Trump Is Said to Have Known About NASA Nominee’s Donations Before Picking Him

In announcing his decision to withdraw the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, to run NASA on Saturday, President Trump cited a review of his “prior associations,” a veiled reference to donations Mr. Isaacman had made to Democrats.

But those donations were old news. While Mr. Trump privately told advisers in recent days that he was surprised to learn of Mr. Isaacman’s contributions and that he had not been told of them previously, he and his team were briefed about them during the presidential transition in late 2024, before Mr. Isaacman’s nomination, according to two people with knowledge of the events.

One of those people said Mr. Isaacman, who had already been approved by a Senate committee and was headed to a confirmation vote this week, directly told Mr. Trump about those donations when they met in person weeks after the 2024 election.

Asked about the account, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, did not address the specific question. “The president has the right to nominate whomever he chooses to these positions and it’s imperative everyone, especially in a role as important as the head of NASA, is mission-aligned with the Trump administration,” she said in a statement.

Reached by phone, Mr. Isaacman declined to comment.

The revelation came after Mr. Trump told associates that he had recently been informed of Mr. Isaacman’s donations to prominent Democrats, including in the past two campaign cycles.

Mr. Isaacman is the founder of a payment processing company and a close associate of Elon Musk, who after the election personally lobbied for Mr. Isaacman to get the NASA job. Mr. Isaacman has flown to space twice with Mr. Musk’s company SpaceX, which has several contracts with the space agency.

Mr. Trump is said to have deferred to Mr. Musk on the choice, given his success with SpaceX. But Mr. Trump told Mr. Musk on Friday, his last day in the government, that he planned to pull Mr. Isaacman’s nomination. Allies of Mr. Musk and some allies of Mr. Trump spent part of Saturday publicly trying to salvage the nomination.

Mr. Trump announced Mr. Isaacman as his pick in December, calling him “an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot and astronaut.” Mr. Isaacman was set to lead an agency facing potentially vast budget cuts that had been operating with an acting administrator for months.

His political donations included contributions to former Senator Bob Casey, the Pennsylvania Democrat who lost his seat in 2024, and to the California Democratic Party. He also donated more than once to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former astronaut. Mr. Isaacman has not been a particularly frequent donor to politicians over time, federal records show.

When Mr. Isaacman met with Mr. Trump at his Palm Beach, Fla., club, Mar-a-Lago, shortly before he was announced for the job, he told the president-elect that he had previously given to Democrats, trying to anticipate a possible complication, according to a person briefed on the matter.

He also made several of Mr. Trump’s advisers aware of that fact, according to another person briefed on the matter, and at least some senators were aware of it when the administration began. Neither person was permitted to discuss the matter publicly.

“With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place,” Mr. Isaacman wrote on X in December when he announced his nomination for the NASA role.

But in recent days, associates of Mr. Trump began pressing him on Mr. Isaacman’s Democratic donations. He had also donated $2 million to the Trump transition, but that did not save him from being pulled.

While Mr. Musk was an advocate for Mr. Isaacman in Mr. Trump’s world, his appointment also had support in the Senate as well as from former astronauts and officials in the space industry.

No significant problems came up during Mr. Isaacman’s nomination hearing in April, where he appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee. He faced questions about his ties to Mr. Musk, declining to reply directly when asked if Mr. Musk had been present when Mr. Trump offered him the job during the transition. His nomination was moved forward by the committee with all the Republicans and four Democrats supporting him.

Mr. Trump has long held loyalty to him at a premium, but his advisers have made it a requirement in his second term. They have used a test of sorts to try to minimize staff who might subvert Mr. Trump’s agenda.

But that loyalty screen is at best applied inconsistently, both by the president and his team.

Contributions or other ties to top Democrats have often been ignored by those in Mr. Trump’s orbit if they came before the 2016 election cycle. And people who have supported Republicans but are seen as antagonistic to Mr. Trump have often been frozen out.

Even there, consistency is lacking, appearing to rely on whether Mr. Trump or specific advisers personally like the people or find them useful in some way.

For instance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, is a former Democrat and sporadic political donor who gave to Barack Obama in 2007 and who ran against Mr. Trump as an independent candidate in the 2024 cycle.

Mr. Musk also supported Democrats before becoming a significant Trump donor and then adviser.

Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, gave money to both Democrats and Republicans over many years, including contributing to an effort backing Hillary Clinton in 2013, according to federal campaign records. He also gave money to the Republican presidential campaigns of Jeb Bush and Senator Lindsey Graham in 2016, federal records show. Since 2016, however, he has primarily supported Republicans.

Like Mr. Bessent and Mr. Musk, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who was a leader of the Trump transition, is a businessman who has given to politicians in both parties. Mr. Lutnick gave to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign on June 30, 2015, 14 days after Mr. Trump declared his first campaign. He also gave money to Mr. Bush’s presidential campaign in September 2015, when it was struggling to gain traction.

And then there is Mr. Trump, whose own donations, to both Democrats and Republicans, go back to the late 1970s, sometimes in states outside New York where he had business interests.

He donated to President Ronald Reagan’s re-election effort in 1984 and Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. But he has also given to Senator Chuck Schumer, now the Democratic minority leader; former Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York; and Kamala Harris when she had just become attorney general of California in 2011.

Mr. Trump’s earliest donation to a presidential candidate on record was to President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in December 1979.