Candace Owens, the far-right figure known for her antisemitic rhetoric, will not be attending a Trump campaign event later this week, as confirmed by a source to Jewish Inside. The withdrawal comes after her participation sparked backlash from both conservative critics and Jewish allies of the former president.
Scheduled to appear alongside Donald Trump Jr. on Friday in Nashville, Tenn., Owens was listed as a guest on promotional materials until her name was unexpectedly removed on Tuesday afternoon.
Owens' involvement, marked by her history of Holocaust denial and promoting blood libel, had become problematic for Trump’s campaign, which faced pressure to address her inclusion.
Candace Owens has recently come under fire for a series of antisemitic remarks regarding Jews, Israel, and the Holocaust. Earlier this month on YouTube, she criticized Holocaust education as Soviet-style indoctrination and questioned the legitimacy of Josef Mengele’s experiments at Auschwitz, calling them “bizarre propaganda.”
Owens responded to the backlash by attacking what she termed the “Zionist media,” accusing them of attempting to suppress her views. On X, she wrote, “The reason why this particular episode is so detrimental to Zionism is because they have polluted American minds to believe that we must defend Israel out of morality and the evils of the Holocaust.”
Commentary editor John Podhoretz labeled the Owens event as the Trump campaign’s “first serious internal test” post-GOP convention, predicting that it would highlight the campaign’s disorganization and mark an “absolutely horrific stain” on its reputation.