Latest news with #AdamEdelman
NBC News
29-07-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
How Trump's poll numbers stack up: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. In today's newsletter, Adam Edelman and Scott Wong take a look at New York Democrats' attempts to respond to Texas Republicans' redistricting effort — and how it illustrates the lack of options at the party's disposal ahead of the 2026 midterms. Meanwhile, Steve Kornacki looks at Trump's first- and second-term approval ratings and what they mean in terms of setting up the next election. — Scott Bland New York Democrats unveil their own mid-decade redistricting scheme, targeting future elections By Adam Edelman and Scott Wong As Texas Republicans slowly move forward with plans to redraw congressional maps mid-decade, Democrats in New York on Tuesday plowed ahead with their own scheme to counter any GOP redistricting efforts. But the effort faces a long, arduous path forward and wouldn't be scheduled to go into effect for years, illustrating the limited options at Democrats' disposal as they hunt for ways to counter the GOP redistricting play in Texas. Legislative Democrats in the blue stronghold unveiled a bill that would allow state lawmakers in Albany to conduct mid-decade redistricting — but only if another state were to do it first. The proposal would, if enacted, effectively set up the prospect of a national redistricting tit-for-tat between Republicans and Democrats, with control of the House of Representatives in Washington potentially on the line. However, there are key differences between what's happening in New York and what's happening in Texas, including the timing of any actual map changes. Texas Republicans are looking to immediately enact new district boundaries for the 2026 elections. The bill in New York, which is technically a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, would allow the Legislature to redraw congressional districts if another state engages in mid-decade redistricting. It would have to pass the Legislature in two consecutive sessions — and then still be approved by voters in a ballot measure. In theory, that means that whatever new maps that would be created wouldn't be in place until the 2028 elections. Analysis by Steve Kornacki Like the first Trump presidency, the second one is playing out in a polarized political atmosphere. But while it isn't massive, there is a key difference thus far in how the public perceives Trump's leadership. Our running average of independent public polling finds that the president's job approval rating is at 43%. This is a low number historically — but it is also a notch higher than at this point in 2017, the first year of Trump's first term: Our average consists of 13 polls released within the past two weeks, and it's worth noting that this list includes a Gallup survey that put Trump's approval at 37%, which is 3 to 8 points lower than every other poll in the average. So Trump is faring a bit better than he than he did eight years ago (or not as badly, depending on how you want to look at it). As the 2026 midterm landscape takes shape, a key question is what level Trump's job approval needs to be for Republicans to have a chance of keeping control of the House, where a net shift of just three seats would cost them. With the electorate highly sorted along partisan lines and so many more seats now safely in the hands of either party, the battleground is unusually small. The GOP doesn't have to make inroads into otherwise Democratic terrain to keep the majority, which means the party could theoretically get by in 2026 without a broadly popular Trump. Democrats limited their losses to a handful of House seats in the 2022 midterms despite then-President Joe Biden's low job approval rating (44% in the exit poll), bolstering the GOP's hopes on this front. If Trump can remain above his first-term levels and boost his current standing a few points, the playing field could be very competitive next year. Of course, if his approval moves a few points in the other direction, the story could be very different. It was around this point on the calendar that several presidents' numbers shifted abruptly. In George W. Bush's second term, chaos in Iraq, controversy over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and his doomed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court sent his approval rating into a tailspin from which it never rebounded. And at this point four years ago, Biden's average approval sat at 53%. But in short order, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan played out, Biden's standing sank, and it never recovered. That having been said, abrupt and dramatic shifts in his image haven't been the story for Trump during the 10 years he has occupied the national political stage. This is a president, and a man, who most people long ago made their minds up about. Most people, but not all.
Fox News
28-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
American-born Team Israel Olympian praises Trump's fight vs antisemitism, but won't play for Team USA
Team Israel Olympic bobsledder Adam Edelman is looking to lead his team back to the Winter Games for the first time since Pyeongchang in 2018. If they qualify for Cortina-Milan next year, it would mark his and his teammates' return to the Olympics after failing to qualify for Beijing in 2022. It would also mark their first trip back to the Winter Games since their country was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. "We were blessed to have a team ready to go on October 7 and when October 7 came, when it was perpetrated on Israel, every one of them had to be called to war. So it really changed the dynamic of the team over the last couple years," Edelman told Fox News Digital. "The goal of the team after October 7 was to exist." Edelman recalled his team adjusting to a new starter in every competition it participated in, for a time. All the while, he has had to live below the poverty line in order to maintain his commitment to leading the team for the last 12 years. He even says he had to sell all of his bitcoin, which he says would have been worth millions today if he held onto it. "It was all spent on bobsledding," he said. "I'd be a mega-millionaire if I still had it." Edelman admits could have made things much easier for himself if he, a Massachusetts native and MIT grad, competed for Team USA instead of Israel. In a sport that is so resource-dependent like bobsledding, nicknamed F1 on ice due to its hefty costs to be competitive, Edelman knows he would have had access to more resources for coaching, training, equipment and marketing. However, for him, that would have defeated the point of competing as an Olympian at all. "I don't add anything to the United States. If I were to join the United States, the only value that would have been added is to my own journey, but it makes my journey non-additive to other people's journeys," Edelman said. "My value to the world, and why God put me on this Earth, I genuinely feel is to use the skills that he gave me to impact others positively… so I'm solely motivated to represent Israel. I've thought about this a lot." Still, Edelman is a proud American and believes that the U.S. is "the greatest country to ever exist in the history of mankind." Additionally, as a Jewish American, Edelman has also taken pride in seeing President Donald Trump crack down on the wave of antisemitism that has erupted in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Edelman said he saw the antisemitism up-close when he went to Columbia during its pro-Palestinian protests in 2024. Trump's administration has frozen billions of dollars to Ivy League universities Columbia and Harvard, declaring the schools violated Jewish students' civil rights by enabling antisemitic campus protests amid the Israel-Gaza conflict over the last year and a half. The president has even launched a specialized Justice Department task force fronted by Leo Terrell to tackle the issue. "The appropriateness of what the Trump administration has asked for is just enforcing the law. It's just saying 'hey, these people are protected under the civil rights act' and you're blatantly not enforcing the civil rights act. If people take over, trespass, assault security guards on your campus, harass Jews on the way to class, set up Jew-free zones, you wouldn't tolerate that for another group," Edelman said. The Trump administration also announced earlier in April that it would halt more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and approximately $790 million for Northwestern University amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations. Roughly $510 million in funds for Brown University could also be on the chopping block, a White House official told The Associated Press April 3, due to allegations of antisemitism at the school. "I think the way that the Trump administration has approached many issues since he came to office is exactly the right way," Edelman said. "Some policies are good, some policies are bad, and this is an inexplicably good policy. Make sure that American institutions of higher education do not continue this pathway to being so inaccessible to Americans, but also indoctrination centers of anti-American values." As Edelman looks to push his team back to the Winter Olympics in Cortina Milan in 2026, he aspires to be a voice for Americans and Jews in a complicated time in history. He hopes the rest of the story can appreciate the underdog story that he and his teammates are sledding through. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
