Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the release earlier today of three Israeli hostages, and report on President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting campus antisemitism. We also talk to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey about his bid for a third and final term, and report on Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter’s first week in Washington. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Eugene Kontorovich, Dan Loeb and Mark Levine.
What We’re Watching
- Earlier today, Israelis Arbel Yehoud, Gadi Moses and Agam Berger, as well as five Thai hostages, were freed after more than 15 months in captivity. Read more here.
- Steve Witkoff, the White House’s Middle East envoy, is in Israel today. Earlier today, Witkoff, who met this morning with the four hostages who were freed last weekend, met with hostage families in Tel Aviv.
- We’re also following the tragic details of a plane crash late Wednesday just outside Washington at Reagan National Airport after an American Airlines flight from Kansas carrying 64 people collided in midair with a U.S. Army helicopter. Many of the passengers and crew are feared dead; rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. It’s the first major commercial airline crash in the U.S. since 2009.
- Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for director of national intelligence, will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 10 a.m. This afternoon, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold the confirmation hearing for Kash Patel, Trump’s choice for FBI director. More below.
- This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote to advance the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to be U.N. ambassador.
- Today is the deadline for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which works with Palestinians, to cease its operations in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem following the passage of Knesset legislation in October banning the agency from operating in Israel.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi is in Doha, Qatar, today for meetings with senior Qatari officials.
What You Should Know
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominees for director of national intelligence and director of the FBI, are set to come before the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees today, in what are likely to be high-drama proceedings, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Gabbard is one of the most imperiled of Trump’s nominees, with a series of concerns about her past meetings with former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad (and praise of the brutal dictator); her past opposition to critical government surveillance powers; her reported lack of preparation for private meetings with senators; her support for pardoning Edward Snowden; questions about potential meetings with Hezbollah or Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese leaders; her perceived affinity for Russia; the sect (described by some as a cult) in which she was raised; other questionable contacts and more.
Expect questions on a range of those issues — particularly her trip to Syria and Lebanon — to come up at her hearing, from both Democrats and some Republicans who remain skeptical of the nomination.
Democrats say they’re taking a similar approach to the hearing as they did for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with many of them prepared to focus their questions on different specific issues.
Gabbard has also embraced a much more dovish foreign policy approach than leading national security officials in the first Trump administration, including on Israel and Iran, supporting the Iran deal and opposing the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
In her prepared opening statement, she touts her political independence and “refusal to be anyone’s puppet.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the Senate Intelligence Committee’s leading Democrat, will “argue that foreign allies may not be able to trust the United States with sensitive intelligence information if Gabbard is confirmed,” according to Punchbowl News.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK),who had praised Gabbard’s apparent change of heart on government surveillance powers, noted to reporters that they’d spent multiple hours in his office working through a range of questions. Asked by JI whether he thinks Gabbard is on track for confirmation, he responded “ask me somewhere around Friday.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a potential swing vote, said she has more questions for Gabbard at her hearing tomorrow based on a private discussion, adding that she would not make a decision on Gabbard’s nomination until after her hearing.
But don’t bet against Gabbard yet. She’s won over once skeptical Republicans on the committee and key figures, such as Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-AR) and former Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
Patel, an outspoken Trump loyalist, is likely to be confirmed, though he’ll almost certainly face grilling from Democrats about whether he’ll seek to weaponize the FBI against his and Trump’s perceived political enemies, as he has suggested in past writings and media appearances.
He may face questions over his past public comments offering support for conspiracy theories, including QAnon, his support for those convicted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and his qualifications to lead the FBI.
Trump’s decision to revoke federal protection from a host of former senior officials threatened by the Iranian regime could also come up, as could Patel’s largely unknown approach to tackling homeland threats from Iran and foreign terrorist groups, domestic violent extremist groups and growing antisemitic threats to Jewish communities and institutions.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the top Judiciary Committee Democrat, described Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, where he outlined a desire for retribution against political enemies, as “his playbook for his political life: give him 38,000 FBI agents and let him seek retribution against those who’ve wronged him and disrespected him. That is not what the FBI is all about … I want to give him a chance to explain the unexplainable.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Judiciary Committee with a reputation for bipartisanship, is firmly in Patel’s corner, and is set to introduce him in the committee.
executive edict
Trump to ‘marshal all federal resources’ to fight antisemitism with new executive order

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday focused on countering antisemitism, in what the White House described as an effort to “marshal all federal resources” to “combat the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and in our streets since Oct. 7, 2023.” The executive order requires every federal department and agency to review criminal and civil authorities that could be used to fight antisemitism, with a requirement to report back to the White House within 60 days, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
In the text: “I will issue clear orders to my attorney general to aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews,” Trump said in a fact sheet accompanying the order. “I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.” Trump also pledged to deport “pro-jihadist” foreign students who broke the law during anti-Israel protests, although the order did not detail how he would do that.
Communal response: Several major Jewish organizations welcomed the executive order on Wednesday adopting a whole-of-government approach to fight antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen and Marc Rod report.