United States President Donald Trump has professed ignorance about a term he used that is widely considered anti-Semitic, explaining that he did not know it had that meaning.

In the early morning hours of Friday, the Republican leader addressed the controversy around the term “Shylock”, which he used to describe unscrupulous bankers hours earlier.

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end of listThe term, however, originates from the 16th-century play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, which includes a depiction of a Jewish moneylender that some consider to be deeply anti-Semitic. The character’s name, Shylock, has been adopted as a pejorative for loan sharks, particularly those of Jewish faith.

“No, I’ve never heard it that way. To be Shylock is somebody that, say, a money lender at high rates,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, the presidential plane. “I’ve never heard it that way. You view it differently than me. I’ve never heard that.”

Trump used the term while visiting Iowa on Thursday for the kickoff of his “America250” celebration series, a string of events that will culminate in the 250th anniversary of the US in 2026.

While addressing a crowd at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Trump played up his success earlier in the day with the passage of his signature budget mega-bill, which he refers to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill”.

The House of Representatives had passed a revised version of the bill in a final, party-line vote of 218 to 214, over objections that it would raise the national deficit and slash social safety-net programmes like Medicaid.

Trump, however, had played up the fact that the mega-bill would allow his 2017 tax cuts to continue, while also raising exemptions under the estate tax — the tax on property transferred upon the death of a loved one.

“Think of that: no death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker and, in some cases, Shylocks and bad people,” Trump told the Iowa crowd.

The Anti-Defamation League, a group established to fight anti-Semitism, denounced Trump’s use of the term on Friday, pointing to its long history as a slur.

“The term ‘Shylock’ evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous. President Trump’s use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible,” the group wrote in a statement.

“It underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words from our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States.”

Thursday’s speech was not the first time Trump and his associates have faced accusations of anti-Semitism.

On the first day of Trump’s second term as president, then-ally Elon Musk gave a speech at a rally at the Capital One Arena that culminated with him slapping his chest and then extending his arm outwards with a flattened palm — a gesture that many people interpreted as a Nazi-style salute.

Trump himself has faced scrutiny for hosting a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, both of whom have been accused of spreading anti-Semitism.

The president was also criticised for downplaying the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist participants chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” Trump described the rally and its counterprotest by saying there were “very fine people on both sides”.

Trump, however, has made combatting anti-Semitism a central theme in his campaigns against Harvard University and other academic institutions where pro-Palestinian protests unfolded. Critics have described Trump’s attacks as efforts to dampen free speech and academic freedom.

The Republican leader, however, is not the first president in recent years to use the word “Shylock” — and face a backlash.

His Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, who served from 2021 to early 2025, once used the term to describe bankers pursuing foreclosures against military members deployed overseas.

“People would come to him and talk about what was happening at home, in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being — these Shylocks that took advantage of these women and men while overseas,” Biden said in 2022.

In the days that followed, however, Biden apologised: “It was a poor choice of words.”