Daily Kickoff: Blinken to Saudi + The lawmakers seeking Iran sanctions
👋 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.
seeking sanctions snapback
Bipartisan group of lawmakers urges Biden to step up Iran deterrence, push for U.N. sanctions snapback
Senate and House lawmakers from both parties are set to urge President Joe Biden to step up efforts to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, including working with European allies to prepare to initiate the snapback of United Nations sanctions on Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Upcoming: Two as-yet-unreleased congressional letters, led by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and James Lankford (R-OK) and Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), are currently a lobbying priority for AIPAC’s Policy Summit in Washington. The letters, which vary somewhat in their precise content but carry a consistent message, were obtained by JI. “It is imperative today that we strengthen our efforts to deter Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. We must make Iran understand, in no uncertain terms, that further advances in its nuclear program will be met with unified international action,” the Senate letter reads. “We urge you to restore this posture of deterrence and provide leadership to strengthen the resolve of the international community.”
Deal or no deal: Biden administration officials have said that diplomacy remains their preferred path to putting Iran’s nuclear program in check, although negotiations have been publicly stalled for months. The Senate letter casts a skeptical tone on such efforts. “Congress stands united behind the long held bipartisan position that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” the Senate letter reads. “It is crucial for your administration to remain aligned with Congressional efforts related to Iran’s nuclear program and not agree to a pact that fails to achieve our nation’s critical interests. We urge you to take meaningful steps to curb Iran’s destabilizing activities and deter the regime from pursuing this nefarious ambition any further.”
on the hill
Senior lawmakers introduce bill promoting Abraham Accords, deepening U.S.-Israel cooperation
Senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee announced legislation on Monday that would extend and expand authorizations for U.S.-Israel cooperation, as well as supporting the expansion of the Abraham Accords and the creation of a new Memorandum of Understanding for future security assistance to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Introduced: The U.S.-Israel Partnership and Abraham Accords Enhancement Act of 2023, sponsored by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Dean Phillips (D-MN), Jim Baird (R-IN) and Colin Allred (D-TX), is a top legislative priority for AIPAC, which is holding its Policy Summit in Washington this week, according to an individual familiar with the situation. McCaul and Meeks are the top lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, while Wilson and Phillips lead the Mideast subcommittee. It touches on a range of elements of policy toward the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Abraham Accords.
In the text: In the security realm, the bill states that it is U.S. policy to support Israel’s “right to self-defense” through military aid and security cooperation and to “seek a successor” to the current U.S.-Israel MOU, which expires in 2026. It also extends U.S. authority to maintain a stockpile of weapons in Israel through 2028. In pursuit of expanding the Abraham Accords, the bill urges executive agencies to utilize State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development grant programs to expand ties between citizens of Israel and Arab and North African states.
On the agenda: Other lobbying agenda items for AIPAC include $3.8 billion in military aid and cooperative missile-defense funding for Israel in 2024 as per the terms of the U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding; the U.S.-Israel Future of Warfare Act, which would create a $50 million fund for joint emerging technologies defense space; the Fight CRIME Act seeking to extend United Nations restrictions on Iran’s missile and drone programs, as well as expand the U.S.’ own sanctions; and the SHIP Act expanding sanctions on Iranian oil.
tech tour
Sam Altman preaches AI from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi
Barrelling across the Middle East on a world tour to shine a spotlight on artificial intelligence, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman makes a stop today in the United Arab Emirates, which has invested in becoming a regional center for the fast-growing technology. A day after drawing crowds in both Israel and Jordan to talk about the promise and risks of his company’s ChatGPT application, Altman is scheduled to appear at Hub 71, an Abu Dhabi startup accelerator. From the UAE, he travels to Qatar, India and South Korea this week, Shoshanna Solomon reports for The Circuit.
Passion for his project: In Tel Aviv on Monday, Altman radiated enthusiasm for both OpenAI’s banner product and the technology’s expanding abilities in language, business tasks, science and software development. As he did testifying in Congress last month and meeting with European leaders last week, Altman cautioned about the disruptions AI is expected to cause, such as broad job losses in fields where humans can be replaced by machines. “The rate at which the tech and startup community in Israel is embracing AI is incredible to watch,” the 38-year-old industry superstar said in a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “I am sure Israel will play a huge role.”
Read the full story here and subscribe to The Weekly Circuit newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
⏰ Anti-Woke Wake-up:The New Yorker’s Emma Green explores the rise and fall of FAIR, a nonprofit that was created to address identity politics in a nonpartisan fashion. “The world of anti-woke nonprofits is relatively small. There are the alarmed-parent groups, like Parents Defending Education, which aims to ‘reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas.’ There are the anti-anti-racist groups, such as Free Black Thought, with its ‘mission of uplifting heterodox Black voices.’ And then there are the catchall groups that purport to oppose any kind of ideological orthodoxy, such as the Institute for Liberal Values. Few of these groups have true influence. The most effective actors in the anti-woke space tend to be overtly political: the activist group Moms for Liberty, for example, or Rufo, whose rhetoric seems to have single-handedly shaped the way that conservative politicians such as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, take stands against progressive movements. Their unabashedly partisan approach offers useful ideological clarity: these activists share core values and beliefs, and they know precisely who and what they’re fighting against.” [NewYorker]
🇮🇶 Proxy Power: In Foreign Affairs, Michael Knights looks at how Iranian proxies in Iraq are destabilizing the already-tenuous situation in Baghdad. “Iraq may look calm, but looks can be deceiving. The country is actually entering a uniquely dangerous period: Iran’s allies have achieved unprecedented control of Iraq’s parliament, judiciary, and executive branch, and they are rapidly rigging the political system in their favor and looting the state of its resources. Washington’s complacent attitude toward these events is only setting it up for costly involvement later. Iraq is the world’s third-largest oil producer and a country whose collapse could destabilize the entire Middle East through the spread of refugees and terrorism. Great-power competition has never been an excuse to tune out the threats facing the country — and it shouldn’t be one now.” [ForeignAffairs]
Around the Web
🙅♂️ DOA: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) toldPunchbowl News that efforts to provide supplemental funding for Ukraine are “not going anywhere.”
