Donors who never thought they would back Donald Trump are now considering investing their millions behind the former president after Joe Biden suspended arms shipments to Israel in its war with Hamas.
Four donors who gave tens of millions of dollars in the 2020 election cycle told the free press who are reconsidering their donations from the last cycle now that they know where Biden stands on the Israeli conflict.
President Biden said in an interview with CNN last week that he would completely stop sending weapons to Israel if his forces invaded the southern Gaza city of Rafah, after a report emerged from the Israel Defense Forces that It said the White House stopped a shipment of American-made weapons.
“I am not supplying the weapons that have historically been used to deal with Rafah,” the president said in the interview last Wednesday.
Michael Granoff, a managing partner at the Maniv hedge fund who worked as a staffer on Bill Clinton’s campaign in the 1990s, voted for Biden in 2020, but now says he has lost confidence in the president and is considering voting for Trump. .
‘I’m not going to vote for Biden. “I’m not saying I’m going to vote for Trump, but now the probability is non-zero,” he told The Free Press.
President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview broadcast on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, that he is considering ending all US arms sales to Israel if they invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Reports emerged that the IDF said Biden suspended shipments of US-made weapons amid threats of invasion of Rafah.
Granoff believes Biden’s current stance betrays the commitments he made to the world’s only Jewish state after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, 2023 and engaged in the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. .
“The speech he gave on October 11 was one of the best speeches a president has ever given,” Granoff said. ‘If he had stuck to that policy, he would now be leading the race himself. I would be raising money for him.
Biden has faced increasing pressure through nationwide protests from a left-wing voting bloc that accuses Israel of genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
This includes outbreaks of protesters at universities, many of whom have set up camps on campuses and refuse to leave until their universities divest from any companies that do business with Israel.
Now it appears that Biden is bowing to that pressure by suspending arms shipments.
Granoff isn’t the only “Never Trumper” who could donate to the former president (or at least ditch the current president) in an attempt to prevent Biden from reaching a second term.
Republican donor Cliff Asness says he “spent well over seven figures” to support Trump’s primary opponent, Nikki Haley, but says his commitment to ensuring another Holocaust doesn’t happen is putting to rest his thoughts that he would never donate to Trump.
“My ‘Never Again’ is trumping my ‘Never Trump’ these days,” Asness told the Free Press.
‘Never Trump’ donors say they are reconsidering their support in 2024 due to Biden’s stance on Israel-Hamas conflict
“Biden is a huge disappointment, truly a moral outrage, with this arms embargo being just the latest and greatest outrage,” the AQR Capital Management co-founder continued. “Despite my long opposition to him, this makes me more likely, although I’m not there yet, to see Trump as the better of two bad alternatives.”
Registered Democratic hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman also responded after CNN aired Biden’s comments, writing in X that his decision to halt arms shipments is “one of the worst acts against an ally of a sitting president.” .
“Hopefully this means he won’t be sitting around any longer,” he added.
Haim Saban, a billionaire entertainment mogul and Democratic donor, wrote an email to two senior White House aides last week against Biden’s policy shift toward Israel.
“Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas,” he wrote.