‘October 7 was a turning point’: Trump’s pro-Israel fundraising accelerates.
Plus: What has pro-Israel Democrats in Congress worried.
ALMOST AS SOON AS PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN announced he would halt a weapons shipment to Israel, Steve Witkoff’s iPhone started buzzing.
“Every one of my friends started calling and asking, ‘What can I do for Donald Trump?’” Witkoff, a pro-Israel donor and fundraiser for Trump’s presidential campaign, told The Bulwark.
Witkoff and the Trump campaign had been waiting for these calls ever since October 7. But Biden had maintained an unexpectedly strong alliance with Israel even as the Gaza death toll skyrocketed, his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grew strained, and U.S. public opinion shifted against the war. A number of top Republican Jewish donors, some of whom never much liked Trump, remained on the sidelines.
Biden’s May 8 announcement on CNN—“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah . . . I’m not supplying the weapons”—appears to have changed the calculus.
“It was a notable shift,” Witkoff said. “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.”
Witkoff and the Trump campaign won’t at this point name names or exact amounts raised into its main campaign account, the Republican National Committee, and a supportive super PAC, but the financial uptick jibes with the observations of a dozen Republicans and Democrats involved with Jewish political issues who spoke to The Bulwark for this report and described Biden’s announcement as an inflection point in the Gaza war and in the presidential race. It’s helping Trump consolidate support and tout his pro-Israel record, and it’s also a wedge issue cleaving the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli parts of the Democrats’ coalition.
Trump promptly criticized Biden’s announcement in a rally, pledging to stand more closely with Israel. Also, his campaign began making plans to assemble a pro-Trump Jewish coalition it plans to announce in the coming weeks. It’s also ramping up outreach to major Jewish Republican donors who have yet to contribute, like billionaires Steve Schwarzman and Paul Singer.
Trump’s “emissaries” are also courting billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who helped force the resignation of Harvard’s president for her handling of anti-Israel protests on campus, sources told The Bulwark. Ackman is scheduled to join a fundraiser with other high-dollar donors for South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Trump VP shortlister, next month. Scott is expected to use some of that money to boost Trump. And Trump’s campaign has taken note of Republican donor and hedge fund manager Cliff Asness, who joined Singer in financially backing Nikki Haley in the primary, because of his outrage over Biden’s handling of Israel.
“My ‘Never Again’ is trumping my ‘Never Trump’ these days,” Asness told the Free Press, refusing to rule out supporting Trump.
Israel isn’t the only issue that aligns these Republicans more closely with Trump than Biden. As financial tycoons, they love Trump’s tax cuts and loathe Biden’s calls to raise taxes on the rich. Trump is also leading in polls, and more contributors are naturally giving to the candidate as the election grinds on and he tries to narrow Biden’s significant advantage in fundraising.
Israel just provides an additional permission structure to back Trump.
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ONE REPUBLICAN FAMILIAR with Trump’s fundraising said Israel has been a top issue that has only grown in importance in recent months with the rise of anti-Israel protests, especially in and around college campuses, some of which became notably antisemitic. It was a topic of conversation at a $10 million fundraiser last Wednesday hosted in New York City by billionaire financier Howard Lutnick. Donors talked about Israel at another $3 million event at Trump’s Doral golf club near Miami in March. And Witkoff, a major real estate investor, said Israel was discussed at length at a $7 million South Florida fundraiser he hosted for Trump in December.
“The one thing that we’re hearing in these meetings—whether they’re former Democratic voters or Republicans—there’s one theme: October 7 was a turning point,” the source said. “And they keep saying peace through strength, and how no one historically has ever been stronger for Israel than President Trump. And they’re concerned about Iran.”
David M. Friedman, ambassador to Israel under Trump, said the former president has an advantage over Biden in communicating his position because it’s simpler.
“It’s a far less nuanced approach,” he said. “Trump sees adversaries in two buckets: Are they people who are loyal to America or share American values? Or are they people who threaten America and hate American values? Not everyone fits cleanly in those buckets. But in the Middle East, they do.”
At the same time Trump’s campaign is redoubling its outreach efforts to Jewish donors, his associates are also arranging a series of private dinners with Arab Americans, the Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, Biden could increasingly be on the side of public opinion overall as majorities of Democratic and independent voters now oppose Israel’s war on Gaza.
“It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire,” Biden said in a Sunday commencement address at Morehouse College. “I know it angered and frustrates many of you, including in my family.”
CASINO MAGNATE MIRIAM ADELSON, one of the biggest pro-Israel Republican donors, sat out the Republican primary but had planned all along to financially support the Republican nominee. Adelson also finances the Republican Jewish Coalition, which is launching a new $15 million campaign to attract more Jewish voters to the Republican fold.
