Former President Donald Trump awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dr. Miriam Adelson on Nov. 16, 2018. Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh May 30, 2024

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.

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