Caught Between Two Friends May 27, 2024 Steve Schwarzman is the most influential Trumper I know. We’ve been friends for more than half a century. There’s much about him to like, and much about what he’s built to admire. Forbes estimates his net worth at $38 billion. He recounts his successes and good works here (e.g., $350 million to MIT to support artificial intelligence research; $100 million to the New York Public Library; nearly $200 million to Oxford; $150 million to yale; a Rhodes-scholar-like program in Beijing). I enjoyed reading it. I’m not unaware he has his detractors, or that he backed Trump in 2016. Then again, I doubt either of us — or any of us, really — appreciated just how awful Trump would turn out to be. It’s different now that we know. I was relieved when Steve quit Trump’s business advisory group after Charlottesville — though it turns out it was less out of protest than . . . well, he explains here. I’d love to see the Biden team ask Steve to reconstitute that advisory group. Presumably, fewer of their recommendations for lower taxes and less regulation would be adopted. Still, there’s certainly room for smarter taxes and regulation. And the group would have other ideas to contribute, as well. But then he hosted a giant fundraiser for Trump 2020. Really, Steve? But again I was relieved when it appeared he would not be backing Trump this time around. He is surely more of a Mitt Romney than a MAGA Republican. Yet now this: Blackstone’s Chief, a G.O.P. Megadonor, Says He Will Again Back Trump Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder and chief executive of the investment group, had previously called for a “new generation of leaders.” He names immigration as one of the key reasons he supports Trump — yet Trump is now the cause of the crisis, because Trump torpedoed the bi-partisan bill both the Senate and House were ready to pass and Biden, to sign, that would have provided the resources and policy changes needed to solve the crisis. Could Steve really believe the Big Lie that Trump won in 2020? Could he consider corporate taxation a more important issue than climate or reproductive rights or competence or honesty or Trump’s authoritarianism and eagerness to curry Putin’s favor? The article was brought to my attention by a college friend of even longer standing. He writes: There is absolutely no surprise here. I’ve known Schwarzman since he was fifteen years old. Trump and Schwarzman are the quintessential, unapologetic transactionalists. Whatever pads the bottom line. Whatever most expediently preserves power and wealth. However best to grease the respective palm. For both men, no moral compass or ethical convictions impact the calculus, despite lip service to both. The difference is that Schwarzman knows better. He knows who Trump is. He knows exactly what is going on. He is fully aware of the danger Trump poses to the republic, but this awareness is subordinate to his undeviating pursuit of his own interests and the rapacious accumulation of personal wealth. The fact that Schwarzman’s intelligence compared to Trump’s is like the sun to a candle flame starkly demonstrates the boundlessness and ruthlessness of his cynicism. He will die a very, very rich man, far richer than Trump could ever imagine on even the best of his self-deluded days. But the country’s best interests and the preservation of its democratic institutions will be damaged in Schwarzman’s wake. No matter; he will die with the ever-present self-satisfied smirk on his face. I hesitated to share that, but too much is at stake not to offer his point of view.