Adelson-owned Vegas paper turns on Trump, but Israeli counterpart holds out hope
After quickly calling Biden win, Review-Journal editorial slams president for baseless fraud claims; Israel Hayom continues publishing columns claiming he still has a chance
13 November 2020
US President Donald Trump, right, pats Las Vegas Sands Corporation Chief Executive and Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson on the arm, before speaking at the Israeli American Council National Summit in Hollywood, Florida, December 7, 2019. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
A key newspaper owned by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, one of Donald Trump’s main financial backers, has turned on the US president, acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory in the election and urging him to give up his false narrative of voter fraud.
By contrast, Adelson’s Israeli paper, Israel Hayom, continues telling its readers that Trump still has a chance at defeating President-elect Biden.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal wasted little time, leading its front page last Sunday with the headline “Biden Wins” in big block letters above a tally of electoral college votes putting Biden at an insurmountable 290 to 214 lead over Trump, along with a picture of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and their spouses raising their hands in victory.
If that weren’t enough salt in the wound for Trump, the Review-Journal published a vehement editorial later in the week asserting that Trump “does a disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud. That’s simply false.”
The editorial insisted that there was “no evidence” that voter fraud cost Trump the election and lamented the lack of evidence provided by the president’s campaign in proving an effort to “steal” the election.
First Sheldon Adelson's paper had that huge "Biden Wins" headline. Today, it has a brutal editorial telling Trump he lost:"(Trump) does a disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud. That’s simply false."
1/ pic.twitter.com/drf7kGp1v5
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 12, 2020
“Mr. Trump lost this election because he ultimately didn’t attract enough votes and failed to win a handful of swing states that broke his way in 2016,” the paper stated.
But in Israel Hayom, also owned by Adelson and his wife Miriam, the tone has remained starkly different.
“Biden’s victory, even if it turns out to be certain, still wasn’t a done deal, and certainly not official,” columnist Ariel Kahane wrote on Friday. “The entity that elects the president, the electoral college, has not yet convened. The vote counting is not over. In any case, the loser did not recognize the results. He claimed the election had been stolen, and that there was fraud, and that in effect victory had been snatched from him.”
And it’s not just Kahane, the paper’s front page has been plastered with articles all week highlighting Trump’s claims of voter fraud. A Thursday front-page headline read “not giving up,” along with a picture of a defiant US president.
Was Trump running for office in the wrong country?
