In a political campaign that continues to head into uncharted territory in terms of pure bizarreness, Trump is second-guessing his earlier decision to take down a tweet featuring a Star of David juxtaposed with piles of cash. “We shouldn’t have taken it down,” Trump said at a rally last night in Cincinnati. “We should’ve left it up. I would have rather defended it. It’s a star! And it actually looks like a sheriff’s star! It could’ve been a star for anything.” On Twitter, Trump offered another defense, citing use of a six-pointed star in sticker books for the Disney film Frozen:

Where is the outrage for this Disney book? Is this the 'Star of David' also?

Dishonest media! #Frozen pic.twitter.com/4LJBpSm8xa — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 7, 2016

What Trump fails to realize is that the original tweet was offensive because of the context: The star was placed over money in a message about political corruption, playing to old anti-Semitic tropes about wealthy Jews controlling the political process. (It doesn’t help that the image came from an anti-Semitic message board.) None of that, of course, applies to Frozen.

All of this is happening as Hillary Clinton struggles with a highly damaging controversy of her own. The Republican Party might ask itself if a weeklong discussion of whether a tweet is anti-Semitic is the best way to run a bid for the White House.

