Big money and the White House: who is Miriam Adelson, the pro-Netanyahu billionaire who wants to shape Trump’s policy towards Israel?

In the United States, contributions from wealthy donors to candidates are crucial to the survival and performance of election campaigns. Unlike small donations of a few dozen or a few hundred dollars, donations from millionaires and billionaires give campaigns visibility and the ability to act in the medium and long term.

• According to Open Secrets data, “large contributions” account for almost 70% (more than $80 million) of the donations received by Donald Trump’s campaign during this election cycle.
• Since the sentence Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission In 2010, Super PACs have allowed the wealthiest donors to contribute more to campaigns than ever before.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump presented himself as a candidate opposed to the “transactional form” that funding from wealthy donors could take. Four years later, the former president had radically changed his position, willingly interacting with representatives of the oil sector or large corporations.

The assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the poor result of the Republicans in the midterms of 2022 caused some of these “megadonors” to distance themselves from Trump. In recent weeks, however, the trend has been changing.

• The Republican candidate has recently received promises of financing or support from several wealthy personalities: the CEO of the venture capital fund Blackstone, Stephen A. Schwarzman, the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and the founder of Citadel, Ken Griffin, who has gave a massive endorsement to Nikki Haley and said he was “waiting to see who Trump chooses as his running mate before supporting her candidacy.”
• Another figure whose support would greatly benefit the Trump campaign is Miriam Adelson, one of the 30 richest personalities in the United States, who until now had kept her distance from the Republican campaign for the November presidential elections.

Adelson is an American-Israeli doctor specializing in drug addiction. After practicing in Israel, she moved to the United States in the 1980s, where in 1991 she married pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021. With $75 million, the Adelson couple were the main financial contributors to the campaign. Trump in 2020.

• Sheldon Adelson is undoubtedly one of the main architects of US foreign policy towards Israel during Donald Trump’s mandate.
• Born to Jewish parents, the billionaire made his fortune in the 1980s and 1990s by founding Las Vegas Sands, a Las Vegas-based group that operates casinos. After his death, his wife Miriam became a majority shareholder.
• Although he was born in the United States and visited Israel for the first time at the age of 55, Sheldon Adelson was a supporter of the idea of ​​a “Greater Israel” that included the Palestinian territories.
• Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 was largely to please his evangelical base and Sheldon Adelson.

Miriam Adelson broadly shares her husband’s views on the place of the Jewish State and Judaism in the Middle East. In a recent speech, she described the Hamas attack of October 7 as “a form of Holocaust.” If Trump were to return to the White House in 2025, Adelson would have two priorities: convincing Trump that she supports Israel in annexing the West Bank and getting the president to recognize the right of Israeli settlers to settle on occupied lands.