Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
Multiple groups of lawmakers are using the Veterans Day recess week to take trips abroad, with more than a dozen legislators in or headed to Israel.
One such group includes Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Rob Portman (R-OH) and Bob Casey (D-PA), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO). They attended a celebration for the Abraham Accords hosted by the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem’s Chargé d’Affaires Michael Ratney and visited the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation.
Another delegation, organized by J Street, includes Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) — who organized a series of House floor speeches blasting Israel in May — as well as Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Melanie Stansbury (D-NM). The group met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid yesterday, who thanked them for supporting the replenishment of the Iron Dome missile-defense system.
The J Street group’s trip is split equally between meetings with Israelis and Palestinians, according to a J Street spokesperson.
The delegation met with Transport Minister Merav Michaeli, Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej, Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev, Deputy Defense Minister Alon Shuster and Deputy Economy Minister Yair Golan. They are also set to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is leading yet another delegation in Israel, Jewish Insider has learned.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a close ally of President Joe Biden who has acted as a foreign emissary for him, is also headed to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other top officials about Iran nuclear negotiations and U.S. efforts to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem.
Lapid will meet on Wednesday with Coons and the Cardin-led delegation.
WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann will be interviewed today at 11 a.m. ET by Andrew Ross Sorkin at the annual DealBook conference. It’s Neumann’s first public interview since being pushed out of the company in 2019.
cowboy state politics
Backed by Trump, Harriet Hageman looks to unseat Liz Cheney

Harriet Hageman
Even amid shifting intra-party dynamics within the GOP, Harriet Hageman believes that Republican voters in deep-red Wyoming are united against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the leading exponent of anti-Trump conservatism in the House. Hageman, a trial attorney and GOP activist, describes encountering a growing well of anti-Cheney sentiment as she embarks on a bid to unseat Wyoming’s lone congresswoman. “Liz Cheney is not liked in Wyoming,” Hageman, 59, charged in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel. “That’s why she doesn’t come to Wyoming.”
Revenge campaign: Hageman seems unusually confident about her prospects, and she has reason for optimism, thanks in large part to an endorsement from Cheney’s chief adversary, former President Donald Trump, who performed well among Wyomingites in 2020 and maintains strong support throughout the state. Hageman is no doubt banking on that good will as a leading foot soldier in the former president’s effort to enact vengeance against the 10 House Republicans, including Cheney, who voted for his impeachment last January.
Attendant baggage: Still, Hageman enters the race with some baggage, both as a former Cheney supporter and an outspoken Trump critic. In 2016, for instance, Hageman described Cheney as a “friend” and “proven, courageous, constitutional conservative,” while that same year participating in a failed effort to deny Trump the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Either way, Hageman said the former president is fully supportive of her candidacy. “I can assure you that he’s not worried,” she told JI.
Addressing antisemitism: Hageman was prepared to criticize one of Cheney’s biggest enemies in the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who earned Trump’s endorsement in 2020. On the House floor last month, Cheney called Greene a “joke,” alluding to her past suggestion that wildfires were caused by a space laser controlled by a Jewish banking family. Hageman claimed to have “just heard about” Greene’s comments. But she vowed to oppose such rhetoric if elected, even from members of her own party. “If they’re espousing antisemitic views,” she said, “hold them accountable.”
Irreconcilable division: Hageman and Cheney are fundamentally divided on the most salient issue in the race: the 2020 election. While Cheney is among the most outspoken critics of Trump’s baseless effort to cast doubt on the election results, Hageman refused to acknowledge that Trump had lost. “I think that there were some serious irregularities, especially in the swing states, and I think we need to get to the bottom of it,” she told JI. “I think we need to make sure that we have the integrity in the elections that we’re entitled to.”