Massad Boulos: Donald Trump selects Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law as Senior Adviser on Middle Eastern affairs

President-elect Donald Trump has selected one of his new top presidential advisers, choosing to make the position a family affair.

Billionaire Massad Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law has been selected as Senior Adviser to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

“Massad is an accomplished lawyer and a highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the International scene,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values, an asset to my Campaign, and was instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American Community.”

Mr Boulos is father to Michael Boulos, who Ms Trump married in 2022.

“Massad is a dealmaker and an unwavering supporter of PEACE in the Middle East. He will be a strong advocate for the United States, and its interests, and I am pleased to have him on our team,” Mr Trump wrote.

Who is Massad Boulos?

Mr Boulos, a billionaire with extensive business ties in Nigeria, was born in Lebanon, but moved to Texas as a teenager, where he attended the University of Houston, earned a law degree and became a US citizen.

His father and grandfather were both figures in Lebanese politics and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.

People Magazine reported in 2022 that his son and Mr Trump’s daughter, whose mother is Mr Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, met on the Greek island of Mykonos at actor Lindsay Lohan’s club.

Mr Boulos played an integral part in Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign. During the election campaign, he repeatedly met with Arab American and Muslim leaders to win the bloc vote.

Mr Boulos campaigned for Mr Trump to drum up Lebanese and Arab American support, even as the US backed Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Mr Trump’s election win in Michigan came in part because of Mr Boulos’ help flipping some of the 300,000 Arab Americans and Muslims in the state who overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020 but opposed Biden’s policies in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, Trump campaign officials and supporters told Reuters.

Massad Boulos’s political ambitions

The new role could offer Mr Boulos the kind of political clout he could not achieve in Lebanon.

He had a brief run for Lebanon’s parliament in 2018 alongside pro-Hezbollah candidates, but since then he has not consistently aligned himself with any particular party, sources in Lebanon said.

While he used to travel to Lebanon frequently, he has not visited in the last four years, one of the sources said.

Some people in Lebanon were hopeful about the prospects of having a friendly face in Mr Trump’s inner circle even before the announcement on Sunday.

“It’s a nice thing - and hopefully he will work for Lebanon. And Trump maybe is of the type who makes a promise and could possibly be more loyal to it than others,” said Hamdi Hawallah, a Lebanese man in his late 70s.

“So we’re optimistic about him. These days we hold on to a piece of driftwood just to be optimistic.”

- With Reuters