Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s speech yesterday at the Hudson Institute, report on AIPAC’s pause in support for Rep. Scott Perry over his vote against the supplemental bill and have the exclusive on Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno’s call to cut U.S. funding for the U.N. following the body’s offering condolences over the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Janet Yellen, Risa Heller and Rep. Jake Auchincloss.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee will hold its third hearing with college presidents today, this time featuring Northwestern University President Michael Schill, Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and University of California, Los Angeles Chancellor Gene Block, as well as Phi Beta Kappa Society CEO and former Brandeis University President Frederick Lawrence.
Expect a focus on Schill and Holloway’s controversial decisions to strike deals with anti-Israel protesters to end campus encampments, and the clashes among police, protesters and counterprotesters at UCLA.
Jewish leaders have warned that the agreements with protesters leave Jewish students who follow campus rules ignored, while effectively rewarding those violating the rules and harassing Jewish students.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the committee, said in a statement previewing the hearing on Wednesday, “The Committee has a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of your duty to your Jewish students… Everyone affiliated with these universities will receive a healthy dose of reality: actions have consequences.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have been increasingly vocal in criticizing the hearings as political theater lacking in substance. “We feel this is a serious issue treated unfortunately in a very unserious way,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), the No. 3 House Democrat said. “Republicans are looking to continue to put wedges in our community… and divide our caucus.” Aguilar also said there’s “plenty of work” for college presidents to do, including enforcing their own rules.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who chairs the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said that lawmakers are throwing “kerosene” on the campus environment. And she said she’d visited the encampment at the University of Michigan, which police cleared on Tuesday, declaring “they’re not antisemitic.”
Ahead of the hearing, Rutgers students and faculty put out statements condemning the school’s handling of antisemitism, while the Israeli American Council wrote to committee leaders highlighting the disruption of an IAC event at UCLA and accusing the college of “bias against Jewish students and community members.”
And on Wednesday afternoon, the UCLA campus police chief was temporarily reassigned in response to UCLA police’s failure to intervene in an April 30 attack by counterprotesters on the encampment.
In the world of presidential politics, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley became one of the last Republican holdouts to say she will vote for former President Donald Trump during a Hudson Institute event on Wednesday. Her speech was familiar Haley territory: calling for a strong national defense, unabashed support of Israel and a tough criticism of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.
In Haley’s speech, she called on Trump to reach out to the millions of Haley primary voters who share her more traditional Republican values. Trump’s selection of a running mate — one of the most important events left on the presidential campaign calendar — will go a long way in determining whether he feels the need to appeal to the Haley coalition of national security hawks. Read more here.
Haley’s newsy Hudson Institute speech comesa day before a Republican on the opposite end of the GOP’s ideological spectrum — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) — is speaking at an event co-hosted by the Quincy Institute, an isolationist think tank calling for an end to American military intervention.
Vance, who is reportedly in consideration to be Trump’s running mate, has tried to emphasize that despite his opposition to American engagement overseas, he is still a reliable supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. “The Israelis are our allies. Let them prosecute this war the way they see fit,” Vance said in a CNN interview earlier this month.
But many of the think tank’s scholars are ardent opponents of a close U.S.-Israel relationship. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who in 2007 jointly published the controversial book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, are nonresident scholars. In 2020, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) accused the think tank of helping drive an increase in antisemitism across the country.
Vance’s address will push back on those views, a source familiar with the matter tells JI, instead touting why he believes supporting Israel is a critical component of the America First agenda.
pennsylvania problems
AIPAC pauses fundraising for Scott Perry, as he faces competitive reelection

As Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) faces another hotly contested general election race, AIPAC has halted its fundraising for the former Freedom Caucus chair following his vote against supplemental funding for Israel last month, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
On hold: The pro-Israel group removed the fundraising portal on its PAC website for Republicans who voted against the supplemental package, but Perry is the most endangered of the group, running in a district that the Cook Political Report rates as “lean Republican.” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann said the group has not withdrawn its endorsement of Perry but did not answer further questions about when or if it might resume fundraising for the Pennsylvania Republican.
New opportunity: Perry’s vote could open a lane for Janelle Stelson, his Democratic challenger and a former TV news host, to attack him as insufficiently supportive of Israel, and to potentially pick off moderate voters concerned about his votes against Israel and Ukraine aid. Democratic Majority for Israel, which backs pro-Israel Democrats, endorsed Stelson on Monday.
Explaining the vote: Perry said in a statement that he voted against the bill due to what he described as funding for Hamas, referring to humanitarian aid funding. “I have been and remain one of the most vehement defenders in Congress of the State of Israel. I staunchly support her right to defend herself and her people by responding to the heinous and unprovoked attacks by Hamas on Oct 7th and beyond,” Perry said. “I have grievous concerns, however, about provisions in the recent House funding bill that also allocates Billions to Hamas – terrorists! I will not support both sides of the same war; I will not support terrorists; and I will not callously, negligently, and dangerously spend hard earned American Taxpayer dollars on terrorism that is aimed not only at one of our greatest allies, but at America as well.”