A businessman from Lebanon who moved to Texas as a teenager and knows Arabic, English, and French is one of Donald Trump’s representatives to Arab Americans. He recently became a member of the Trump family when his son married the former president’s younger daughter.
Someone named Massad Boulos is trying to persuade a group of powerful politicians who are mad at President Joe Biden that Trump is a better choice. But a lot of Arab Americans also say that Trump has made it clear that he supports Israel more than Biden and has said and done a lot of things that critics call Islamophobic.
Trump’s family and friends have always played important parts in his campaigns and in the White House. Boulos’s son Michael married Tiffany Trump two years ago, making him the latest family member to become close to Trump in politics. Boulos is using his long-standing connections to try to get people to support Trump’s bid for president in 2024.
Some Trump supporters believe they can take advantage of the fact that Biden’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza has caused disagreement among Democrats. Since Hamas took over on October 7, more than 37,000 people have died in Gaza, but health officials in the Hamas-run territory do not say how many were civilians and how many were fighters. In areas with a lot of Arab Americans, who are a big part of the Democratic Party, Biden got a lot of protest votes in the Michigan primary in February.
“Clearly, the War in the Middle East is the No. 1 issue that is very important to the Arab American community,” Boulos said in an interview. “The question now is who is causing war and who can bring peace?” They already know the answer.
A number of people who have met with Boulos also bring up what Trump has said about Muslims and Arabs. As president, Trump stopped people from coming to the United States from several mostly Muslim countries and called Muslim politicians in Congress “loyal.” Now that he has lost the 2020 election and is running for a second term, Trump has sometimes criticized Biden for not supporting Israel enough and has threatened to deport pro-Palestinian protesters whom he calls Hamas sympathizers.
Osama Siblani, editor of the Arab American News in Dearborn, said it’s not about me being Lebanese and you being Lebanese. “You can’t buy votes.” You need to give the group something useful. Trump still hasn’t done that.
Boulos is about average height, with graying black hair, square glasses, and a warm, friendly smile. He is often praised for being calm and humble, which aren’t always traits of someone in charge of a billion-dollar company.
Although Boulos was born in Lebanon, he came to Texas not long before he got his law degree from the University of Houston. Boulos said that when he was a student, he was very involved in Republican politics.
After graduating, he joined the business that had been in his family for three generations and finally became the managing director and CEO of the SCOA Nigeria conglomerate. This company specializes in putting together and selling vehicles and other equipment.
Boulos has been involved in politics in his home country of Lebanon, where he unsuccessfully ran for a parliamentary place in 2009. He says that he is “friends” with Sleiman Frangieh, a Christian lawmaker who works with the Shiite party and the militant group Hezbollah. Currently, Hezbollah backs Frangieh as their choice for president of Lebanon.
From afar, Boulos has supported Trump since his first campaign. After meeting Trump at a White House Christmas party in 2019, he became more active. At the time, Michael Boulos was seeing Tiffany Trump.
Campaign finance records show that Massad Boulos has not given any money recently. But this month, he went to Michigan and joined U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and about 50 Arab Americans at what he called a “private fundraising event.”
Boulos helped with the 2020 campaign, but his role has grown significantly since his son married Tiffany Trump in 2022. This is especially true since Arab Americans’ dissatisfaction with Biden created what Trump supporters see as a bigger political change.
Bishara Bahbah, head of the group Arab Americans for Trump, said, “One less vote for Biden is a vote for Trump.”
Bahbah said that Boulos has a “very close working relationship” with the group.
The group says it is separate from the Trump campaign and has set up shop in Michigan and Arizona, which Bahbah said were chosen as key areas by “people close to Trump.”
Massad, Michael Boulos, and Richard Grenell were all present at a meeting in May in Troy, Michigan. Grenell is a key foreign policy adviser to Trump and was Trump’s ambassador to Germany. About 40 Arab American organizers from all over the country were there.
