These are heady days for casino billionaire and megadonor Sheldon Adelson.
A passionate and hawkish advocate for Israel with close ties to its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson was in Jerusalem today for a celebration of the U.S. embassy’s relocation to that city, a longstanding priority for the mogul. Similarly, Adelson had pushed hard for President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which happened last week.
And the day after that announcement, Adelson quietly slipped into the White House for a private meeting with Trump and three top administration officials: Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and an Adelson favorite, National Security Adviser John Bolton, according to two conservative sources familiar with the previously unreported private event.
Both the embassy move and the withdrawal from the 2015 pact that coupled the lifting of sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran’s dismantling of its nuclear program have sparked controversy and criticism from some key American allies. On Monday, Palestinian officials said at least 52 Palestinians were killed by Israelis as they tried to break through a fence separating Gaza and Israel, in part to protest the embassy's relocation. The White House actions partially are testament to Adelson’s clout and that of like-minded pro-Israel conservatives, many observers believe. //
But Adelson’s cash also helped elect Trump — even though during the campaign Trump often asserted his independence of big donors to portray himself as a self-styled populist.
“I don’t need anybody’s money,” he said in mid-June 2015. “I’m using my own money…I’m really rich.”
In 2016, Adelson gave almost $83 million in publicly disclosed funds to Republican groups and candidates, including $20 million to Future 45, a super PAC that backed Trump. He also threw in a record $5 million to the inaugural committee, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
During the inaugural parties last January, Adelson received a special shout-out from the president himself.
At one big inaugural gala, Trump thanked Adelson publicly for donating, along with his wife, an Israeli-born physician, $120 million to numerous outside groups and candidates in 2016 to help put him in the White House and keep the GOP majority in Congress, two people who heard the remarks told McClatchy. The larger figure likely includes funds given by Adelson to politically active nonprofit groups that don’t have to disclose their donors.
Still, Adelson and his allies had to keep up the pressure on Trump to achieve both of their recent successes. Adelson was upset that Trump didn’t act to move the embassy early on in his tenure, as he’d pledged during the campaign. Likewise, Trump took a long time to decide to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
But the Las Vegas billionaire — currently rated the 16th richest man in the world with a net worth of $42. 5 billion, according to Forbes — isn’t shy about expressing his views to political heavyweights; at one point, he even offered to help pay for construction of a new embassy building if Trump made the move.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article211098039.html