Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the status of the bipartisan effort to create an ambassador-rank special envoy focused on the Abraham Accords, and report the latest on the North Carolina Democratic Party’s revised platform. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ted Deutch, Claudia Sheinbaum and Arabella Kushner.
A House vote scheduled last night on creating an ambassador-rank special envoy for advancing the Abraham Accords was postponed amid tensions between Republican factions over the debt limit deal. Read more below.
This afternoon on Capitol Hill, Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East and North Africa subcommittee. Earlier in the day, HFAC’s oversight and accountability subcommittee is slated to hold a hearing on the State Department’s DEIA accessibility budget for the coming year.
The House Armed Services Committee released its first draft of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $50 million for joint research and development on anti-terrorism technology with Israel, as well as reauthorizing U.S.-Israel anti-tunneling cooperation through 2026.
It would also require reports from the Defense Department on the status of U.S. stockpiles of precision-guided munitions in Israel and on possibilities for future U.S.-Israel cooperation in advanced technologies. The latter report, paired with the $50 million fund, appears to advance goals laid out in the United States-Israel Future of Warfare Act.
Further additions are likely at the full committee markup later this month and in an open amendment process when the bill comes to the House floor.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger (R-TX)announced that her committee would limit its fiscal year 2024 spending proposals to fiscal year 2022 levels, rather than fiscal year 2023 levels as agreed to in the bipartisan debt ceiling agreement.
The move comes following protests from a faction of conservative House Republicans, and sets up deeper cuts to a wide range of federal programs, as well as a clash with Senate appropriators.
on the horizon
Abraham Accords envoy bill vote postponed, but signs of progress on the horizon

Tensions between House Republican leadership and conservatives aligned with the Freedom Caucus over the bipartisan debt limit deal upended a scheduled House vote on Monday evening on a bipartisan bill proposed by Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) establishing an ambassador-rank special envoy for advancing the Abraham Accords, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What’s next: House business is expected to resume on Tuesday following talks between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and conservative critics, and a vote on the envoy bill is expected. The bill is likely to receive broad bipartisan support — and there is movement on the initiative in the Senate and the administration as well.
Senate progress: While the bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate, an individual familiar with the legislation said that Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff had indicated that the initiative would be included in an upcoming package aimed at supporting the Abraham Accords and Negev Forum. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
Administration angle: Secretary of State Tony Blinken confirmed last week that the administration is planning to create a new position to advance the administration’s efforts to expand the Abraham Accords. The individual familiar with the bill told JI that they believe an administration appointment would be in line with the goals of the bill and show that the administration shares lawmakers’ view that a dedicated envoy for the Abraham Accords would be beneficial. They added, however, that an administration appointment alone would not eliminate the need for the legislation. The individual noted that the bill would protect and make the position permanent by codifying it into law and placing the onus on both the current and subsequent administrations to keep the position filled.