President Donald Trump discussed immigration and education reform on Wednesday when he met with Laurene Powell Jobs, Apple founder Steve Jobs’ widow and a prolific donor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday.
The duo is an odd pairing.
Powell Jobs is a prodigious philanthropist who known for valuing her privacy, while Trump is a reality television star-turned-politician known for courting attention whenever he can.
She also didn’t want Trump to be president.
Powell Jobs, through her non-profit, donated $2 million to Priorities USA, Clinton’s top dollar super PAC. And in August, the tech leader hosted a 20-person, $200,000-a-head fundraiser at her Silicon Valley home that raised more than $4 million.
But, according to a spokesman, the meeting gives Powell Jobs a chance to speak with the President about education and immigration, her two top issues.
Powell Jobs is the president of the Emerson Collective, a group she found in 1997 that advocates for dramatic change to the education system and wholesale immigration reform.
The meeting comes amid Trump’s crackdown on immigration and the re-issuing of his travel ban, which limits refugees coming to the US. But Trump has also hinted that he is open to immigration reform.
Powell Jobs has long advocated for immigration reform as a way to counter inequality and has aimed to provide immigrants with legal representation in immigration courts and advocated for expanding federal resources for immigrants.
On education, Powell Jobs committed $50 million in 2015 to a group called XQ: The Super School Project in an attempt to modernize public education. The group argues that public high schools have “stayed frozen in time” while much of American culture has moved forward.
“We believe American ingenuity can and must move education forward. This is a challenge, open to all, to build the Super Schools that will lead the way,” the organization website says.
