Who are the Jews in Trump’s inner circle?
Right-wing media figures and megadonors have supplanted policy wonks
Former President Donald Trump with Miriam Adelson and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun Sept. 19. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh September 24, 2024
After his widely panned performance in the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Trump has doubled down on wild conspiracies — like claiming Haitian immigrants eat pets — and ramped up attacks on American Jews who vote for Democrats. It’s made even his allies wonder: Who’s encouraging these rants?
Trump’s current crop of advisers serves more informally. On Israel and Jewish outreach in particular, right-wing media figures and megadonors have supplanted policy wonks.
Here is a look at several of the Jewish influencers whispering to Trump:
Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist
Trump allies blamed Loomer for Trump’s false and jaw-dropping claim during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating people’s cats and dogs. Loomer had flown with Trump to the debate on his private plane, and then appeared with him the next day at a 9/11 memorial event in Lower Manhattan.
Loomer, 31, a self-described Islamaphobe, has leaned into her Jewishness to attack critics. During her first unsuccessful congressional run in 2020, she faced backlash for featuring photos of concentration camp victims to attack incumbent Florida Rep. Lois Frankel, who is also Jewish. In 2018, Loomer chained herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters wearing a yellow star, resembling the ones Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust, to protest her social media account ban.
She also echoes Trump’s insults of Jews who vote for Democrats. “It’s either a genetic malfunction or a mental illness,” Loomer said in April on The John Fredericks Show, a popular right-wing radio broadcast. “The Jewish people have a record of making poor decisions for themselves.” She has also called Jewish Democrats “kapo Jews.”
Trump has maintained that Loomer is just a supporter who “speaks very positively of the campaign.”
Lee Zeldin, Trump’s warm-up guy
Zeldin, 44, a former congressman from New York, has emerged as a vocal Trump surrogate and critic of anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party. Warming up the crowd at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, Zeldin accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of “trying to un-Jewish himself” to become Harris’ vice presidential pick. A Shapiro spokesperson called the comments “disgusting.”
Trump and Republicans are leaning on Zeldin in New York, where the former gubernatorial candidate garnered significant Jewish support in 2022, and lost to Gov. Kathy Hochul by less than 7 percentage points by focusing on voters’ worries about the economy and crime.
Zeldin is the chair of the Leadership America Needs PAC, a pro-GOP fundraising organization. He is trying to spread the idea that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and subsequent pro-Palestinian protests across the U.S. have led American Jews to “start being more open-minded than ever to voting Republican.” Jewish Americans historically have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.
Trump has called Zeldin “a big part of our campaign.” At a campaign rally in Uniondale, New York, last week, Trump said to a cheering crowd: “I want to bring him to Washington with us. He’s a great lawyer.”
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf buddy
Witkoff, 67, was by Trump’s side when a would-be assassin targeted the former president during a round of golf in Miami before the Secret Service spotted him.
The son of a manufacturer of women’s coats, Witkoff became friends with Trump at a New York City deli in 1986 after they had worked together on a business deal. Since then, he’s become a confident, golfing buddy and contributor to Trump’s campaigns. Witcoff offered a very personal endorsement of Trump during the Republican National Convention in July, describing him as a “kind and compassionate” person who helped him cope after his son’s death from an opioid overdose.
Since Oct. 7, Witkoff has served as a backchannel to the Jewish business community, particularly after President Joe Biden halted the shipment of 2,000-pound weapons to Israel. “It was a notable shift,” Witkoff told The Bulwark in May. “I personally received and helped secure large Jewish donors over the last two weeks. And I’m not talking four-figure donations. I’m talking six-figure and seven-figure donations.”
Miriam Adelson, a top donor who makes the Israel case for Trump
Adelson, 78, the widow of casino magnate and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, makes the case that Trump is her native country’s best hope. After committing over $100 million through an independent super PAC to Trump’s campaign, the Israeli-born physician has made several joint appearances with him.
Last week, she stood by Trump as he made his most controversial comment to date about Jewish Americans. After she introduced Trump at back-to-back Jewish events, Trump said they would bear the blame if he loses the election.
Trump that evening praised Adelson as a “great lady” and close friend, and noted that she had served as a “calming influence” on her late husband, who with her had pushed Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel and withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. Adelson told the largely Jewish audience that Jews who care about Israel have a “sacred duty” to support Trump “in gratitude for everything he has done and trust in everything he will yet do.”
On her list of demands from a second Trump presidency: support for Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank. Trump may not be willing to fulfill all her wishes. At the first presidential debate in June, he declined to say whether he favors the creation of an independent Palestinian state. “I’d have to see,” he said.
Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s attorney and courtroom companion
Epshteyn, 42, is one of Trump’s closest advisors, who has had a direct line to the former president since 2016. Epshteyn, a Russian immigrant who once managed TV surrogates for Trump, was responsible for his 2017 Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that omitted Jews.
During the 2020 election, Epshteyn served as Trump’s informal Jewish liaison, chastising “radical hateful Democrats.” He pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges in an Arizona fake elector case, with the trial scheduled for January 2026. He sat at Trump’s side during his hush money trial in New York. In this year’s campaign, he serves as counsel and a senior adviser to Trump and the campaign.
More Jewish allies
Other Jews in Trump’s circle who publicly defend the president and attack Jewish Democrats include former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, conservative radio host Mark Levin, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, and Matt Brooks, chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Yehuda Kaploun, a Chabad-affiliated rabbi from Miami, has grown close to Trump in recent years. Kaploun organized Trump’s event on combating antisemitism last week and served as the emcee.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Boris Epshteyn holds no official role in the 2024 campaign. He is counsel and senior adviser to Trump and the campaign.
A message from our CEO & publisher 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
