PHOTOS: Why Does Sheldon Adelson Have Such Great Seats at the Inauguration?
Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis January 20, 2017
Jewish casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, got to Donald Trump’s inauguration bright and early this morning to claim their seats, right at the center of the dais.
Their seats, right on the aisle, put them within arm’s reach of the country’s most powerful political dignitaries, and just a few rows behind Trump himself. Politicians, not donors, dominate this most prestigious part of the dais.
The Adelsons’ prominent seats are somewhat surprising, given their reticence to support Trump throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. Adelson made a massive last-minute cash infusion to the Trump campaign, after dithering for months.
Image by Getty Images
Trump hasn’t forgotten the slight: At a dinner just days ago, the president-elect “mocked Adelson.
Image by Getty Images
As Trump arrived onstage, Miriam Adelson could be seen over his shoulder, shooting a picture on her camera phone.
Cameras caught the Adelsons kibitzing with former House speaker Newt Gingrich, whose failed 2012 presidential campaign floated with a total of $20 million in donations.
Image by Getty Images
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
