President Donald Trump announced that he has nominated Ben Black to lead the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

If confirmed by the Senate, Black will serve as chief executive officer of the DFC, which acts as the federal government’s primary lender and investor in development projects abroad. 

“I am pleased to nominate Benjamin Black to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of the United States International Development Finance Corporation,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late last week. “Ben will use his financial acumen and broad dealmaking expertise to ensure that our Investments around the World benefit our Citizens, and strengthen our Country.”

After noting Black’s professional background, Trump said that his “successful career has spanned the fields of Investing, Law, and Public Policy, and he will draw from this broad experience to deliver historic results for the American People. Ben will demand that WHEN OUR NATION INVESTS, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA COMES FIRST.”

Black is a managing director of Fortinbras Enterprises, a credit investment fund, and CEO and director of Osiris Acquisition Corp, another investment firm. He was a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2015 to 2020. Black previously worked at Apollo Global Management, the firm founded by his father Leon Black, and was a senior portfolio manager at Knowledge Universe Holdings.

Black is an alumni of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. He also studied taxation at the New York University School of Law and received his BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. 

The DFC was created during the first Trump administration, the result of the merging of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Development Credit Authority of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have been leaders on speaking out against antisemitism and advocating for Israel largely praised the Trump administration’s executive order on antisemitism, issued earlier this week.

The centerpiece of that executive order was a directive that foreign nationals in the United States on student visas should have their visas revoked and be expelled if they express support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who was the lead Senate sponsor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act and other antisemitism legislation last year, praised the executive order as a welcome change of pace from the Biden administration.

“When antisemitism reared its ugly head across our nation, especially on college campuses, following Hamas’ October 7th terror attack on Israel, the previous administration equivocated and looked the other way. I’m thrilled to see clear-eyed, moral leadership has returned to the White House,” Scott said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “I fully support President Trump’s decisive actions to protect the rights and safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters and combat antisemitic hatred in all forms.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told JI that he thought the order was “fantastic. It is exactly what I predicted the Trump administration would do.” 

“A foreign student who engages in that conduct should absolutely be deported, so I’m very glad to see the order,” Cruz said. 

The Texas senator added that he had come away from conversations with Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, with the impression that “enforcing Title VI, the civil rights laws, and cutting off funding for universities that allow Jewish students to be harassed and threatened” was “going to be a real priority” for the Department of Justice. 

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), the Democratic co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, praised the order while emphasizing the need for due process protections — a concern shared by some Jewish groups.

“I applaud this Administration for issuing strong guidance to all federal agencies to combat antisemitism. If someone is a material supporter of terrorism and has broken the law, they should absolutely face consequences,” Rosen told JI. “At the same time, we also have to ensure the Trump Administration follows due process and the law when carrying this out.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) expressed strong agreement with the executive order.

“If you’re a student who is here on a visa and you’re breaking laws, committing crimes, and aligning with terrorist organizations that seek the destruction of the United States, you should have your visa revoked,” Torres said. “A visa is not a right but a privilege, and that privilege, once abused, should be revoked.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) called the executive order “good,” adding, “having a student visa is not a right if you support a terrorist organization.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Trump “took an important step … by showing that non-citizen criminals involved in hate speech against Jews following the horrific October 7 attacks in Israel must leave.”

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview released on Sunday that expanding the Abraham Accords would be “an absolute priority” if he wins the election.

“Everyone wants to be in it,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned news channel, claiming he would have added “12 to 15 countries literally within a period of a year” if he had won the 2020 presidential election. “If I win, that will be an absolute priority,” he added. “It’s peace in the Middle East — we need it.”

Trump also reiterated his controversial claim that Iran would have joined the Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab neighbors, during a hypothetical second term.

“I make the statement, and it sounds foolish but it’s not foolish — I think even Iran would have been in, because Iran was desperate to make a deal,” he said. “They had no money.”

He declined to elaborate on how he would address Iran’s efforts to create a nuclear weapon while in office, even as he recently suggested he is open to talks with the Islamic Republic about a renewed nuclear deal that he himself ended while in office.

“They won’t acquire it,” he said. “Now they may get it if they get it very quickly. I’m not president, so I won’t have much to do with that.”

Trump also did not discuss whether he would seek to include Saudi Arabia in the Accords, as the Gulf kingdom has indicated that forging diplomatic ties would be contingent on Israel accepting a Palestinian state. 

In the interview, focused on Middle East policy, Trump described Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as a “visionary” and a “great guy” who is “respected all over the world.” He vowed to bolster U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, saying Vice President Kamala Harris would damage the relationship.

Trump argued that U.S. relations with Israel would be strengthened under his leadership, suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more receptive to hearing from him than President Joe Biden. “He does listen to me,” Trump said of Netanyahu, speaking after the killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza.

Trump speculated that many of the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza have already been killed. “I’m sure many of them are dead,” he said in the interview. “It’s a very sad thing. What’s going to happen when they find out that there are very few hostages, which is probably what they’re going to find out.”

