Florida trims the fringe
Plus, Darline Graham says natsec 'not my thing'
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we break down the results of yesterday’s primaries in Florida, and talk to foreign policy officials wary of the Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy. We report on Sen. Darline Graham’s admission during last night’s South Carolina Senate debate that national security was “not my thing,” and cover a new report from the Anti-Defamation League and the Academic Engagement Network about anti-Israel activists’ efforts to exert control over higher education unions. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ehren Stenzler, Jeremy Moss and Yossi Cohen.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
We’re keeping an eye on the remaining races to be called in yesterday’s primaries in Florida and special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab maintains a 1,300-vote lead over Melissa Hernandez with 62% of precincts reporting.
A number of the Florida races were called shortly after polls closed, with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Randy Fine (R-FL) fending off challengers from the more extreme wings of their respective parties. More below.
One Thing To Know
Florida voters reject political extremes
Florida Democrats and Republicans fended off extreme challengers against pro-Israel incumbents in Tuesday night’s primaries, indicating that the state’s older, moderate and notably Jewish electorate was uniquely inhospitable towards the anti-Israel left and the antisemitic right.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) handily defeated socialist challenger Oliver Larkin by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (64-36%), while Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) easily prevailed in a newly drawn district against a crowded field of challengers. Elijah Manley — the candidate running against Wasserman Schultz on the Democratic Socialists of America, anti-Israel platform — lagged in third place, with just 13% of the vote.
On the Republican side, Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) dominated over a neo-Nazi podcaster who made hatred of Jews the central message of his campaign. Fine won renomination with 57% of the vote, while the antisemitic Dan Bilzerian tallied 17% of the GOP vote. And in the governor’s race, James Fishback, who used racist and antisemitic messages as part of his campaign, lagged well behind the Trump-endorsed winner, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), finishing in third place with just 10% of the vote.
The Big Reads
DISARMAMENT DOUBTS
Pro-Israel foreign policy officials wary of Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy
A diplomatic push by Jared Kushner to revive the stalled Gaza peace plan was met with widespread skepticism from Middle East analysts, who warned that the envoy’s timeline for Hamas disarmament is unrealistic, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. “What Hamas wants is what Hezbollah has had in Lebanon: someone else runs schools and collects garbage, while they remain in charge behind the scenes. In my view, Kushner’s meeting with Hamas was a terrible mistake that helps to legitimize them,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration.
game changer
Sen. Darline Graham, at debate: ‘National security is not my thing’
Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said at the final GOP primary debate on Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that she is “not that informed on national security,” Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Graham made the comments after being asked at Tuesday’s debate if she believed Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States. “My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the army. I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise,” Graham said.
campus beat
ADL-AEN report highlights unions being hijacked by anti-Israel activists
Dysfunctional union governance is leaving some Jewish faculty and graduate students marginalized and unrepresented by the labor organizations meant to advocate for them, a report released Wednesday by the Academic Engagement Network and the Anti-Defamation League documents. The report, “A Crisis of Representation: Antisemitism and Inclusion in Higher Education Unions,” highlights how activist factions have used low-turnout union elections to push anti-Israel positions without broad member buy-in — often at the expense of Jewish members who say they have faced targeted attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
The Rundown
sunshine state socialism
Florida Democrats nominate DSA candidate for Senate race
a whole new ballgame
Amar’e Stoudemire details journey to Israel and Judaism in Hall of Fame induction speech
investigating the investigators
Raskin claims administration’s campus antisemitism probes were ‘fake,’ schools were framed
wolverine warriors
Democrats can retake the Senate without winning Michigan, Schumer suggests
campaign controversy
Michigan Dem nominee Jeremy Moss denounces ‘disinformation’ peddling dual loyalty tropes
sephardi spotlight
Sephardic leaders argue their tradition serves as a model for the future of diaspora Jewry
mixed messages
U.S. accuses Israel of striking Syrian air base
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The State Department announced sanctions against Tomoko Akane, president of the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer at the court, as part of the Trump administration’s recently announced campaign to target the body; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two individuals “have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”…
The Department of Defense is demanding that 30 U.S. academic institutions, including Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Harvard, UCLA, USC, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins and NYU, conduct comprehensive reviews of their ties with “foreign entities of concern,” threatening future Pentagon funding for research projects…
A new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll found Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) with a 14-point lead over his primary opponent, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), among likely voters…
Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is facing misdemeanor charges tied to her participation in an anti-Israel protest at Washington University in St. Louis in April 2024, during which she allegedly assaulted a police officer…
LionTree co-founder Ehren Stenzler is joining Moelis as a managing director, alongside Jake Donavan, who served as LionTree’s president of Europe…
Lawyers for Los Angeles Lakers Governor Jeanie Buss are contesting efforts to sell the Buss family’s stake — approximately 17.8% — in the team to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger; Kushner and Iger are still proceeding with their purchase of Mark Walter’s majority stake in the team…
Senior German lawmakers are calling on the EU to sanction Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over his comments earlier this week that Israel should conduct “targeted killings” to “remove 30, 40 [people] every night” in Gaza…
