Corey Lewandowski asked, "Why don't you give him credit to say that he simply took an image and put it on there and there’s no anti-Semitism?" Lewandowski: No 'malice' in Trump star tweet

Neither Donald Trump nor his social media director Dan Scavino are anti-Semites, the presumptive Republican nominee's former campaign manager declared Tuesday, because both have "Jewish friends" and Trump has hired many people of the Jewish faith to the upper echelons of his company.

"You're spending more time on a star created by an individual who has Jewish friends, who’s close friends with Ivanka Trump, who’s close friends with Jared Kushner, who are both Jewish, who have part of the Trump family organization for over 10 years, and all of a sudden he is being accused of something which didn't happen," Corey Lewandowski said on CNN's "New Day" during a heated discussion with Christine Quinn, a former New York City councilmember and current official with the state Democratic Party.


Lewandowski, who is now a paid CNN contributor, then asked, "Why don't you give him credit to say that he simply took an image and put it on there and there’s no anti-Semitism?"

In a statement released Monday evening on Facebook, Trump and Scavino defended a social media post from Saturday that featured an image of Hillary Clinton with a red six-pointed star and the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" The post on Trump's Twitter account was subsequently deleted and replaced the star with a circle. Scavino said he "lifted" the image from an "anti-Hillary Twitter user" and grabbed the star image, which he termed a "sheriff's badge," under "Microsoft's 'shapes'" because "it fit with the theme of corrupt Hillary and that is why I selected it."

"As the Social Media Director for the campaign, I would never offend anyone and therefore chose to remove the image," Scavino said in the statement explaining his decision to delete the original post.

Scavino's timeline, however, doesn't square with past reporting on the anti-Clinton meme's origins. According to Mic.com, the image along with the six-pointed star was previously found in the timeline of @fishbonehead1, a Twitter user who often posts violent, racially charged imagery, and was featured on a far-right internet messaging board.

Lewandowski, asked whether he knew how Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism upon marrying her husband, Jared Kushner, felt about the post, said he did not.

"But I can tell you this: Donald Trump has been a person going back 30 years that in his corporation he hired senior executives that are Jewish to be part of his organization," Lewandowski continued. "You look at his CFO, you look at his chief legal counsel. You look at all of those individuals."

When Trump started the Mar-A-Lago Club in Florida, Lewandowski noted, he formed the first club to allow Jewish members in Palm Beach. "And he went and said this is discriminatory and we have to let people in of all races and faith. So I don’t understand why all of a sudden an image is put out and all of a sudden, he is anti-Semitic. It’s egregious. Because 30 years of history have proven that he isn't," Lewandowski said.

Pressed by CNN's Alisyn Camerota on whether he perceived any sloppiness or lack of sensitivity, Lewandowski said Trump had nothing to do with the tweet.

"He's the director of social media," Quinn interjected. Lewandowski continued, "And if you think every single tweet that goes off of Hillary Clinton's account she personally approves, that's egregious."

Quinn shot back, "Of course she does not. That would be an absurd level of micromanagement."

"But that's what you're saying," Lewandowski said, as Quinn intoned, leaning over to him, "You have to be quiet. You keep talking."

While acknowledging that Trump deserves credit for what Lewandowski mentioned, Quinn called it "irrelevant to what happened with this tweet."

"The point here is that Donald Trump has a campaign, has a campaign, that repeatedly sends out offensive tweets and tries to write them off in some Monday-morning quarterbacking with these creative stories around them," Quinn continued. "And it speaks to sloppiness. It speaks to not taking the job he's seeking seriously and it speaks really it stretches credibility that this happens over and over again, group after group after group. And the fact that he has Jewish friends does not erase the possibility they could be anti-Semitic."

As Quinn clarified that she was referring specifically to Scavino, Lewandowski said, "I don't think we can impugn Dan Scavino. I don't think there's any malice there whatsoever."

"And you don’t know him, so I would be very careful about that," he continued. "Look at the history of Donald Trump with whether it's a parade that he has led, whether it is putting a club together to make sure that Jewish people in palm beach have a place to go, whether it's the senior executives of his private corporation, whether it’s the CFO or his CTO or his chief legal counsel, he has a long and storied history. Last year he received the Algemeiner award for his support of the Jewish state. He has a 30-year history of supporting the people of Israel. And this story about a meme or a picture which was placed on a tweet has been so blown out of proportion."

Scavino apologized, Lewandowski said, adding "He just did it without thinking."

After the CNN segment Scavino tweeted, "For the MSM to suggest that I am antisemite is AWFUL. I proudly celebrate holidays w/ my wife's amazing Jewish family for the past 16 years."