The event included Arab Americans for Trump, but Boulos said that Grenell was the main person who planned it. People who went to the event had mixed feelings about it. Some said it was pointless and didn’t address their worries about Trump.
They didn’t say what they were going to do, but Grenell kept telling us that there was no war in the Middle East when Trump was president because he started the biggest peace effort there. Khaled Saffuri, an Arab American political activist who was there, said, “But most Arabs and Muslims don’t see the Abraham Accords as a peace agreement.”
Several people at the meeting say that Grenell tried to call Trump to have him speak to the group on the phone. The former leader didn’t answer.
Grenell and the Trump campaign both refused to say anything.
After a little more than a week, Boulos came back for more events. This time, he met with several groups of about fifty Arab Americans and also had one-on-one talks with people that Mike Hacham, the coordinator for Arab Americans for Trump in Michigan, had marked as “high-target” leaders.
Boulos said that his work so far has been “more of a personal effort to get back in touch with friends.” He usually starts talks by discussing the records of the Biden and Trump administrations for about 20 minutes. After that, he lets anyone ask a question.
Siblani met with Boulos for almost two hours. Boulos was with Bahbah, who is the chair of Arab Americans for Trump.
Siblani says that Boulos said Trump made things better for Arab Americans and that the world had fewer conflicts and wars while he was president, which made it sound like Trump could help end the conflict in Gaza.
When Siblani argued back, he said Boulos didn’t have “facts to prove his claim that Trump is better.”
“Massad can’t get people to support Trump because he hasn’t given the community anything useful except the fact that his son is married to Trump’s daughter and he can see them,” Siblani said. “That’s fine, but we need to know Trump’s plans and policies.”
He told reporters that Trump “respects and admires” the Arab American group. Many people who are against Trump call his ban on foreigners from several mostly Muslim countries a “Muslim ban,” but he denied that there was one. Boulos said it was really “extreme screening from some parts of the world.”
Boulos said that the most important messages from these talks are sent to Trump. Boulos used a recent post from Trump on social media as proof of his claim that he would bring “peace in the Middle East” if he were re-elected. Boulos said that the post’s timing “wasn’t a coincidence” but rather a result of “listening to the community’s concerns.”
Many community leaders who met with Boulos thought that Trump’s statement, which he posted on his social media site Truth Social on June 4, did not go far enough.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Brian Hughes, said in a statement that the campaign is “grateful that supporters of President Trump are working to communicate with this community.”
“We both think that Biden’s failed policies in the Middle East have caused death, chaos, and war in the area.” That failure caused tens of thousands of Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary for president. “The Trump campaign has talked to these voters and will continue to do so to remind them that President Trump’s policies in the Middle East have brought that area unprecedented levels of peace and stability,” Hughes said.
Some people still think there are other choices besides Trump and Biden. This year, Green Party candidate Jill Stein went to Dearborn to meet with leaders. She recently talked to the city’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, about the idea of him becoming her running mate.
At 34, Hammoud is too old to be vice president. The Constitution of the United States requires both the president and vice president to be at least 35.
Biden administration officials have also been to Dearborn to meet with local leaders and have kept in touch with them, including Siblani.
A Biden campaign spokesman named Ammar Moussa said in a statement that Trump “is the biggest threat to the Muslim and Arab community” and criticized Trump’s friends for reaching out to them.
Trump has said that he will let Israel bomb Gaza without any problems, and he and his friends think we don’t belong in this country, according to Arab American Moussa. It is clear that Trump and his team are racist and hate Muslims. Always. On the other hand, President Biden is trying hard to make peace that lasts.
But until the November election, Boulos said he would still divide his time between running his business and talking with Arab Americans.
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He made it clear that being a “concerned citizen and a Republican” is the only thing that drives him. He hasn’t thought about what he could do in Trump’s government if the Republicans win. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about that in a while.” He said, “I didn’t give this any thought at all, but I definitely don’t want anything.”
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