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the country will expel two Iranian diplomats after members of the Islamic Republic’s security service interrogated and allegedly assaulted two French Embassy employees, including the cultural attaché, who were posted in Tehran…
The Israel Football Association withdrew its support for FIFA head Gianni Infantino in what IFA President Moshe Zuares, citing an “unprecedented crisis of confidence” in the FIFA chief, said was a unanimous vote; the move came after Infantino fired FIFA’s COO over his opposition to Infantino’s proposal to sell off portions of the World Cup…
Azerbaijan is suing CNN for defamation, accusing the network of endangering the country by falsely reporting that Baku had allowed Israel to operate from Azerbaijani territory as it mounted attacks against Iran during the war earlier this year…
The United Arab Emirates said it would be cutting off all trade and commercial ties with Iran due to “regional escalations that undermine regional and international peace and security,” after Tehran fired two ballistic missiles at the Gulf state on Tuesday…
Lebanon transferred an Assad-era Syrian military official to Damascus after he was questioned in Beirut earlier this month over crimes he allegedly committed in Syria in 2011; Maj. Gen. Adel Issa, who fled to Lebanon after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, is expected to face trial in Syria…
Former Mossad head Yossi Cohen, who joined SoftBank in 2021 as head of the company’s Israel operations, was appointed to the additional role of senior advisor to SoftBank founder, chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son…
Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and The Forward’s Talia Zax are joining The Atlantic as a staff writer and senior editor, respectively…
Israeli businessman and investor Shmuel Harlap, the former chairman of Israeli auto importer Colmobil, died at 82…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Damage Control: In The Times of Israel, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew considers how Jerusalem can strengthen its relations with Washington amid a generational shift in the U.S. that threatens to derail the decades-long ties between the countries. “As a powerful but small country, Israel’s security depends on continued strategic cooperation with the United States. After fall elections in both countries, it will be urgent for a new government in Israel to take quick action to begin repairing this vital relationship. … This requires difficult decisions, and at least some humility, not a trait typically rewarded in Israeli political life.” [TOI]
Vilified on the Vineyard: The Atlantic’s Marc Leibovich travels to Alan Dershowitz’s home in Martha’s Vineyard to see how the lawyer has adjusted to life in the enclave after his public fallout with Larry David and what he alleges is ostracization from local events over his politics. “The week before our conversation, he had returned to the hallowed cultural battleground of the Pierogi Wars, the West Tisbury farmers’ market. He was wearing his U.S.-Israel shirt (or ‘my Zionist T-shirt,’ of which he has two — one red, one blue) and saw a guy wearing a Free Palestine shirt. ‘I walked up to him. I said, “Can we take a picture together?”’ The man refused. ‘He said, “No, no, no Israel,” and he walked away.’” [TheAtlantic]
EEOC Woes: In The Wall Street Journal, Ken Marcus, the founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, argues in favor of a proposal to end a requirement for large employers to submit race, sex and ethnicity employment data to the federal government. “Many employers and institutions have leaned on demographic frameworks to drive diversity and inclusion programs, sorting employees into broad categories of advantage and disadvantage. Within this schema, Jewish Americans are often folded into racial categories that have little or nothing to do with Jewish identity, meaning they are excluded from conversations about workplace discrimination entirely, even as antisemitic harassment has surged.” [WSJ]
Picture of the Day
Tadesse Getahon, Haimro Alame and Gashau Ayale — members of the Israeli men’s marathon team — showed off their gold medals (with Ayale also holding his individual bronze medal), after arriving at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Lod following the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England.
Birthdays
Adam Arkin, actor and director, turns 70
Arthur Rock, one of the earliest Silicon Valley venture capital investors with positions in firms like Intel and Apple, turns 100
Gabriela Shalev, retired as president of Ono Academic College in Israel, she was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2008 to 2010, turns 85
Neal Slavin, photographer and director of television programs and movies
David Novak, professor emeritus of religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto, he is the author of over a dozen books, turns 85
Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, turns 80
Miriam Baum Benkoe, retired reading teacher for the NYC Department of Education, she co-founded the kosher pantry at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla.
Mark C. Rifkin, managing partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz
Marc J. Rowan, chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, he is the board chairman of the UJA-Federation of New York, turns 64
Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC in the Obama administration, he is now a senior advisor at the Carlyle Group, turns 64
Joseph Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times, turns 62
Dan Aloni, managing partner and talent agent at William Morris Endeavor, he is active in the contemporary art world as a collector, turns 62
Omri Sharon, former member of Knesset, he is the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, turns 62
Carolynn Wotman, executive administrator of Ventura, Calif., accounting firm, Morgan, Daggett & Wotman
Kyra Sedgwick, actor and producer, known for her role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama “The Closer,” turns 61
Melinda R. Katz, district attorney of Queens, turns 61
Ezra Friedlander, founder and CEO of NYC-based government advocacy firm The Friedlander Group
Eric Louis Zinterhofer, private equity financier and a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners, he is on the board of Estee Lauder, turns 55
Yehuda Neuberger, chair of the Orthodox Union and past chair of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore
Molly Jong-Fast, writer and MS NOW commentator, turns 48
Brett Icahn, businessman and investor, he and a partner successfully managed a hedge fund for his father, Carl Icahn, turns 47
Ross Hinkle, managing partner of Handmade Capital
Nufar Edelman, laser radial sailor, she represented Israel at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, turns 44
Aaron Yechiel Hirtz, founder and principal at Aron’s Kissena Farms and Cedar Market
Isaac Gortenburg, president at Kansas City-based Eighteen Capital Group
Steven Markowitz, rapper, singer and songwriter, known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, turns 38
Cassandra Federbusz, digital marketing and PR consultant, she is a team manager at HubSpot
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