Top Jewish GOP donor: I don’t care who Trump kissed or didn’t kiss
The self-described rational-centrist says this election is a battle of good and evil.
By DANIELLE ZIRIRepublican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Reno(photo credit: MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS)
NEW YORK – Since a dozen women came forward in recent weeks accusing Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump of sexually assaulting them, following the release of a tape in which the candidate boasts about groping women, many in the Republican camp have turned their backs on him, retracting their endorsements.Some major donors to the campaign have even asked for their money back.But Jewish venture capitalist and longtime GOP donor Kenneth Abramowitz, will not back down from his support of Trump for the presidency.Abramowitz, who describes himself as a rational centrist, told The Jerusalem Post last week he believes Republican figures who have abandoned the candidate were simply “taken back by the allegations of these women and they handled it poorly.”“Even if they are true, when I compare that to all of Hillary Clinton’s evil and corruption and incompetence, that I find so threatening for the future of America, I’m going to overlook these allegations,” he told the Post.Kenneth Abramowitz is a general partner and co-founder at NGN Capital, a $450 million worldwide healthcare venture capital fund focused on US healthcare. He became initially interested in politics through his job and the subject of healthcare. After the September 11th, 2001 attacks in New York City, Abramowitz started studying some of what he calls “the bigger issues,” starting with national security.For a few years now, he has chosen to dedicate two days every week to politics and public service, or as he calls it his “hobby.” Abramowitz has been giving his signature speech titled “How To Save Western Civilization From Itself” in various forums across the United States and overseas.The speech, he said, was developed to try to “fill the gaps in analysis between the politicians, academic community, business leaders and news organizations,” who all have conflicts of interests and cannot tell the truth, according to him.The 2016 election, he believes is “a battle of good and evil.”“It’s this black and white,” he told the Post. “Who Mr. Trump kissed or didn’t kiss 18 years ago, I don’t care. Hillary’s corruption I do care about that. People have no idea who she is. Zero.”
While Abramowitz blames the Democratic candidate for what are known as her main weak points, including the 2012 Benghazi attack and the scandal surrounding her private email server, he explained that the main disqualifier of Hillary Clinton in his eyes is her contribution to brokering the nuclear deal with Iran.Negotiating with Iran, he said, was “like negotiating with Don Corleone.”Abramowitz is part of the minority of Jewish Americans – 22% – who align with the Republican party. According to the infamous 2013 Pew Research Center study on American Jewry, 70% of American Jews identify themselves as Democrats or leaning Democratic.Many of them explain their choice by pointing to Jewish values, saying that they are more compatible with those of the Democratic party, and more importantly for this election, incompatible with Donald Trump’s views such as for example, the need to impose a ban on Muslims from entering the US.Abramowitz, who is active in 25 different pro-Israel organizations including Friends of Likud, the Zionist Organization of America and Americans for a Safe Israel, describes this political tendency as “a disease for which there is no known cure.”“Jewish values are wonderful values to have, but they are misapplying them,” he said.“Throughout the years people came to America to be Americans, it didn’t matter where they came from, they wanted to be Americans. Now, we are being invaded by people who don’t want to be Americans, they believe in Shari’a law and Shari’a law is antithetical to Jewish values, to Christian values, all of our values.”But while he wholeheartedly supports the Republican candidate and has been speaking in his favor at multiple events, including one scheduled at a synagogue on Sunday night, Abramowitz said he still is aware of Trump’s flaws.“He’s got some personality problems, he thinks he knows everything,” Abramowitz told the Post. “It is worrisome.I don’t think he is doing his reading. I think he thinks he can make a lot of decisions by himself with modest input by other people.”“He has a learning disorder and a decision making disorder,” he added. “But he did build a very successful company so if these disorders were fatal in a business sense, this would have failed. The proof is in the pudding.”As far as the potential relationship between a Trump administration and the Netanyahu government, Abramowitz told the Post that he applauds Trump’s vow that “there will be no daylight between America and Israel”, which according to him means Trump would let Israel decide what’s best for itself.“Whenever America decides what’s best in Israel’s interest, it’s actually not in Israel’s best interest and it’s not in America’s best interest [either],” he said.