Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
The House of Representatives passed its $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package last night. The government funding bill includes $250 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, $1 billion in supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and the Israel Relations Normalization Act. More on what’s in the omnibus package below.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrapped up his historic two-day trip to Turkey today, meeting with representatives of the Turkish Jewish community at the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul.
Herzog was greeted at the synagogue in a moving ceremony with shofars and the community’s rabbi, Hahambaşı Isak Haleva, reciting the prayer for the State of Israel. The president received an aliyah to the Torah and later spoke about historic visits to the same synagogue made by his father, Israel’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog, and his grandfather, the former chief rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog.
Briefing journalists on Thursday morning following his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday, Herzog said it was an important and symbolic visit for both countries, which share a long history. “Relations between our countries have faced ups and downs, with some challenges that were not easy,” Herzog said. “I came here as a mediator for the State of Israel.”
Herzog said his meeting with Erdoğan included broad and open dialogue and that the two leaders agreed to establish a mechanism to avoid future diplomatic disputes between the countries. More on Herzog’s trip below.
scoop
Dozen House Dems: ‘Hard to envision supporting’ new Iran deal

Austrian police guards are seen outside of the Coburg palace during a meeting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
A bipartisan group of House members, including 12 Democrats, sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday indicating plans to oppose the forthcoming nuclear agreement with Iran and expressing their concerns about some of the publicly reported provisions, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. They’re joined by several other House Democrats who expressed similar concerns about the deal to JI.
Red flags: Writing in the letter, obtained by JI, “from what we currently understand, it is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed,” the members — 12 Democrats and nine Republicans — emphasize their concerns about the possibility of lifting both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and sanctions on members of the Supreme Leader’s inner circle.
Follow-up: The lawmakers requested a briefing from the administration within a week on a series of questions pertinent to the deal, explaining that their “support will be contingent largely on satisfactory answers to [those] questions.” Those questions include whether the deal will be presented to Congress for review, what sanctions will be lifted, what Iran’s breakout time under the agreement would be and whether Russia will gain economic benefits from the agreement. The questions also include whether Russia will be in a position to return Iran’s nuclear material if it determines the deal has been breached and how much money Iran will be able to access under the agreement.
Signing on: The letter was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Tom Reed (R-NY). The other Democratic signatories were Reps. Juan Vargas (D-CA), Darren Soto (D-FL), Jared Golden (D-ME), Haley Stevens (D-MI),Vicente González (D-TX), Jim Costa (D-CA), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Susie Lee (D-NV), Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY). Eight other Republicans — Reps. Peter Meijer (R-MI), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Don Bacon (R-NE), David Joyce (R-OH), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), Fred Upton (R-MI) and Dan Meuser (R-PA) — also joined the letter.
But wait, there’s more: Other House Democrats have also expressed skepticism about the deal to JI. Reps. Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Lois Frankel (D-FL) and Kathy Manning (D-NC) have all told JI that they have concerns about reentering the deal as it existed in 2016.
Flip side: Other Democrats are staying mum for now. A spokesperson for Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD) — who co-organized a letter from 70 Democrats and 70 Republicans last year calling for a broader agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles, terrorism and human rights violations — told JI on Wednesday that Brown “is looking forward to reviewing the finalized deal from the Biden administration and will have more to say once those details are public.”