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Stephen Schwarzman announces he is backing Trump for 2024
Blackstone chair flip-flops, two years after calling for new party leadership
Two years after vowing not to back Donald Trump for president again, Blackstone chair Stephen Schwarzman has decided to hitch his 2024 wagon to the former president after all.
The billionaire political donor recently announced his support for Trump for the 2024 presidential election, Bloomberg reported. Rising antisemitism is one of several factors Schwarzman pointed to in making his decision.
“I share the concern of most Americans that our economic, immigration and foreign policies are taking the country in the wrong direction,” Schwarzman said in a statement. “For these reasons, I am planning to vote for change and support Donald Trump for President.”
Schwarzman’s endorsement promises to benefit Trump in two ways. First, Schwarzman puts his financial will behind his words. Worth $42 billion, according to Bloomberg, Scharzman donated more than $35 million to entities supporting Trump and other Republican candidates in 2020, according to OpenSecrets.
Second, Schwarzman’s public support could rally other major donors around Trump. While the former president is battling a criminal case in a Manhattan courthouse, incumbent Joe Biden is building a substantial financial edge, boasting roughly twice as much cash on hand.
But as Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for 2024, those who disavowed him are slowly coming to back him. That includes Schwarzman, who expressed a need for new party leadership in 2022 and gave $2 million to a Super PAC that supported Chris Christie, an outspoken Trump nemesis.
Prior to that, Schwarzman had long been in Trump’s corner. He was a liaison for foreign trade talks during Trump’s administration and led a council of business executives that quickly flamed out after Trump’s response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
The mogul was Trump’s largest Wall Street campaign contributor in his ill-fated run for a second term in 2020. He even briefly defended Trump’s response to that election and his false claims of voter fraud, though he spoke harshly of the events of Jan. 6 insurrection.
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