Dem divide on U.S. strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how Capitol Hill is responding to the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend and report on this morning’s Israeli strikes on Iran’s notorious Evin Prison. We talk to nuclear proliferation experts about Iran’s lesser-known underground nuclear site, Pickaxe Mountain, which is deeper than Fordow, and cover the Supreme Court ruling allowing American families of victims of Palestinian terror to sue the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rahm Emanuel, Barbra Streisand and Keith Siegel.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is holding an Oval Office meeting this afternoon with National Security Council officials as the administration mulls its next moves following the weekend strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow today, where he’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- Attorney General Pam Bondi is slated to testify this afternoon before the House Appropriations Committee on the Justice Department’s FY2026 budget.
- The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is holding a situational update this morning looking at the fallout from the weekend strikes on Iran.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
In my years of covering politics, it’s pretty rare for mainstream Jewish organizations to be wildly out of step with the predominant views of the Democratic Party. But in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s decision to order bunker-busting strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, the views of the institutional Jewish community and many rank-and-file Democrats couldn’t have been more divergent.
Consider: The American Jewish Committee’s CEO Ted Deutch, a former Democratic congressman, praised Trump’s decision and called it “an historic moment for the United States, Israel and the world.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt thanked Trump for “holding true to the commitment that the United States will not stand by and watch the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and antisemitism develop nuclear weapons.”
Even the more-partisan Democratic pro-Israel group DMFI, which normally can be counted on to criticize the president, rejected its own party’s predominant view that further congressional approval should have been received before the strikes. “Iran was unwilling to give up its nuclear program through diplomatic negotiations across three different administrations, so the United States was left with no choice but to take decisive military action,” DMFI CEO Brian Romick said.
By contrast, it was tough to find many Democratic lawmakers — even among the many who are typical allies of Israel — to offer praise of the strikes severely degrading Iran’s nuclear program.
IRAN-ISRAEL WAR, DAY 11
IAF bombs Evin Prison as Iranian missile barrage damages ‘strategic infrastructure’ in southern Israel
Israel on Monday bombed the gates of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison and conducted follow-up strikes near the Fordow nuclear facility a day after it was bombed by the U.S., Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. Evin has been a symbol of the regime’s oppression for decades. The Tehran prison is where the regime has incarcerated activists, protesters, journalists, dual nationals and others, and used torture methods including beatings, solitary confinement and sexual abuse. Iran expert Ben Sabti told JI last week that Iranians have called on Israel to strike prisons so that dissident leaders held inside could escape and push for the toppling of the regime.
Additional targets: The strike on the prison was one of several by Israeli fighter jets, targeting “bodies of government oppression in the heart of Tehran,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday morning. The military struck the headquarters of the Basij, the regime’s internal enforcement arm, which has been instrumental in enforcing Islamic law and suppressing protest, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ internal security command center, the Alborz Corps, responsible for security and regime stability in the Tehran district, and a clock in the city’s Palestine Square counting down to Israel’s destruction by 2040.
Crystal ball: Iran is unlikely to initiate attacks against the U.S. after the American strike on Islamic Republic nuclear sites, but it will continue to launch missiles at Israel, experts told JI on Sunday.
PROGRESS REPORT
U.S. did ‘extremely severe damage’ to Iranian nuclear sites, but extent of destruction unknown
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday that the U.S. operation in Iran overnight had hit all of its planned targets and that initial assessments showed that the strikes had inflicted extensive damage on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But Caine said that a full assessment of whether the Iranian nuclear program had been fully destroyed would take more time, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Unknown details: “Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” Caine said. Pressed on whether Iran retains any nuclear capability, Caine said that a full assessment “is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may be there.” Secretary of Defense Hegseth added that the U.S. believes it “achieved the destruction of capabilities” at the Fordow nuclear facility, which he described as the “primary target.”
Vance’s view: Vice President JD Vance emphasized that the United States is “not at war with Iran” but instead “at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday.
MAGA’s mood: The Washington Post looks at how supporters of President Donald Trump are viewing the weekend strikes.
DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
Jeffries, Schumer criticize Trump for striking Iranian nuclear facilities without congressional authorization
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized President Donald Trump for carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities without congressional authorization, a voice of opposition that was echoed by many leading Democrats on Capitol Hill, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
In opposition: Jeffries said in a statement less than two hours after Trump announced the strikes that Trump “misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.” Schumer, in a similarly critical statement, said that “no president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy” and said he would be urging all lawmakers to support war powers legislation to block further military action against Iran, and called for an immediate vote.
Steny signs off: Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), a former House majority leader, backed the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
HEARD OF PICKAXE?
Pickaxe Mountain: Iran’s lesser-known underground nuclear facility
Among the Iranian nuclear facilities the U.S. reportedly targeted in the Sunday morning attack was the Pickaxe Mountain Facility. Iran has not acknowledged the site’s development or construction and it has retained a lower public profile, with the Institute for Science and International Security first discovering its existence in 2023. The facility, just south of the Natanz nuclear facility and buried roughly 330 feet below the mountain itself, was particularly concerning to experts due to its depth, which is between 30 to 70 feet deeper than Fordow. This is said to exceed the striking depth of the most powerful bunker-busting weapons in the U.S. arsenal, Jewish Insider’s Jake Schlanger reports.
