Daily Kickoff
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Vice President Kamala Harris’ plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while he is in Washington for his address to a joint session of Congress — which Harris will not preside over. We look at Harris’ support among Jewish Democrats, report on the concerns of Israeli-American hostages’ families in Washington and explore the state-level implications of Harris potentially selecting North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper as her running mate. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Deborah Lipstadt, Darren Walker and Sheryl Sandberg.
What We’re Watching
- President Joe Biden is set to return to the White House this afternoon after spending the weekend in Delaware while he recovered from COVID-19.
- The House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a roundtable this morning for the Israeli-American hostage families who are in Washington this week. Immediately after, hostage families will participate in a similar event with Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI).
- The Capitol Hill delegation that traveled to Buenos Aires last week for the 30th anniversary of the AMIA Jewish community center bombing will speak in Washington today about their experiences.
- Elsewhere on Capitol Hill today, the House Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing on the Trump assassination attempt, while the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee is holding a hearing on antisemitism and tax exemptions.
- And on TV, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is slated to make her first appearance on ABC’s “The View” since Biden announced he will not seek reelection.
What You Should Know
Democrats have rallied around Vice President Kamala Harris as the favored presidential nominee, a move that gives the party much-needed unity while facing the risk that the veep may not end up performing much better than President Joe Biden, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
What Harris gives Democrats is hope — hope that a younger, more vibrant campaigner can move the needle in a race that’s tilting away from them. To make a sports analogy: She’s the backup, once-hyped NFL quarterback filling in for an injured veteran with a losing record. There’s nowhere to go but up, the thinking goes.
Harris will bring Democrats the opportunity to win back some of the party’s base that had grown unenthused about the prospect of a second Biden term. She’ll likely score better with younger voters, progressives and Black voters, all of whom registered historically low excitement for Biden.
She’ll also be able to speak more effectively than Biden on abortion policy, one of the few winning issues for Democrats this cycle. Running to protect abortion rights has helped Democrats prevail in numerous off-year elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
But her instinct to rally progressives over wooing persuadable moderates could end up becoming a major liability in the general election. She ran to the left in her unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, even though there was a wide-open lane for a center-left candidate — a political reality that Biden (and others, such as Pete Buttigieg) embraced.
As vice president, she hasn’t taken the opportunity to reassure Americans skeptical of her background as a Bay Area Democrat, using the second-in-command role more as a trusted emissary to progressives. (One missed opportunity, according to one Democratic strategist: Speaking out aggressively on antisemitism from her vice-presidential perch, following the lead of her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.)
Her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week during his D.C. trip will be an early test on whether she views her new role as an opportunity to rebrand herself in the center of the party, or whether she will use the opportunity to pressure Israel in order to build capital with certain disillusioned left-wing activists.
The RealClearPolitics polling average shows former President Donald Trumpwith a two-point lead over Harris, about the same deficit Democrats faced with Biden on the ticket, before last month’s debate debacle. Trump has held a small but durable advantage throughout the year, a dynamic that’s been driven as much by concerns about Biden’s record as the long-standing worries about his age and mental acuity.
And Harris risks losing some ground with seniors, a reliable voting constituency that overperformed for Biden, even as she likely improves the party’s standing with younger voters. Seniors make up an outsized share of the three critical Rust Belt battlegrounds that will determine the winner of this high-stakes presidential race.
If Harris lives up to her potential, Democrats could anticipate racially diverse Sun Belt swing states like Georgia, Nevada and Arizona coming back into play as Harris is able to provide a more compelling vision of the country’s future.
If she falters, however, her victory path could be blocked by failing to win over the working-class voters that are critical to winning Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden’s success winning back enough of those voters won him the White House in 2020, a task that could prove a bit more challenging for Harris.
Tête-à-tête
Netanyahu to meet with VP Kamala Harris at pivotal time in war and politics

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris this week has grown in importance since Harris has emerged as the expected Democratic presidential nominee, while a scheduled meeting with outgoing President Joe Biden remains pivotal to Israel’s war effort. “This is a crucial moment for Israeli and American leaders,” Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov. “It’s a much more interesting moment than people realize.”
Political opportunity: Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren argued that the Netanyahu-Harris meeting is a more politically consequential meeting than any conversation Netanyahu could have with Biden. Harris, as the likely presidential nominee, will have her first chance to showcase her commander-in-chief credentials in her meeting with Netanyahu, while also clarifying her own campaign’s views towards Israel.
Also on Netanyahu’s schedule: The prime minister is slated to speak at a memorial event on Wednesday for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who died in March.