“Even early on, I think a lot of those hostages were dead,” he added. “It’s not even believable when you think about it, but I think pretty early on, there were a lot that were gone.”

Repeating a claim he has made several times during the campaign, Trump said that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack would never have occurred if he had been president.

Without elaborating on a plan, he said he would stop the war in Gaza if elected and that he would bring stability to the region. “If I win, we’re going to have peace in the Middle East, and soon,” he said.

President Donald Trump implored American Jewish leaders to back his administration’s efforts to bring peace in the Middle East and support his reelection bid during an annual High Holidays conference call with rabbis and Jewish community leaders on Wednesday afternoon. 

“Whatever you can do in terms of November 3rd, it’s going to be very important because if we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble,” Trump told participants on the call, adding that if he loses reelection and Republicans lose control of the Senate, “you are going to lose control of Israel. Israel will never be the same. I don’t know if it can recover from that.” 

Trump noted the previous lack of widespread support among Jewish voters for his campaign, saying he was surprised to have only received 25% of the Jewish vote in 2016. “Here I have a son-in-law and a daughter who are Jewish, I have beautiful grandchildren that are Jewish, I have all of these incredible achievements,”” he said. “I’m amazed that it seems to be almost automatically a Democrat vote. President Obama is the worst president, I would say by far, that Israel has ever had in the United States… And yet the Democrats get 75%.”

“I hope you can do better with that,” Trump continued. “I hope you could explain to people what’s going on. We have to get more support from the Jewish people — for Israel… We have to be able, to hopefully, do well on November 3, and I hope you can get everybody out there. Otherwise, everything that we’ve done, I think, could come undone and we wouldn’t like that.”

On the call, White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner touted the administration’s record. “I can honestly say that there’s been no greater president for the Jewish people in history than Donald Trump,” Kushner said.

Trump ended the call by saying, “We really appreciate you. We love your country also.”

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign will launch a Jewish outreach team on Wednesday aimed at promoting the Trump administration’s record on Israel and efforts to combat the rise in antisemitism ahead of the November presidential election.

The group, named Jewish Voices for Trump, will be co-chaired by Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, along with Republican Jewish Coalition board member Wayne Berman, former Trump White House aide Boris Epshteyn and Julie Strauss Levin, wife of TV and radio personality Mark Levin. 

Trump reportedly scolded Adelson in a phone call last month for not spending enough on his reelection. Adelson “chose not to come back at Trump,” Politico reported. Axios later reported that Adelson has signaled he is poised to spend big to support the president’s reelection.

“President Trump has fought against antisemitism in America and throughout the world while continuing to ensure the long-term success and security of the Jewish state,” Epshteyn, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, told Jewish Insider. Citing the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and the recently signed peace accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Epshteyn said, “Trump’s record on Israel and the Middle East can be summed up in four words: promises made, promises kept.” 

A number of prominent Jewish Republicans sit on the group’s advisory board, including former Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, Houston-based GOP donor Fred Zeidman, Chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad Paul Packer, CEO of Miller Strategies Jeff Miller, Fox Paine & Company CEO Saul Fox, Boca Raton-based investor Marc Goldman, CEO of Hudson Bay Capital Sander Gerber, MizMaa Ventures co-founder Yitz Applbaum, nursing home operator Louis Scheiner, Blackstone’s Eli Miller, Mark Levenson, Dr. Jeffrey Feingold, and Haim Chera, son of the late Stanley Chera, among others.

“Never before have we seen an American president more dedicated to uplifting and protecting the Jewish people at home and around the world,” a Trump campaign official noted about the group’s launch. 

In addition to highlighting the administration’s Israel policy and the measures signed by the president to combat antisemitism, the group will also focus on Trump’s economic and trade policies. 

Epshteyn stressed that Trump’s record stands in stark contrast to the Democratic Party, which he referred to as the “radical hateful Democrats.”

In Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s new book, Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House, the former White House press secretary describes her relationship with her former colleague Josh Raffel, whose White House communications responsibilities included the Israeli-Palestinian file.

“Josh and I hadn’t known each other before starting in the White House. He was a liberal, aggressive, foulmouthed Jew from New York City who had spent most of his career working in Hollywood. I was pretty much his total opposite,” Sanders writes in the book, obtained by Jewish Insider, in a chapter detailing what happened behind the scenes of President Donald Trump’s first visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017.  

Raffel, who also served as a spokesperson for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, was senior vice president at Hiltzik Strategies and head of public relations at Blumhouse Productions before joining the Trump administration in 2017. He left the White House in the spring of 2018.

Sanders writes that “despite our differences, I had grown to love Josh. He is one of the funniest people I know, intensely loyal, and probably the most talented communications strategist I’ve ever worked with. Nobody in the White House could work a story better than Josh, and he was always one of the first colleagues I turned to for help on the toughest assignments.” 

Raffel told JI that Sanders “is a close friend.” 

In the book, Sanders also describes her close relationship with Ivanka. “When I was home sick with strep throat and high fever Ivanka had matzo ball soup sent over from her favorite deli,” she writes.