Another space: Recent Iranian announcements stating the government planned to open a new facility heightened fears that Iran could take the site online in the near future, according to Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “There’s concern that Iran was creating the floor space for another secret enrichment facility,” Stricker told JI. “And so when the [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board of Governors passed a resolution finding Iran in noncompliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a couple of weeks ago, the Iranians threatened to build another or to open another enrichment facility, and people immediately feared that this would be the site of it.”
Containment: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday dismissed claims that President Donald Trump’s decision to help Israel take out Iran’s nuclear program would lead to a wider war requiring U.S. troops, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Graham made the comments after being asked about the military implications of the strikes during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The South Carolina senator told anchor Kristen Welker that while he does not see U.S. servicemembers being sent to Iran, he believed Israel would target the regime itself.
MIDEAST MANEUVERS
Arab states concerned about spillover from Israel-Iran war, but recognize Iranian threat, lawmakers say
Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Don Bacon (R-NE) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), who traveled to the Middle East last week on a trip sponsored by the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative and the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Friday that Arab leaders expressed to them concern about a potential broadening of the conflict between Israel and Iran, even as they acknowledged the threat posed by Iran and its nuclear program.
Reporting back: “We heard quite a bit about their concerns with respect to a nuclear-armed Iran that would be an existential threat to every one of those countries,” Schneider said, “but also a desire to de-escalate what’s happening because they rightly see [that] every day the war goes on is another day for an unintended consequence or an inadvertent escalation that could directly involve any of the Gulf countries.” Schneider noted that the countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have publicly strongly condemned Israel’s attacks but he said that the lawmakers heard a more nuanced message and stronger opposition to Iran’s nuclear program in private. “While they’re not going to celebrate what Israel is doing, certainly they are not going to cry over Israel’s success in handling Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.
CASE CLOSED
Supreme Court rules unanimously to allow terror victims to sue Palestinian Authority
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the victims of Palestinian terrorist groups on Friday in a case regarding the constitutionality of a U.S. law allowing lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization in American courts over payments to terrorists and their families through the “pay-for-slay” program, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Long battle: The Supreme Court victory in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization is a hard-fought win for the families, and comes following a decades-long series of efforts by American terror victims and their families to sue the Palestinian groups. Previously, the 2nd Circuit had repeatedly ruled that legislation passed by Congress to assert U.S. jurisdiction over the PLO and PA, designed to allow victims to sue the groups, was unconstitutional.
Worthy Reads
Whipping ‘Six Armies’: The Wall Street Journal’s Elliot Kaufman looks at how Israel destroyed Iran’s planned multifront onslaught against the Jewish state. “In Israel, where everyone has had to become an Iran expert, a video clip has been making the rounds. It’s from a 2021 speech by Gholam Ali Rashid, commander of Iran’s joint military headquarters, whom Israel killed in early strikes on June 13. Three months before the 2020 U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, Rashid recounts, the legendary Quds Force commander laid out his life’s work. ‘I have assembled for you six armies outside Iran and I have created a corridor 1,500 kilometers long and 1,000 kilometers wide, all the way to the shores of the Mediterranean,’ Soleimani told Iran’s army chiefs. ‘Any enemy that decides to fight against the Islamic Revolution, and against the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, will have to go through these six armies. It won’t be able to do so.’ Yet Israel did.” [WSJ]
The Inevitable War: In The Times of Israel, Yossi Klein Halevi posits that the military confrontation between Israel and Iran was an inevitable byproduct of Tehran’s intransigence over its nuclear program. “Israel’s strike on Iran is the culmination of the war that began on October 7. Hamas’s massacre of Israelis was not an expression of an oppressed people revolting against occupation, as much of the world believes; it was the latest phase of the radical Islamist war against Israel’s existence. What began on October 7 was the Israeli-Iranian war. For the last 18 months, we have been fighting Iran’s proxies. Now, finally and inevitably, we have taken the war to its source.” [TOI]
The Coup Plotters: The Atlantic’s Arash Azizi talks to Iranian insiders in the Islamic Republic about covert conversations about potential regime change in Tehran. “Among the details they shared with me are that former President Hassan Rouhani, who is not involved in the discussions, is being considered for a key role on the leadership committee, and that some of the military officials involved have been in regular contact with their counterparts from a major Gulf country, seeking buy-in for changing Iran’s trajectory and the composition of its leadership. ‘Ours is just one idea,’ one person involved in conversations told me. ‘Tehran is now full of such plots. They are also talking to Europeans about the future of Iran. Everybody knows Khamenei’s days are numbered. Even if he stays in office, he won’t have actual power.’” [TheAtlantic]