“Given the sharp contrast between Donald Trump, who was the most pro-Israel president in history, versus Joe Biden, who rivals Jimmy Carter as the worst, we are confident that we will continue to make inroads in the Jewish vote for president,” said RJC executive director Matt Brooks. “And given all that’s at stake in this election for Israel with the war to eliminate Hamas and defeat Iran, these issues will be front and center in the campaign.”
But Jewish voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, and years of Republican efforts to change that haven’t had much effect, said Jim Gerstein, a pollster who has surveyed Jewish voters for the Jewish Electorate Institute and J Street, a liberal group opposite the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Gerstein said Israel is important to Jewish voters, but issues like abortion rights rank far higher. His last survey of Jewish Americans, taken a month after October 7, found that 74 percent supported Biden’s handling of the conflict. And for all the attention on Jewish voters, Gerstein noted, they only comprise about 2 to 5 percent of the electorate in various battleground states.
“The quadrennial claim that ‘This is the year Republicans make gains with Jewish voters’ never happens. Now there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “But when you look at the fundamentals, Jewish voters still hate Trump and they largely hate the Republican party.”
In Palm Beach County, home to Mar-a-Lago, the elected Democratic state attorney, Dave Aronberg, agrees that Trump is uniquely dislikable to Jewish voters because he has dined with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and antisemitic rapper Kanye West, and has spoke about the “very fine people on both sides” of the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.1
Aronberg credited Biden for standing so strongly with Israel for so long and downplayed the impact of the single delayed weapons shipment (Biden subsequently approved another one; yeah it’s complicated). But he said many Jewish voters wanted Biden to be faster and more forceful in denouncing antisemitism at leftist rallies and college campuses this spring.
“People are scared and angry,” Aronberg said. He said his wife won’t wear a Jewish “Chai” pendant around her neck anymore. A Harvard graduate, Aronberg said he decided not to wear a sweater from his alma mater with its name written in Hebrew because he’s “disgusted and disappointed” with the school’s handling of demonstrations.
BOTH ARONBERG AND ANOTHER FLORIDA DEMOCRAT, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, said they expect more donations from Jewish Republicans and independents to flow to Trump.
Moskowitz said he has spent days trying to calm down pro-Israel donors outraged with campus protests and Biden’s interview on CNN where he announced the weapons-delivery pause.
“The conversations I’ve had with donors is that they want to stop donating to Biden or Democrats,” he told The Bulwark. “They’re not talking about turning on the spigot for Trump, it’s turning off the spigot for us. Some are billionaires. Some are millionaires. And a few have told me they’re not contributing to Trump but they might vote for him. The question is whether this is irreparable. I hope not. The next several months will determine that.”
Moskowitz was one of two dozen pro-Israel Democrats in the House who demanded answers of the Biden administration for the weapons shipment pause, a decision Biden made after months of progressive opposition to Israel’s campaign. Billionaire Democratic donor Haim Saban criticized Biden’s decision, but a source familiar with Biden’s fundraising operation said the president is still outraising Trump, pulling in millions of dollars a day and has not seen a dropoff in contributions.
“Saban is supposed to give more, so if that doesn’t happen then there could be a problem there,” said the Democratic source. “Does this give Trump access to more dollars from Jewish donors on the right? Sure. But we’re not too worried about Democrats giving. We’re still blowing him away.”
One major division on the right stands over Israel policy: Trump is still angry at Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on winning the 2020 presidential election. Netanyahu made the announcement twelve hours after the race was called; Trump, still contesting the results, saw it as a betrayal. The two had worked closely while Trump was president, and Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights and, at Netanyahu’s urging, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and crushed Iranian oil exports and financing. Netanyahu, who in 2019 even presided over a ceremony naming a planned settlement “Trump Heights,” has employed Trump campaign pollsters Tony Fabrizio and John McLaughlin.
After the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, Trump bashed Netanyahu for not stopping it and inaccurately described Israel’s role in the 2020 assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. Trump last month reiterated his criticisms of Netanyahu.
“Trump still hasn’t forgiven him yet,” a source said. “They haven’t talked. Trump is busy on trial and Bibi has a war to run. They’ll talk when it’s appropriate.”
Correction (May 21, 2024, 10:45 a.m. EDT): This sentence has been modified to clarify its paraphrase of Dave Aronberg’s remarks; he did not refer to Trump having “made antisemitic statements in the past.”
There are two things these folks need to remember, it wasn't Israel t***p visited first, it was the Saudis. t***p is purely transactional and his loyalty would be to the highest bidder.
I've been a sharp critic of Biden's foreign policy decisions, but I think he has managed the Israel conundrum rather well.
It is not useful to try and weigh the domestic political consequences. It is inherently a lose-lose that can't be accurately measured. Biden has to thread the needle on conflicting priorities and he has done that as well as I can imagine.