Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the record of Butch Ware, the running mate of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who applauded violence against Israelis and celebrated the Oct. 7 attacks, and report on an invitation by Rep. Andre Carson to controversial U.N. official Francesca Albanese, who last week faced criticism from senior U.S. officials at the U.N. for her antisemitic comments. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. John Fetterman, Jessica Tarlov and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
What We’re Watching
- Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Ann Arbor, Mich., with running mate Gov. Tim Walz for an event today with singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers.
- Former President Donald Trump will speak today at a gathering of faith leaders in suburban Atlanta before he holds a rally tonight at Georgia Tech.
- In Pittsburgh, Dan Senor will host a live interview this evening with Pennsylvania GOP Senate nominee Dave McCormick about Israel and the 2024 election.
- Israel’s consulate in New York is hosting an Oct. 7 memorial ceremony this evening in Manhattan.
- In Israel, the Knesset is expected to hold its final votes later today on legislation to ban UNRWA from operating in Israel, effectively halting the controversial U.N. agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
- And in Doha today, Mossad head David Barnea, CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani are meeting to discuss cease-fire and hostage-release efforts.
What You Should Know
After weeks of anticipation, Israel responded early Saturday morning to Iran’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack, destroying a number of missile-production sites and Iranian aerial-defense systems. But with the U.S. presidential election just over a week away, an immediate Iranian response is unlikely, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.
The limited strikes targeted military sites around Iran, avoiding densely populated civilian areas as well as nuclear and energy facilities — red lines publicly laid out by the Biden administration in recent weeks. Iranian media reported that four soldiers were killed in the strikes.
Initial Israeli assessments found that the strikes significantly damaged Iranian military installations, including Tehran’s Russian-produced S-300 aerial-defense systems. An Israeli official toldThe Wall Street Journal that the destruction of the systems improved Israel’s “range of freedom of movement in the Iranian skies,” while an assessment from the Institute for Science and International Security suggested that the strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear weapons development.
The strikes — the largest Israeli attack on Iran in history — signaled “that we [can] get to any target in any area in Iran,” former Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin said on Sunday during a briefing with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, where he is a distinguished fellow.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevisaid that Israel has “the ability to do much more,” leaving the door open to potential future strikes on Iranian facilities and targets.
A senior Biden administration official suggested in a call with reporters on Saturday that the Israeli strike “should be the end of this direct exchange of fire between Israel and Iran,” amid concerns that tit-for-tat strikes could spiral into a larger, regional war. And with the U.S. election days away, there is unlikely to be any additional attacks by either country before next week, experts assessed.
A response — if there is one — could take weeks. The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed that Israel would face “bitter consequences” for the strikes. The U.N. Security Council is slated to meet today for an emergency session on the strikes, convened at Tehran’s request.
But the degree to which — and when, or if — Iran responds to the strike remains unclear. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Israel’s strikes “should neither be magnified nor downplayed,” but stopped short of directly calling for a response.
butch’s beliefs
Jill Stein’s running mate celebrated violence against Israelis

Rudolph “Butch” Ware, the running mate of Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, in recent months celebrated violence against Israelis — including the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on the Jewish state. Ware, an associate professor of history from University of California, Santa Barbara, joined Stein’s ticket in mid-August — less than two weeks after Ware’s hip-hop duo, Slum Prophecy, dropped an album-length tribute to the Oct. 7 attacks, Will Bredderman reports for Jewish Insider.
Music mayhem: Marketed until earlier this month on a Shopify account bearing the name Ink of the Scholars, a California limited liability company registered in Ware’s name, the 11-track digital release extols the bloody Hamas raid even in its name: “Aqsa Flood,” after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, as the terrorist group termed the surprise attack. An archived version of the now-deleted page makes this connection explicit. “Eight brand new tracks from Slum Prophecy plus three remixes. All focused on the global uprising sparked Palestinian resistance which named their most recent insurgency Operation al-Aqsa Flood,” the description reads.