🗣️ Mayoral Meeting: Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff participated in a roundtable discussion on antisemitism with mayors from around the country at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday. Participants included Albany, N.Y., Mayor Kathy Sheehan; Burnsville, Minn., Mayor Elizabeth Kautz; Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther; Findlay, Ohio, Mayor Christina Muryn; Oklahoma City, Okla., Mayor David Holt; Richmond, Va., Mayor Levar Stoney; Rochester Hills, Mich., Mayor Bryan Barnett; San Antonio, Texas, Mayor Ron Nirenberg; Tacoma, Wash., Mayor Victoria Woodards and Tampa, Fla., Mayor Jane Castor.
🏃♂️ Summer Plans: Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) is planning to run for his old House seat in New York’s Hudson Valley, challenging Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), with a formal announcement to come this summer.
📄 Release Request: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) again called on the White House to release its findings into the investigation of the death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
🗳️ Fringe Candidate: Controversial activist and academic Cornel West announced he’s running for president under the People’s Party, which was started by a staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2016 presidential campaign.
👀 What’s Next: Two-term Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Darrell Steinberg will not seek a third term next year as he looks to serve “in a different way.”
🤝 Deal: The city of Miami Beach reached a $1.3 million settlement with a local Jewish congregation over its claims of code enforcement harassment and First Amendment violations.
⛺ Solomon’s Summer Camps: Bloomberglooks at Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon’s interest in summer camps, after purchasing his childhood camp in New Hampshire in 2004 with a friend and becoming a partial owner of another camp in Connecticut last year.
🎨 Art Attack: The New Yorkerspotlights a tiff between Zabar’s and a New York man over the upkeep of a nearby Banksy stencil on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
👩 Mendelsohn’s Moves: Fortune spotlights the efforts of Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta’s head of global business group, to turn around the company’s financials after widespread layoffs and its first year-over-year decline in revenue.
🏢 Corporate Shake-up: Unilever is looking for a new board chair to succeed Nils Andersen, as the conglomerate grapples with a series of missteps and an executive shake-up that will include the departures of its CEO, Alan Jope, and CFO Graeme Pitkethly.
🎒 School Daze: Oklahoma approved the U.S.’ first religious charter school, an online school run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa and fully funded by taxpayers, setting up a potential legal challenge on the grounds of religious freedom.
🇦🇹 At an Angle: Authorities in Vienna, Austria, plan to tilt a statue of the city’s former mayor, Karl Lueger, who was known to share antisemitic sentiments, in response to complaints over the statue’s presence in the center of the city.
🌊 On the Water: The U.S. Navy came to the aid of a Marshall Islands-flagged merchant ship in the Strait of Hormuz that had come under what Navy officials described as Iranian “harassment” as Tehran continues to step up its activity in the Gulf.
🚀 Hypersonic Missile: Iran unveiled a hypersonic missile that travels at 15 times the speed of sound and has a range of 870 miles, claiming the weapon could evade regional missile-defense systems.
☎️ Call with Cairo: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi expressed his condolences over the deadly border incident that killed three Israeli soldiers over the weekend in a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
👨 Death of a Spy: Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who for years spied on behalf of Russia, died in his prison cell at 79.
Pic of the Day
Organization of American States Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism Fernando Lottenberg meets with Pope Francis this week, during which he asked the pontiff for the Vatican to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
Birthdays
Former majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives and now managing director and vice chairman of investment bank Moelis & Company, Eric Cantor turns 60…
U.S. District Court Judge since 1994, on senior status since 2005, serving in the Eastern District of New York, Frederic Block turns 89… Rabbi emeritus of Beth Abraham Synagogue in Dayton, Ohio, Rabbi Samuel B. Press turns 87… Real estate entrepreneur, member of the Pritzker family and executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Thomas Pritzker turns 73… U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) turns 71… Diplomat who has served as Israel’s ambassador to South Sudan and then Egypt, Haim Koren turns 70… Four-time Tony Award winner, he is an actor, playwright and screenwriter, Harvey Fierstein turns 69… Comedian, political critic, musician and author, Sandra Bernhard turns 68… Radio news personality, known as “Lisa G,” Lisa Glasberg turns 67… Past chair of the board of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools and President at Micah Philanthropies, Ann Baidack Pava… CEO of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Steve Koonin turns 66… Israeli conductor and musician, Nir Brand turns 62… Partner in the strategic communications division of Finsbury Glover Hering (FGS Global), Jonathan Kopp turns 57… Best-selling author, journalist and television personality, Anna Benjamin David turns 53… Chairman of Israeli fintech The Floor, he is the only child of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Elisha Wiesel turns 51… Hedge fund manager and founder of Saba Capital Management, Boaz Weinstein turns 50… Producer of 11 network television programs, Jennie Snyder Urman turns 48… 2019 Trump impeachment witness, he was director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, Lt. Colonel (retired) Alexander Semyon Vindman… and his twin brother, Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, also a former NSC staffer, both turn 48… Political strategist, Michael L. Goldfarb… Senior reporter at ABC News, Katherine B. Faulders… Director at Finsbury Glover Hering, Anna Epstein… White House staffer, Jordan Finkelstein… Communications manager at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Allie Freedman…
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