Follow us on social

2019-12-08t053656z_1999786491_rc2tqd9uckuo_rtrmadp_3_usa-trump-scaled

Trump’s biggest donors will continue to shape hawkish GOP foreign policy

Trump may be replaced as president, but his hawkish Middle East policies will live on in Washington.

Analysis | Middle East

Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump has signaled a decisive rebuttal to Trump’s divisive politics and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, and saber rattling foreign policy towards Iran that has included: abrogating from the Iran nuclear deal, assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps major general Qasam Soleimani in Baghdad and heaping “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran as the country’s hospitals teeter on the brink during a global pandemic.

But bringing the United States to the precipice of war with Iran is exactly what three of Trump’s biggest campaign backers — Casino magnates Sheldon and Miriam Adelson and Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus — have funded for years. 

Their role in bankrolling hawkish politicians and widely-quoted think tank scholars in Washington is unlikely to end with the defeat of their preferred presidential candidate.    

The influence of the Adelsons over Trump’s Middle East policy has been unmistakable. Sheldon Adelson — who in 2013 suggested detonating a nuclear bomb in an “Iranian desert” and threatening a nuclear attack on Tehran, a city of more than 12 million people, if Iran didn’t abandon its nuclear program — promoted John Bolton to Trump as his national security adviser, and Adelson’s financial support for Trump’s 2016 campaign coincided with Trump’s about-face on a variety of positions on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, bringing him closely in line with Adelson’s hawkish and pro-Likud views. 

Trump delivered on a number of important issues for the Adelsons, including abrogating from the Iran nuclear deal and moving the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

Honoring his top donors, Trump even gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson, no doubt helping pave the way for the Adelsons’ support of his reelection bid.

The Adelsons came through, contributing $75 million to the pro-Trump super-PAC Preserve America. 

Bernie Marcus —who told Fox Business that “Iran is the devil” and once accused Holocaust victims of being weak and submissive — is often overshadowed by the Adelson’s largesse, but is no small donor himself. Marcus contributed $5 million to Preserve America, making him the super-PAC’s second biggest donor after the Adelsons.

But while Trump’s loss has sidelined his political career, at least for the moment, the influence of his top donors over the GOP and the beltway’s foreign policy debate, is unlikely to come to such a sudden end. 

The Adelsons may have been Trump’s biggest enablers but their scale of support for the GOP is far greater. In the 2020 election cycle, Sheldon and Miriam are expected to have contributed a total of $250 million when factoring in their support of Republican House and Senate races. 

Marcus, for his part, will have contributed over $10 million to Republican House and Senate races in the 2020 election cycle.

In short, they might be done with Trump, but they continue to form the backbone of the GOP’s campaign finance apparatus. That importance, no doubt, comes with influence over the party’s foreign policy positions. And both the Adelsons and Marcus have spent lavishly on influencing the foreign policy debate outside of their campaign financing.

Look no further than the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential think tank whose staff regularly call for military action against Iran, cheerlad the Trump administration's failed “maximum pressure” policy, and served as a hub for a controversial State Department funded program engaged in targeted harassment of American critics of the White House’s foreign policy in the Middle East. 

Sheldon Adelson contributed over $1.5 million to the group between 2008 and 2011 and Marcus contributed over $10 million in the same years. While FDD says Adelson is no longer a funder, Marcus continues to contribute over one-third of the group’s annual budget per year, sending $4.3 million to the group in 2018 alone. The Adelsons also funded United Against Nuclear Iran, a shadowy anti-Iran group that called for a de facto blockade of food and medicine to Iran. 

Trump’s loss is a setback for hawkish megadonors who invested millions of dollars in electing, reelecting, and prodding Trump toward confrontation with Iran. But their outsized roles in funding Republican congressional campaigns and an upcoming group of militarist politicians, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Rep. Elizabeth Cheney (R-Wyo.) and the possibility of future runs for office from Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, may give them hope for the future of the hawkish wing of the Republican Party.

While Trump may have been rejected by the electorate, and his place in the history books will be hotly contested, Miriam Adelson laid bare her enamoration for one of America’s most divisive presidents in a July 2019 column in the Las Vegas Review Journal, a newspaper owned by the Adelson family, in which she celebrated the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and U.S. abrogation from the Iran nuclear deal.