Civilizational Struggle: The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman considers the global forces at play following the U.S. bombing of three of Iran’s nuclear sites. “To my mind, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the sole aim of wiping its democracy off the map and absorbing it into Russia, and the attacks on Israel in 2023 by Hamas and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, were manifestations of a global struggle between the forces of inclusion and the forces of resistance. That is a struggle between countries and leaders who see the world and their nations benefiting from more trade, more cooperation against global threats and more decent, if not democratic, governance — versus regimes whose leaders thrive on resisting those trends because conflict enables them to keep their people down, their armies strong and their thieving of their treasuries easy.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
The FBI is ramping up its surveillance of Hezbollah-linked “sleeper cells” operating in the U.S., amid broader concerns that the Iran-backed group could attack domestic targets…
President Donald Trump’s campaign operation launched Kentucky MAGA, a super PAC targeting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), as it looks to find a challenger to the Kentucky Republican, who has frequently voted against measures supporting Israel and combating antisemitism…
The Trump administration officially terminated the majority of Voice of America’s staff, including a number of employees from the network’s Persian-language service who were briefly reinstated last week…
Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel told CNN he’s mulling a 2028 presidential bid, saying he believes he has “something I think I can offer” but has not made a decision about launching a bid, Jewish Insider’s Jake Schlanger reports…
A new Emerson/Pix11/The Hill poll found New York state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani beating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary; in the survey, Mamdani bests Cuomo 52%-48% in the eighth round…
One day after former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was released from the immigration detention center where he had been held for three months, the anti-Israel activist appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ weekend airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
U.S. Capitol Police announced that 36-year-old Feras Hamdan was arrested Thursday and charged with aggravated menacing for an altercation between himself and Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), in which Miller said Hamdan ran him off the road and threatened to kill him and his family members. Hamdan reportedly surrendered to police…
Eitan Fischberger reveals in his Substack that a Twitter account of supposed AIPAC lobbyist Jay Sullivan was created using a fake name and AI as part of a disinformation campaign against Jews…
The New York Times interviews Barbra Streisand about her penchant for duets ahead of the release of her upcoming album, “The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two”…
The IDF recovered the bodies of three hostages — Ofra Keidar, Jonathan Samerano and Shay Levinson – from the Gaza Strip; all three had been killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and their bodies brought to Gaza…
AFP interviews former Israeli American hostage Keith Siegel about the torture and abuse he suffered and witnessed while in Hamas captivity…
The Associated Press reports on what are suspected to be Iranian AI chatbots responding to calls from abroad that were diverted by Iranian phone companies…
New York City architect and author Nathan Silver, who chronicled the history of the city’s since-demolished buildings, died at 89…
Pic of the Day
The Great Nosh Picnic, a new Jewish food festival, premiered in New York on Sunday with collaborations from some of the city’s top chefs, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Birthdays
Actress and comedian, best known for playing Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on CBS’ sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” Melissa Rauch turns 45…
Professor emeritus of medicine and health care policy at Harvard, he was previously president of Brandeis University and Massachusetts General Hospital, Samuel O. Thier, M.D. turns 88… Real estate developer and co-founder of Tishman Speyer, Jerry Speyer turns 85… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Clarence Thomas turns 77… Senior advisor at Eurasia Group and author of 23 books on foreign affairs, global politics and travel, Robert D. Kaplan turns 73… Novelist and journalist, Roy Hoffman turns 72… Los Angeles-based socialite, restaurateur and breast cancer fundraiser, a 2008 Lifetime Television movie starring Renée Zellweger portrayed her cancer fighting efforts, Lilly Tartikoff Karatz turns 72… Klezmer expert, violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright, Yale Strom turns 68… Senior director of health policy at the National Consumers League until 2024, Robin Strongin… President of the Harrington Discovery Institute at Case Western Reserve, Dr. Jonathan Solomon Stamler turns 66… Sports memorabilia marketer, his firm sold all of the seats, signs and lockers from the old Yankee Stadium in 2009, Brandon Steiner turns 66… Member of the Pennsylvania State Senate until 2020, now president of Cannabis GPO, Daylin Leach turns 64… Editorial director of Ben Yehuda Press, Lawrence Yudelson… Former teacher for 19 years at Golda Och Academy in West Orange, N.J., Stephanie Z. Bonder… Israeli-American professor, journalist and filmmaker, Boaz Dvir turns 58… Film and television actress, Selma Blair Beitner turns 53… U.S. special envoy for hostage response with the rank of ambassador, Adam Seth Boehler turns 52… EVP and general manager of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, Howie Roseman turns 50… President of D1 Capital Partners, he was deputy director of the White House National Economic Council in the Trump 45 administration, Jeremy Katz… Founder of Innovation Africa, Sivan Borowich-Ya’ari turns 47… Actress, singer and model, Marielle Jaffe turns 36… Operations manager at LimitlessCNC, Gila Bublick turns 36… Ethiopian-born Israeli model who won the title of Miss Israel in 2013, Yityish Aynaw turns 34… Senior director of major gifts at OneTable, Ely Benhamo… MBA candidate at Columbia Business School, Josh Lauder… T.C. Gross…
