Israel not only share common values, but also share common interests, and that relationship between the United States and Israel is a longstanding one,” Alsobrooks said. “I might also add that the relationship has been supported on a bipartisan basis for many, many decades now. I think it’s important that it remains so, that this not become an issue that is a political issue. I think the relationship between the United States and Israel is solid. It’s an over 80 year relationship.”