Billionaire couple likes Trump’s Washington
Casino magnate, wife influential donors to the GOP
The return on investment for many of the Republican Party’s biggest political patrons has been less than impressive this year. But not for Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate, and his wife, Miriam, a physician, have emerged as the biggest and potentially most influential contributors to Republicans in the midterm season.
Despite initially harboring qualms about President Donald Trump’s leadership, the Adelsons have found much to like in a Republican-controlled government that has aligned with their most cherished priorities: unflinchingly pro-israel, unaccommodating to Middle Eastern adversaries and dedicated to deregulation and lower taxes.
Adelson in particular enjoys a direct line to the president. In private in-person meetings and phone conversations, which occur between the two men about once a month, he has used his access to push the president to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and, more recently, to cut aid to the Palestinians, according to people familiar with their discussions, who spoke anonymously. Trump has done both, triggering a backlash from some U.S. allies.
Republican control of the House and the Senate is so vital to maintaining these policies, the Adelsons believe, that they have given $55 million in the last few months to groups dedicated to making sure it stays that way. That makes them not only the largest donors to national Republican electoral efforts in this election cycle, but the biggest spenders on federal elections in all of American politics, according to publicly available campaign finance data.
In meetings with the consultants and political strategists who have visited his office on the
Las Vegas Strip to ask for money, Adelson and his wife ask pointed questions, hoping to ensure that their money will be spent wisely, people who have pitched them said in interviews. They demand campaign plans, preferably in writing.
They are critical of strategies that appear overly reliant on television advertising, preferring to invest in ones with a wide network of field offices and staff on the ground. When advertising does come up, they have surprised some of the people pitching them with detailed questions, like when they would book airtime and what percentage they were paying up front.
More than a dozen people who know the Adelsons professionally or personally, some of whom are also friendly with Trump, said in interviews that the durability of Adelson’s relationship with the president hinges not on any personal affinity between the two, but on a mutual appreciation for something both men have built their careers on: the transaction.
“I think there are a lot of leaders in the establishment Jewish community for whom Donald Trump is not the kind of guy they’d want to break matzo with, but they sure like his polices and what he’s doing,” said Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush who is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition with Adelson.