A prominent NBA team owner was among three of President Donald Trump’s diplomatic nominees confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday evening.
Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets and CEO of Landry’s Restaurants group was confirmed as the upper chamber to be Trump’s ambassador to Italy and San Marino by a margin of 83-14.
Investors Tom Barrack and Warren Stephens were also up for ambassadorship posts to Turkey, and the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland respectively.
Barrack’s nomination passedby 60-36 Stephens was confirmed 59-39.
Fertitta is a GOP donor and has spoken fondly of Trump’s business sense.
During Trump’s first term, Fertitta told CNBC the president was doing ‘a fantastic job for the economy.’
‘Businesses are booming, unemployment is low. He understands what drives this country,’ Fertitta said in 2018.
Fertitta’s praise of Trump often steers more toward business-focused than overtly-political, as in the CNBC interview.
Trump’s choice of Barrack played into two different aspects of the investor’s history.
Before he was a friend of the future president’s, Barrack served as an undersecretary in the Reagan Interior Department, focusing on energy policy including Middle East oil.
Barrack, who is fluent in Arabic, would therefore fit well with a Turkish ambassadorship.
Later in that decade, Barrack helped Trump secure financing for his short-lived ownership of the Plaza Hotel – during which time the future president famously told a lost Kevin McCallister its lobby was ‘Down the hall, and to the left’ in 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
The two real estate moguls remained friends in the years after Trump ultimately gave up the Midtown landmark.
Barrack was a strong supporter of Trump’s first presidential campaign and raised millions for his first inauguration’s events.
Stephens’ family bank has a footprint in London, and he is a noted fan of the Tottenham Hotspurs Premier League soccer team, which draw parallels to his ambassadorship nomination.
The billionaire will be the eyes and ears for Trump in London, where the president has a cordial relationship, albeit one wherein lies a politically contrasting view of global politics, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party.
Stephens has a history of donations to Republican causes and many Arkansas candidates, per OpenSecrets.
Recipients have included former Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Bob Dole, R-Kan., ex-Arkansas Govs. Asa Hutchinson and Mike Huckabee, and media executive Steve Forbes’ presidential run in 1995.
