Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
Ed. note: The next Daily Kickoff will arrive Monday morning. Have a good weekend!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we spotlight Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, and interview the Jewish Chronicle’s David Rose on the podcast. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gavin Newsom, Bella Abzug and Evan Gershkovich.
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: The race to save Mosul’s last synagogue; In 2022, AIPAC opposed Shri Thanedar. This month he went to Israel with the group; Egypt eyeing rapprochement with Iran amid Tehran’s warming ties with UAE, Saudi Arabia. Print the latest edition here.
We come to you today from Milwaukee, Wis., the morning after the GOP’s first presidential debate. Jewish Insider’s Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar provides the following dispatch:
The biggest question entering the first GOP debate was whether an alternative to former President Donald Trump could plausibly emerge. Until now, a long list of candidates has been dividing the non-MAGA vote, handing Trump a commanding advantage in the race.
With about 40% of Republican voters solidly behind Trump, any GOP candidate faces a difficult chance of trying to consolidate the other Republicans willing to consider a fresh face.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, showcasing a command of foreign policy, polished debate skills and even a willingness to tweak Trump, emerged as a leading contender to fill the role of top Trump challenger after Wednesday’s debate at the Fiserv Forum.
Haley torched Vivek Ramaswamy over his desire to withdraw support from Ukraine by accusing him of supporting America’s enemies and threatening the global order. The former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor recounted Vladimir Putin’s brutal war crimes, telling Ramaswamy he supported a murderer over a pro-American ally.
“He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel,” Haley said. “You don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.” It was a powerful rebuttal that articulately laid out the case for American engagement abroad.
She then went in for the kill: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows,” she said to his face. While the crowd in the arena initially sounded like it favored Ramaswamy’s isolationism, Haley’s persuasion turned the tide.
Haley then made an impassioned defense for foreign aid to Israel, calling the Jewish state “the front line of defense against Iran.” “It’s not that Israel needs America, it’s that America needs Israel,” she said.
Ramaswamy responded by articulating his position on Israel: “Our relationship with Israel would never be stronger than by the end of my first term, but it’s not a client relationship, it’s a friendship and you know what friends do? Friends help each other stand on their own two feet,” Ramaswamy, who has faced criticism for his comments on curtailing aid to Israel, said. “I will lead Abraham Accords 2.0, I will partner with Israel to make sure Iran never is nuclear armed.” The entrepreneur continued: “You know what I love about them? I love their border policies, I love their tough-on-crime policies, I love that they have a national identity and an Iron Dome to protect their homeland, so yes I want to learn from the friends that we’re supporting.”
Haley, playing off the fact that she is the only woman in the race, invoked the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in making the case that “if you want something done, ask a woman.” Haley tweaked present and former members of Congress on stage for supporting major government spending under Republicans — criticizing Trump in the process.
And she made a credible case for pragmatism on abortion policy, sparring with Vice President Mike Pence over the need for a federal abortion ban (she was against it, saying it wasn’t realistic to get passed through Congress).
She also benefited from her leading rivals who struggled to stand out at the debate. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once expected to be the center of attention, was overshadowed by Ramaswamy and mainly managed to invoke well-worn talking points about his record in Florida.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, whom Haley appointed to the Senate, was overshadowed by his rivals, as he avoided engaging in the numerous back-and-forth arguments throughout. It was a missed opportunity for a candidate needing to capitalize on his uptick in the polls.
Many of the party’s top donors, looking to move past Trump, have been hopelessly divided over whom to support. At Wednesday’s debate, Haley demonstrated she boasts the political and policy chops to fill the role — while still maintaining enviable favorability ratings across the party’s factions.
If there’s a market for a traditional Republican candidate — and that’s a big if, given the changing nature of the GOP — Haley could be the candidate to fill that bill.
going green
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green faces his biggest test

When a wildfire ignited on the Hawaiian island of Maui earlier this month, the state’s governor was thousands of miles away, at a family reunion in Massachusetts. Two days later, Gov. Josh Green was back in the Aloha State and standing in front of an object that was by then familiar to all Hawaiians: a whiteboard. Green, an emergency room physician who first moved to Hawaii after medical school to work in rural hospitals, stood next to that whiteboard nearly every day of the COVID-19 pandemic, when, as lieutenant governor, he oversaw the state’s response to the public health crisis. Now, the state’s response to the devastating fires in Maui presents an urgent leadership test for Green, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Can Green — an outsider from the mainland who is now the face of the state’s politics, and one of the most popular governors in the nation — meet the moment?
Aloha State journey: At first glance, there’s no obvious throughline in Green’s journey from his hometown of Kingston, N.Y., to Washington Place, the governor’s residence in Honolulu. His family moved to Pittsburgh when he was young, and Green, who is Jewish, attended college at Swarthmore and medical school at Pennsylvania State University. He came to Hawaii’s Big Island in 2000 as a member of the National Health Service Corps and never left.
Hawaii represents: Green is not Hawaii’s first Jewish governor. That was Linda Lingle, a Republican, who served as governor from 2002 to 2010. One of the state’s two U.S. senators, Brian Schatz, is also Jewish. “I think everyone’s proud to have our second Jewish governor in a state [where] a lot of people have never met a Jew,” said Mimi Lind, executive director of Jewish Community Services of Hawaii.