Israeli press , a $2.5 billion project In 2007, Adelson made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the
Israeli newspaper
Maariv. When this attempt failed, he proceeded with parallel plans to publish a
free daily newspaper to compete with
Israeli, a newspaper he had co-founded in 2006 but had left. The first edition of the new newspaper,
Israel Hayom, was published on July 30, 2007. On March 31, 2014, Adelson received the go-ahead from a Jerusalem court to purchase
Maariv and the conservative newspaper
Makor Rishon. In 2016, Adelson's attorney announced that he does not own
Israel Hayom, but that it is owned by a relative of his. According to a
Target Group Index (TGI) survey published in July 2011,
Israel Hayom, which unlike all other Israeli newspapers is distributed for free, became the number-one daily newspaper (on weekdays) four years after its inception. This survey found that
Israel Hayom had a 39.3% weekday readership exposure,
Yedioth Ahronoth 37%,
Maariv 12.1%, and
Haaretz 5.8%. The
Yedioth Ahronoth weekend edition was still leading with a 44.3% readership exposure, compared to 31% for the
Israel Hayom weekend edition, 14.9% for
Maariv, and 6.8% for
Haaretz. This trend was already observed by a TGI survey in July 2010. In 2011, the Israeli press said that Adelson was unhappy with the coverage on Israeli
Channel 10 alleging he had acquired a casino license in Las Vegas inappropriately through political connections. After two months of deliberations, the Israeli
Second Authority for Television and Radio ruled that although there were some flaws in the manner in which the apology had been conducted, the decision to apologize had been correct and appropriate.
Las Vegas Review-Journal In December 2015, Adelson purchased the
Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper. The purchase was made through a limited liability company called News + Media Capital Group LLC and his involvement with the deal was initially kept secret. A week after the purchase was announced, three
Review-Journal reporters revealed that the deal had been orchestrated by Adelson's son-in-law
Patrick Dumont on Adelson's behalf. Commentators described the $140 million paid for the paper as "lavish" and as a dramatic overpayment, and speculated that the move was a power play to further Adelson's business or political agendas. Within a few weeks the paper's editor stepped down in a voluntary buyout. In January 2016, a set of editorial principles were drawn up and publicized to ensure the
newspaper's independence and to deal with possible conflicts of interest involving Adelson's ownership. In February Craig Moon, a veteran of the Gannett organization, was announced as the new publisher and promptly withdrew those principles from publication. He also began to personally review, edit, and sometimes kill stories about an Adelson-promoted proposal for a new Las Vegas football stadium. In the months since, reporters say that stories about Adelson, and particularly about an ongoing lawsuit involving his business dealings in Macau, have been heavily edited by top management. Many reporters and editors left the newspaper citing "curtailed editorial freedom, murky business dealings and unethical managers." All three reporters who originally broke the story about Adelson's ownership have left. Longtime columnist John L. Smith, who had often written about Adelson and had been unsuccessfully sued for libel by him, resigned after he was told he could no longer write anything about Adelson.
U.S. policy on Iran In a panel discussion at
Yeshiva University on October 22, 2013, Adelson said that the United States must get tougher on the issue of Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. He said: "You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in
Nebraska and you say 'OK, let it go' and so there's an atomic weapon goes over, ballistic missiles in the middle of the desert that doesn't hurt a soul, maybe a couple of rattlesnakes and scorpions or whatever". He explained that, after a show of force and a threat to also drop a nuclear bomb on Tehran, the U.S. should then say: if "You [Iran] want to be peaceful, just reverse it all and we will guarantee that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes." Adelson's spokesman told reporters that Adelson "was obviously not speaking literally" about using an atomic bomb in the desert, and that he was "using hyperbole to make a point that ... actions speak louder than words".
DeLay controversy During the
Suen trial, Bill Weidner, the president of Adelson's Las Vegas Sands company, testified about a telephone conversation between Adelson and his friend then-
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) about a bill proposed by Representative
Tom Lantos (D) that would have prevented the
U.S. Olympic Committee from voting in favor of the Chinese bid to host the
2008 Summer Olympics. A few hours later, DeLay called back and told Adelson he could tell the mayor of Beijing "this bill will never see the light of day". The resolution did not pass. Adelson testified in court that the demise of the resolution "resulted from the press of other legislation, [not from] a deliberate move by DeLay to help his benefactor." Mitchell used cocaine and heroin from an early age. Adelson believed
cannabis is a
gateway drug.
Israeli-American Council At the November 2017 conference of the
Israeli-American Council (IAC), Adelson declared that the organization should become primarily a political lobbying group on Israel-related issues. In contrast to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which supports a
two-state solution and continued aid to the
Palestinians, Adelson charted a course for IAC to oppose both of these positions; Adelson himself opposed a two-state solution. Israeli journalist
Chemi Shalev said that IAC had not intended to become a political pressure group and that Adelson had "hijacked" it for his "
hard-right agenda".
Internet gambling Adelson fought against internet-based gambling in his later life. Despite the legalization, and acceptance from many Las Vegas casino CEOs, Adelson poured money into candidates wanting to overturn state legislation that legalizes online gambling. In early 2015, Adelson publicly backed a bill introduced in the
U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation, named the Restore America's Wire Act, was met with mixed reviews by the Republican Party.
Honors Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, were presented with the
Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship by the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the
Smithsonian Institution on March 25, 2008. Adelson received the Chairman's Award from the
Nevada Policy Research Institute, a
think tank in Las Vegas, for his efforts to advance
free market principles in Nevada. In 2014, Adelson was named to
CNBC's list of 200 people who have transformed business over the last 25 years. ==Involvement in politics==