Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to NBC’s Chuck Todd about his post-“Meet the Press” plans, and interview Bernard Haykel and Yitz Applbaum on the podcast about recent developments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Micaela Diamond, Armin Rosen and Alexis Grenell.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider, eJewishPhilanthropy and The Circuit stories, including: Inside Israel’s Cinderella story at the youth World Cup; Phoenix congressional candidate Raquel Terán faces scrutiny for voting record on antisemitism; and Rhode Island Democrat looks to parlay high-profile connections towards a seat in Congress. Print the latest edition here.
Donald Trump is now the first former commander-in-chief to face federal criminal charges after the Justice Department charged him with mishandling classified documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, and then obstructing the government’s efforts to return them.
The charges against Trump reportedly include: willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Trump, on Truth Social, said he was summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami next Tuesday at 3 p.m ET.
The development threatens to upend the 2024 presidential race, where Trump is the current front-runner in the GOP primary field. The surprise early timing of the indictment means that the presidential campaign will likely be progressing in parallel with the prospect that the GOP front-runner could face lengthy jail time, if convicted.
Several leading Republicans — from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Trump’s GOP presidential rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — put out statements attacking the Justice Department, accusing it of weaponizing its power for political purposes. That’s been the chorus from pro-Trump Republican lawmakers in the immediate aftermath of the news. So far, Trump’s growing legal predicament has only emboldened GOP voters to rally behind him.
Trump is still facing other investigations in Fulton County, Ga., over his attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election; and a second line of inquiry by special counsel Jack Smith over his role in the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.
The Department of Education will open an investigation into the State University of New Yorkat New Paltz, following a complaint filed last year by two Jewish students — one of whom is Israeli — who allege they were targeted by fellow students because of their support for Israel and that the university did not adequately protect them.
The complaint was filed months after Cassie Blotner and Ofek Preis were removed from a campus group for survivors of sexual assault. Efforts by the students to engage in dialogue with their peers escalated tensions, and both Blotner and Preis found themselves the targets of online harassment by other SUNY New Paltz students. The university, Blotner and Preis said, did not respond to requests for assistance or security escorts.
Preis told us that the opening of an investigation “represents a critical stride in the ongoing battle against antisemitism and the safeguarding of Jewish students within the higher education system.” SUNY New Paltz, Preis said, “has a responsibility to take immediate and decisive action in combating antisemitism and creating an environment that fosters respect and understanding for all students.”
Blotner told JI that the case is “a textbook example of the form of antisemitism that is rapidly spreading across the United States — anti-Zionism. Our rights, as well as our fellow Jewish and Israeli peers’ rights, to an education were robbed from us when our school did not respond to the discrimination on the basis of our identity.”
“We deserve to have a safe and productive environment to be educated in,” Blotner added. “Instead, when students turned their backs on us because of our identity, the school administration did too with their lack of a response that could only be interpreted as condoning the actions those students took.”
Read our original report on the complaint from last August here.
todd’s tenure
Chuck Todd prepares for his next act

Chuck Todd has felt a sense of relief since he announced on Sunday that he would step down from NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the long-running Sunday news show he has anchored for nearly a decade. “It’s a spotlight that can have a glare to it, and I think there’s only so much time anybody can do it and handle it,” he said in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kasssel on Thursday. “I didn’t want to get to the point where I was too jaded or cynical, and I was getting close. I’ll admit it.”
Close to home: But there were also more personal reasons for his decision, including the recent deaths of two close friends, which “really rattled me,” he explained. “I lost my father when he was 40 and I was 16,” he said. “My son, my youngest, he’s 16 right now. I’ve seen people die doing this work.”
Future plans: “I still have a lot of ambition. I still want to be a part of the solution and what’s wrong with media consumption and journalism in the 21st century,” Todd, a veteran Washington journalist, told JI. “But I think there are other places I can do that.” In conversation with JI, Todd, 51, elaborated on those plans while reflecting on his tenure at “Meet the Press,” which has overlapped with three presidential administrations. Even if he has yet to interview President Joe Biden, the outgoing NBC moderator said he remains hopeful about landing a sit-down before he leaves. “There’s still time,” he said.