Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

After hesitating, Miriam Adelson commits more than $100 million to Trump’s campaign

Her late husband Sheldon Adelson didn’t cut checks in 2016 for Trump until September of that year

Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has reportedly pledged to spend more than $100 million to support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming general election after staying neutral in the Republican presidential primaries this year. 

Adelson, an Israeli-born physician who specializes in substance abuse, is set to finance a rejuvenated pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, which was initially formed for Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, Politico reported Thursday. The Adelsons contributed $90 million to Trump in that election cycle. 

Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who died in 2021, was the most generous single donor for Trump in 2016 — spending $20 million. But he didn’t cut checks until September of that year, and leveraged his support to demand that Trump announce the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem when he won.

Miriam Adelson is the latest of several billionaires who have pledged their support to Trump in recent weeks. And Bill Ackman, the founder of Pershing Square Capital Management and a prominent critic of colleges’ handling of campus antisemitism, will likely endorse Trump, the Financial Times reported Thursday. Both Trump and President Joe Biden used Thursday’s verdict against Trump for falsifying business records in fundraising appeals. Trump has raised less than Biden, but narrowed the gap in April.

Trump honored Miriam Adelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018. 

Initially, it appeared that she was not going to be actively involved in the 2024 election. She said in 2021 that it was time to move beyond the divisions that Trump stoked following his loss. After the death of her husband , she  kept a low political profile, though she resumed making political contributions in the 2022 midterm elections.

She refused to take sides in the presidential primary though she was courted by Trump and his chief rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

But lately it’s become more apparent why she has decided to throw her support behind Trump.

In a recent profile in New York magazine, Adelson suggested that she might want Trump to push for the annexation of the occupied West Bank if he wins a second term — described in the piece as “unfinished Israel business from Trump’s presidency.”

Trump’s 2020 Middle East peace plan had included potential U.S. recognition of some Israeli West Bank settlements. But such moves were postponed and the administration instead focused on normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and three other Arab nations. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who held the position in the Trump administration and is still closely connected with the former president, has recently been advocating for a new annexation plan. Following a Shabbat dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Miriam Adelson in March, Trump told the Israel Hayom newspaper that he plans to discuss this annexation strategy with the former ambassador.

According to Politico, Trump has met with Adelson multiple times and has also had phone conversations with her in recent months.  

Some speculate that it may explain a recent shift in the former president’s more favorable stance towards Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At a recent fundraiser, Trump told donors he supports Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror” and vowed to crush the pro-Palestinian protests across campuses and deport foreign demonstrators. 

After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and in recent months, Trump criticized the Israeli leadership’s handling of the war in Gaza. In an interview with Israel Hayom, a newspaper owned by Miriam Adelson, Trump said that Israel had made a “very big mistake” by broadcasting to the world the images of the destruction in Gaza. Trump also indicated that Netanyahu should pay a price for the failures leading up to the Hamas attacks.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.