Adelson, herself a dual U.S.-Israeli national, according to Las Vegas Sands Corporation financial filings, wrote:

The world rallies to an America that is strong, and this strength is best shown by keeping faith with U.S. allies — of which Israel is the best.

By rights, Trump should enjoy sweeping support among U.S. Jews, just as he does among Israelis. That this has not been the case (so far — the 2020 election still beckons) is an oddity that will long be pondered by historians. Scholars of the Bible will no doubt note the heroes, sages and prophets of antiquity who were similarly spurned by the very people they came to raise up.

Would it be too much to pray for a day when the Bible gets a “Book of Trump,” much like it has a “Book of Esther” celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from ancient Persia?

Until that is decided, let us, at least, sit back and marvel at this time of miracles for Israel, for the United States, and for the whole world.

The Bible will not get its “Book of Trump” but the Adelsons, sitting on a $31 billion fortune, and Marcus, worth $6 billion, have shown a willingness to throw their financial support behind candidates and institutions that bring the United States closer to war with Iran and enable the Israeli Likud Party’s expansionist definition of Israel’s borders. In doing so, three of the GOP’s biggest funders have signaled the terms of their support for a new generation of Republican politicians with ambitions on the national stage.


Sheldon Adelson and wife Miriam Adelson stand as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Israeli American Council National Summit in Hollywood, Florida, U.S., December 7, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
Analysis | Middle East
US Navy Taiwan Strait
TAIWAN STRAIT (August 23, 2019) – US Naval Officers scan the horizon from the bridge while standing watch, part of Commander, Amphibious Squadron 11, operating in the Indo-Pacific region to enhance interoperability with partners and serve as a ready-response force for any type of contingency. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Markus Castaneda)

Despite setbacks, trends still point to US foreign policy restraint

Military Industrial Complex

It’s been only a few days since Israel first struck Iranian nuclear and regime targets, but Washington’s remaining neoconservatives and long-time Iran hawks are already celebrating.

After more than a decade of calling for military action against Iran, they finally got their wish — sort of. The United States did not immediately join Israel’s campaign, but President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israel’s decision to use military force and has not meaningfully restrained Israel’s actions. For those hoping Trump would bring radical change to U.S. foreign policy, his failure to halt Israel’s preventative war is a disappointment and a betrayal of past promises.

keep readingShow less
iraqi protests iran israel
Top photo credit: Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims hold a cutout of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they attend a protest against Israeli strikes on Iran, in Baghdad, Iraq, June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

Iraq on razor's edge between Iran and US interests in new war

Middle East

As Israeli jets and Iranian rockets streak across the Middle Eastern skies, Iraq finds itself caught squarely in the crossfire.

With regional titans clashing above its head, Iraq’s fragile and hard-won stability, painstakingly rebuilt over decades of conflict, now hangs precariously in the balance. Washington’s own tacit acknowledgement of Iraq’s vulnerable position was laid bare by its decision to partially evacuate embassy personnel in Iraq and allow military dependents to leave the region.

This withdrawal, prompted by intelligence indicating Israeli preparations for long-range strikes, highlighted that Iraq’s airspace would be an unwitting corridor for Israeli and Iranian operations.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani is now caught in a complicated bind, attempting to uphold Iraq’s security partnership with the United States while simultaneously facing intense domestic pressure from powerful, Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) factions. These groups, emboldened by the Israel-Iran clash, have intensified their calls for American troop withdrawal and threaten renewed attacks against U.S. personnel, viewing them as legitimate targets and enablers of Israeli aggression.

keep readingShow less
George Bush mission accomplished
This file photo shows Bush delivering a speech to crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, as the carrier steamed toward San Diego, California on May 1, 2003. via REUTERS

Déjà coup: Iran war activates regime change dead-enders

Washington Politics

By now you’ve likely seen the viral video of an Iranian television reporter fleeing off-screen as Israel bombed the TV station where she was recording live. As the Quincy Institute’s Adam Weinstein quickly pointed out, Israel's attack on the broadcasting facility is directly out of the regime change playbook, “meant to shake public confidence in the Iranian government's ability to protect itself” and by implication, Iran’s citizenry.

Indeed, in the United States there is a steady drumbeat of media figures and legislators who have been loudly championing Israel’s apparent desire to overthrow the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.