Daily Kickoff
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish Democrats about the significance of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro potentially appearing on a presidential ticket, cover comments made by Salam Fayyad and Amos Yadlin at the Aspen Security Forum yesterday and report on the interfaith roundtable hosted by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff at the White House. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Condoleezza Rice, Don Samuels and Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
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 and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Inside Wesley Bell’s Jewish turnout operation; If Deif is dead, what comes next for Hamas?; Virginia judge rules pro-Palestinian group required to disclose donor documents. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- We’re keeping an eye on an early morning attack by an explosives-laden drone near the U.S. Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv that rocked portions of the city. Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss was at the scene shortly after the attack, which occurred shortly after 3 a.m. local time. One person was killed and 10 wounded in the attack. The Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack, which did not activate any sirens and was not shot down; the IDF has attributed its failure to identify the drone as a threat to human error. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesperson, said a preliminary investigation indicated that the drone was an Iranian UAV, upgraded to fly from Yemen to Israel.
- Secretary of State Tony Blinken kicks off a packed morning on the final day of the Aspen Security Forum. Blinken, who will be in conversation with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, is expected to touch on a number of issues, including the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and Washington’s part in efforts to broker a cease-fire and hostage-release.
- Following Blinken’s session, Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and John Cornyn (R-TX) will participate in a panel on “The View from the Senate.” Following that, Anne Neuberger, the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, will join a panel titled “Securing Trust in the Global Digital Economy: Cyber, Fraud, and Emerging Threat.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will also sit for separate fireside chats on the confab’s last day.
What You Should Know
Former President Donald Trump’s 90-minute acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee — which ended just after midnight on the East Coast — began on an uplifting note as he called for unity days after surviving an attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports from the final night of the GOP confab.
But in his first public remarks since the shooting, Trump soon went off message in a subdued and largely meandering address that showed the former president returning to more abrasive rhetoric and improvised riffs — including an extended encomium to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister and strongman — that fell flat with the crowd.
He invoked a well-worn epithet to criticize Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), calling her “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” and attacked Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) as “a lightweight” while plugging her GOP challenger, Sam Brown, who was present at the convention. And he laid into President Joe Biden, who is facing growing calls from his party to step away from the race, even as Trump’s team had reportedly vowed that he would not use his opponent’s name in his speech.
One high point came near the end of the address, which was the longest convention speech in history, as Trump called for the American hostages now held by Hamas in Gaza to be returned — a theme of the previous night. “To the entire world, I tell you this, we want our hostages back,” Trump said to applause — as well as what sounded like a shofar blowing from the floor of the convention. “And they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.”
Trump otherwise fell short of advancing substantive proposals for addressing the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and Ukraine — aside from a promise to “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created.”
In an earlier speech on Thursday evening, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, also dinged the Biden administration for its handling of the Israel-Hamas war. “An America First majority is going to stand with Israel,” he pledged.
And Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state under Trump, accused Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris of “providing appeasement to” what he called “the pro-Hamas radicals on our streets.”
In a nod to the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, meanwhile, Tucker Carlson, the incendiary right-wing commentator who lobbied Trump to pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate, used his speaking slot to inveigh against U.S. funding to Ukraine, which he said has come at the expense of countering the fentanyl crisis at home. “You don’t see our commander-in-chief suggesting that we use our military to protect our country or the lives of its citizens,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “No. That’s for Ukraine.”
On a warmer note near the end of Trump’s speech, he thanked his family members for joining him at the convention as it concluded on Thursday night, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — who have publicly distanced themselves from the former president in recent years. The pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson, who is bankrolling a super PAC to boost Trump, was also seated in a box further up in the hall.
sights on shapiro
Jewish Democrats cautiously cheer a potential Josh Shapiro ticket

As pressure mounts for President Joe Biden to step aside, Pennsylvanians and pundits have their attention focused on the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro: Could the popular Democrat be elevated to serve as a running mate to Kamala Harris, or even to top the ticket? Jewish Democrats regard the possibility of Shapiro, a proudly Jewish politician who ran a TV ad showing his family celebrating Shabbat, serving as president or vice president with excitement — and a dash of trepidation, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Bigger meaning: “Jews are always split between being both proud and concerned,” said Larry Ceisler, a public affairs executive in Pennsylvania. The hype surrounding Shapiro, who won by a landslide in 2022, is not new. For years, discussing whether Shapiro might be the first Jewish president has been something of a parlor game in Jewish political circles. But now that the hypothetical is becoming slightly closer to a realistic situation, American Jews are considering what it would mean for a Jewish politician to be on the ballot for president or vice president, especially given today’s charged climate of rising antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7 and the Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.