5 Things To Watch as Trump Woos Megadonor Adelson (like Gingrich did before)

Will Adelson make good on his promise to give Trump $100 million?  In 2012, Adelson and his wife gave at least $98 million to GOP candidates… Sheldon Adelson is the largest donor of the Republican Jewish Coalition… Funneling his contributions through the Jewish group could push Trump to be more pro-Israel… Adelson has made clear that Trump’s stand on Israel is critical in getting Adelson’s cash… [Read below about Adelson’s connection to Newt Gingrich’s about-face on Palestine]

By Nathan Guttman, The Forward

So far, Sheldon Adelson is showing Donald Trump his face — but not his money.

The Las Vegas Jewish billionaire and the Republican presidential nominee have met twice in recent weeks, first in New York and again in Las Vegas in late August. Adelson also hosted Trump at his suite during the Republican convention in Cleveland.

But while the two billionaires seem to be getting along well, there is still no answer to the big question floating over this relationship: Will Adelson make good on his promise to support Trump to the tune of $100 million?

That promise has yet to show up on any federal election finance filings and it is not clear whether at this point, only two months before the general elections, whether Adelson will come through or not.

Here are five things to watch as the clock ticks toward Election Day:

Could Adelson have already made the contribution?

Federal campaign records regularly reflect a gap of several weeks in donations during election season so it is possible that Adelson, who refuses to discuss his contributions publicly, has actually begun recently to write checks to the Trump campaign and supportive Super PACs without these contributions showing up on records yet. In 2012, Adelson and his wife Miriam gave at least $98 million to GOP candidates and were key supporters of the ultimately unsuccessful primary run made by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But back then, the megadonor’s made his mark early on in the race. By September 2012 he had already given $70 million and was considered a top funder of the Republican campaign alongside the Koch brothers.

Is it too late for Adelson to start giving?

No. Campaigning and TV ad buying really only starts in earnest after Labor Day, so Adelson still has plenty of time to make a sizable donation and see his money count for something. However, for donors seeking a return for their contribution in terms of influencing campaign strategy or insuring that the candidate makes certain campaign promises, the later they get in the game, the less time they have to reap benefits from their investment.

Although Adelson, alongside Miriam, his wife and partner in philanthropy, have been slow to open their pocketbooks for Trump and his supportive independent expenditure groups, they’ve been quite generous to other GOP causes. Since the beginning of 2015, the couple has given upwards of $1.3 million to the Republican party and to many congressional candidates. They gave gifts totaling more than $300,000 to the Republican National Committee at the end of December 2015 and made similar contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee and to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson also gave the maximum amount of contributions to more than a dozen GOP candidates running in Senate and House races. Their reported political giving so far, however, leaned heavily toward Trump’s rivals. Early on in the Republican race the Adelsons gave to Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and also to Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, the most vocal anti-Trump elected official SOURCE.

Would Adelson rather avoid giving to Trump directly?

Can Adelson still get Trump to visit Israel?

Not likely. It is no secret that Trump was not Adelson’s first choice for the Republican presidential nomination. But as other favorites dropped out, the Vegas casino mogul threw his support behind Trump, making clear that the candidate’s stand on Israel would be critical in order to cash in on his backing. Adelson reportedly suggested that Trump make a pre-election visit to Israel, just like Mitt Romney did in 2012. But as months went by, talk of a pre-convention and then of a post-convention pilgrimage to the Holy Land were met with other urgent campaign needs and Trump never made it to Israel. Now, with the debates coming up in late September and early October and the final stretch afterwards, it is hard to see how Trump will be able to make time for an overseas visit.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

This is not the first time that Adelson has worked to influence politician’s position on Israel. In 2012 Eric Alterman reported in The Nation about Newt Gingrich’s about-face on Israel-Palestine:

“Interestingly, as Wayne Barrett has pointed out in the Daily Beast [here], [Newt Ginrich’s positions on Israel-Palestine] represent an almost complete reversal of the positions Gingrich held before he began rolling in Adelson’s riches. For instance, in 2005 he wrote an article urging the “Palestinian diaspora” to invest in “their ancestral lands,” and went so far as to propose that Congress “establish a program of economic aid for the Palestinians to match the aid the U.S. government provides Israel.” Gingrich even said that the US government should defend “the Palestinian people’s right to have a decent amount of land” and condemned “the desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land.” Such actions, he argued,

‘should be blocked by Washington even if that requires employing financial or other leverage to compel the Israeli government to behave reasonably on the issue of settlements. It is vital to our credibility in the entire Middle East that we insist on an end to Israeli expansionism. It is vital to our humanitarian duty to the Palestinian people that we protect the weaker party from the stronger power. It is vital that the world sees that our total support for Israeli security is not matched by a one-sided support for more extreme Israeli territorial goals’.

“It is at least theoretically possible that Gingrich’s 180-degree reversal on Israel/Palestine has nothing to do with the tens of millions of dollars that Adelson might make available to fund his future. Then again, it could hardly have escaped Newt’s notice that without the Adelson millions, he’d have hadbubkes in his campaign kitty with which to beat up on Bain Capital.”

Posted by Alison Weir on Sep 7 2016 . Filed under Commentary & Analysis, Costs to the U.S., Featured articles, Israel Lobby, Politicians . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . Both comments and pings are currently closed.