Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish communal leaders about the final allocation for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and spotlight Henry Zachs, the Connecticut philanthropist spotted giving out hundreds of $2 bills to White House Hanukkah party attendees. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff, Sen. Bob Menendez, Miriam Berger and Mat Ishbia.
“It is dead, but we are not gonna announce it.” Those comments from President Joe Biden about the Iran nuclear deal — filmed in a one-on-one interaction with an audience member at a Nov. 3 rally in Oceanside, Calif., and posted online yesterday — were the talk of the foreign policy world.
Biden said there are “a lot of reasons” why the administration won’t announce that the deal is dead, telling the videographer, an Iranian-American activist, “I know they don’t represent you, but if they have a nuclear weapon, they’ll represent…” before the video cut off mid-sentence.
So far, the video doesn’t appear to have changed approaches on Capitol Hill. Four senators who spoke to Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod yesterday afternoon — Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jim Risch (R-ID) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) — said they hadn’t seen the video yet.
But Menendez told JI he thinks Biden’s description is “a factual statement” and that “what we should be doing is to say, ‘Let’s get to Plan B soon.'” Menendez has been calling for such an approach for some time.
Markey said, “My hope is that it is not dead. My hope is that it is still possible to find a negotiated resolution of the issues and have full International Atomic Energy Agency inspection of the Iranian nuclear program.” The Massachusetts senator declined to say what the administration’s next steps should be if the deal is, in Biden’s words, dead, but emphasized that he had not seen Biden’s remarks for himself.
The administration’s public posture also has not changed. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby responded to the video on Tuesday by telling reporters that the deal “is just not our focus right now and it’s not on our agenda. We simply don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon while Iran continues to kill its own citizens and sell UAVs to Russia.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters later in the day, “It is certainly the case that the Iranians killed the opportunity for a swift return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA.”
There’s competition for the title of who has attended the most Hanukkah White House parties. Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Abba Cohen told us yesterday he thinks he’s at least tied with Conference of President’s Malcolm Hoenlein for attending the most official parties at the White House, and noted he also attended unofficial events at the Eisenhower Executive Building dating back to the George H.W. Bush administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today, where he will meet with President Joe Biden this afternoon and address a joint session of Congress this evening.
Following yesterday’s firehouse primary in the special election in Virginia’s 4th Congressional District, the counting of more than 26,000 ballots will begin at 10 a.m. ET today, with results expected by mid-afternoon.
postmortem
NSGP funding increase called a positive step, but also disappointing shortfall

Jewish advocacy groups offered mixed reactions on Tuesday to the announcement of the $305 million 2023 federal budget allocation for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The allocation represents a 22% increase over 2022 funding levels but still falls short of the $360 million funding goal that many Jewish leaders and lawmakers have been pursuing for several years, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Last minute: Talks appeared to be closing in on the $360 million funding level as of late last week. Jewish leaders who spoke to JI last week were optimistic, and a source told JI on Friday that the funding was close to locked in, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) leading a push by citing rising rates of antisemitism. But the situation changed between then and the release of the budget bill in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Some negotiators were pushing to keep all funding levels for Department of Homeland Security programs at 2022 levels, a source familiar with the negotiations told JI, but NSGP was one of few exceptions made, alongside flood response funding.
Reflection: The program fulfilled just over half of 2022 grant applications, with total grant requests increasing to $447 million. The Department of Homeland Security has focused efforts recently on increasing outreach about the program and making it easier for institutions to apply. “We of course are disappointed it’s not all the way to $360 [million], which we believe is the minimum necessary given the number of eligible grants that did not receive funding last year, so we’re going to continue to fight another day for more funding, but we’re definitely grateful for this significant increase,” Elana Broitman, the Jewish Federations of North America’s senior vice president for public affairs, said.
View from the Hill: “I remember a few years ago when this program received next to nothing in our budgets. It has been through our hard efforts and by educating our colleagues that we have built the program out to this level, and I am proud of that work. While this figure is not every cent we requested, it represents a healthy increase that will protect communities and put our neighbors’ minds at more ease,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said. “I believe lives will be saved by this funding. Because the threat of domestic terrorism only continues to grow, we will keep pushing through the next Congress to get the full amount we sought. We will never stop pushing for this important program.”
Looking ahead: The $360 million target has remained largely consistent in the past few years in part because of congressional support for that funding level, even as total grant requests have continued to increase, Jewish community leaders said. “A lot of the $360 [million] revolved not only around the actual needs of the program but also support from Chuck Schumer,” Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudath Israel of America’s vice president for governmental affairs said. “We’ve got to get to $360… clearly what we’re getting now isn’t enough,” he continued. “I don’t know that $360 will be enough. We’ll have to see how that goes. But going forward, I think we’ll have to talk about broadening the scope of the program.”