Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s address to AIPAC yesterday, and look at a bipartisan call on Capitol Hill for the Biden administration to step up its efforts to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Chris Christie, Emma Green and David Solomon.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken heads to Saudi Arabia today for meetings with high-level officials in the Gulf nation, a day after addressing an AIPAC convening in Washington. More below on Blinken’s remarks to the group.
Blinken’s trip will coincide with the reopening of the Iranian Embassy in Riyadh, which was shuttered seven years ago, following the restoration of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran earlier this year. Among the issues Blinken is expected to raise in Riyadh is the lifting of travel bans on some U.S.-Saudi dual nationals.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is launching his presidential campaign in New Hampshire this evening. The biggest impact he’ll have on the GOP campaign is his ability to use his formidable prosecutorial skills to make the case against Donald Trump — at a time when other Republicans are reluctant to directly challenge the former president.
There’s a looming question over whether Christie will qualify for Republican debates: He’s barely registering in many national primary polls, and will need to hit a benchmark of 40,000 donors to make the big stage. There’s also the question of whether his pledge not to support Trump again would violate the Republican National Committee’s rule that candidates need to support the eventual party nominee.
While other GOP contenders have focused on Iowa, Christie intends to make New Hampshire the focus of his second presidential campaign. He showed promise in the state during his 2016 campaign before ending up in sixth place in the crowded field.
One person who won’t be in contention for the nomination: New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who announced yesterday he will sit out the 2024 presidential primary. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Sununu warns that the GOP is “on a collision course toward electoral irrelevance without significant corrective action” and suggests he can leverage his role as governor of one of the first primary states to keep Trump from winning the nomination. “Too many other candidates who have entered this race are simply running to be Trump’s vice president,” Sununu writes. “That’s not leadership; that’s weakness. Too many candidates are afraid to confront Trump, surrendering to his attacks. I will have more credibility speaking out against Trump as a non-candidate to help move the conversation toward the future I believe the Republican Party should embrace.”
And in Washington tonight, the Israeli Embassy will host its annual Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration. Vice President Kamala Harris is slated to address the gathering, which is being emceed by TikTok star Montana Tucker. Some 80 members of Congress are expected to attend the event, which since last year has been held at the National Building Museum after years in the smaller Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium down Constitution Avenue.
While the attendance of the vice president is not a new occurrence — Biden represented the Obama administration at the 2015 celebration, and former Vice President Mike Pence spoke in 2018 — all eyes will be on Harris and her remarks as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still waiting for an invitation to Washington, six months after resuming the prime ministership.
Just down the street, the Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum will host a cocktail reception and preview of the museum tonight ahead of its opening to the general public on Friday.
saudi strategy
Blinken: Saudi-Israeli normalization is ‘a real national security interest’ for the U.S.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told AIPAC members that the U.S. has “a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia” and pledged to work on the issue on a trip to Saudi Arabia this week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Pushing ahead: “We believe that we can, and indeed we must, play an integral role in advancing [this],” Blinken told an audience of several hundred at an AIPAC Policy Summit in Washington on Monday. “We have no illusions that this can be done quickly or easily. But we remain committed to working toward that outcome, including on the trip that I’m about to take this week to Jeddah and Riyadh for engagements with our Saudi and Gulf counterparts.”
New post: Blinken also announced that the Department of State is planning to create a “new position to further our diplomacy and engagement with governments, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations” to advance “a more peaceful and a more connected region.” The comment appears to confirm a recent report that the administration plans to establish a post — potentially to be filled by former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro — to serve as the administration’s lead official for the Abraham Accords. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are advancing legislation to create a dedicated ambassador for the Accords.