“Manipulated” Donald Trump causes billionaire and major donor Miriam Adelson’s phone to explode with angry text messages
Donald Trump instructed one of his closest aides to bombard a billionaire Republican supporter with insulting text messages, accusing her of employing his Republican rivals, a new report reveals.
The furious former president attacked Miriam Adelson, one of the Republican Party’s wealthiest supporters, for claiming that her $100 million PAC, Preserve America, was run by “RINOs” – Republicans In Name Only. The New York Times reported.
News reports said her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino boss who was a major Republican and Trump donor, would not have allowed such associates to become involved in his business dealings. Trump was close to both Adelsons for many years and awarded Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.
The text messages were sent by Natalie Harp, a Trump aide known as “the human printer” for providing him with stacks of printouts during his criminal trial in New York state court, which ended with his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The text messages are said to have been sent by Natialie Harp (right), who was nicknamed “the human printer” during Trump’s criminal trial.
Charly Triballeua/Reuters
Adelson, who together with her family has a fortune currently estimated by Forbes at $27.5 billion, had reactivated the Preserve America PAC after Nikki Haley dropped out of the presidential race and had already begun spending heavily on pro-Trump advertising in key swing states. The PAC is expected to spend up to $100 million in the run-up to the election. Politico was reported in May. The value of Adelson’s personal donations was unclear, although Politico reported she plans to spend up to $90 million on the PAC and broader Republican causes.
But New York Times Reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported Saturday that an increasingly agitated Trump turned against Adelson’s PAC and instructed Harp to send the text messages. Preserve America is run by Dave Carney, a longtime GOP official who previously worked for Texas Governor Gregg Abbott.
The messages were sent just a week after Adelson and Trump met in a “friendly” manner at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and while the PAC spent $18 million on a barrage of television ads, one of which claimed that newly announced Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was “flooding the hospitals” with “illegal immigrants.”
But Trump’s entourage fears that the key development since the RNC – the resignation of President Joe Biden to make way for Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket – has made Trump so angry that he is “vulnerable” to manipulation by those around him.
In the case of the texts to Adelson, The times reported that Adelson’s staff “discovered” that Ike Perlmutter, the former head of Marvel Entertainment and Mar-a-Lago member who is a longtime friend of Trump, had inspired the text, apparently because he wanted Adelson to donate to another Super PAC. Perlmutter, 81, was also involved in the failed attempt by another octogenarian billionaire and Trump associate, Nelson Peltz, to unseat Bob Iger as CEO of Disney.
Trump had previously awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom and her vast wealth was considered a key target.
Leah Millis/Reuters
Perlmutter’s lawyer did not respond to The times and Adelson’s spokesman declined to comment The timesThe Daily Beast also asked her for comment.
The alleged break with Adelson comes at a time when Trump is vulnerable both publicly and privately. Just He reportedly called Harris a “bitch” in private, although his spokesman Steven Cheung denied that he used such language.
He has publicly railed against Democrats calling him “weird,” claiming that he has bigger crowds than Harris and that the crowd that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was bigger than the crowd that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had for his “I Have A Dream” speech.
Adelson took control of her late husband Sheldon’s business and political activities after his death and appeared to have opened the money spigot to Trump in June. She is an Israeli-American citizen and has also donated generously to pro-Israel causes. Part of her past closeness to Trump was based on his decision to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Adelsons purchased the ambassador’s residence outside Tel Aviv, which was intended to make it difficult for a future administration to reverse the embassy delay, although the Biden administration took no such step.
