Senate Republicans maintained the position on Monday that Iran should never be allowed to possess nuclear enrichment capacity, following reports that the administration had proposed a 20-year pause in enrichment — rather than a permanent end to Iran’s enrichment capacity — as part of peace talks in Islamabad over the weekend.

Last year, during diplomatic talks with the regime prior to the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear program, all but one Senate Republican signed a letter arguing that Iran should never have enrichment capacity, a position echoed by a vast majority of House Republicans. The New York Times reported Monday that Iran agreed to halt enrichment for just five years.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been a vocal proponent of the war in Iran but has also defended the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts, said on X that a 20-year pause to Iranian enrichment would not be sufficient.

“If this reporting is accurate, the idea that we would agree to a moratorium on enrichment rather than a ban on enrichment would be a mistake in my view,” Graham said on X. “Would we agree to a moratorium for al Qaeda to enrich? No. The only difference between al Qaeda and the Iranian regime is that one is a Sunni terrorist organization and the other is a Shia terrorist state.”

He said that Iran cannot be trusted and that the U.S. must hold firm to a standard of zero enrichment.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a co-lead of the letter last year, told Jewish Insider that he hadn’t seen the reports about the administration’s negotiating position and declined to comment on it specifically, but said more broadly that he does not believe that Iran has any legitimate need for enrichment.

“There’s no civilian reason for Iran to have an enrichment program,” Ricketts said. “They’re getting their uranium right now for their civilian program from Russia, and the fact that they have admitted they’ve enriched uranium to near bomb-grade potential demonstrates that this is for nuclear weapon production, not civilian use.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that Iran can’t be trusted to “stick with anything they agree to, so you have to understand that going into it.”

“But I agree with the president: no enrichment, no nuclear weapons and open up the Strait of Hormuz.”

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) said that “the preference is no enrichment.”

“Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Bottom line, end of story,” Budd said. “The 20-year pause — is that a strategic component to a greater negotiation? I can understand that. … Do they have civilian nuclear power as part of that? Can they be trusted with this current regime? I don’t think so. But again, I’m going to give a lot of leeway to the administration who wants to end nuclear capability for Iran.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) also said he has not seen the reports, but that “it should be a forever” prohibition on Iranian nuclear enrichment.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Republicans are set to discuss on Tuesday the best way to approve a supplemental funding request for the war and the proper size of the supplemental package.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told reporters that he thinks the Iran war funding should be folded into the upcoming reconciliation package — focused on immigration and border security matters — while others maintain it should be a stand-alone bill. Including the Iran funding could make passing the reconciliation package in the House more difficult.

Wicker said, “it’s a matter of vote-counting, largely.”

There are also some apparent disagreements between Republicans about what should happen if the war extends past the 60-day timeline for unilateral executive military action laid out in the War Powers Act.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that the War Powers Act deadline may be unconstitutional or unenforceable, but said “there’s nobody walking around here in the Senate going, ‘How many days do we have left?’ Nobody’s paying attention.”

But Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told reporters, “I’m sure we’ll have some sort of a vote or a statement at that [60-day] point.” 

Other Republican senators are taking a firmer stance, rejecting any war operations beyond 60 days without congressional approval.

“Here in America, constitutional limits are in place to temper the president from unilateral authority. I support the president’s actions taken in defense of American lives and interests,” Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said in a recent op-ed. “However, I will not support ongoing military action beyond a 60-day window without congressional approval.”

And Curtis said he would not support any supplemental funding for the war without congressional authorization.

Prominent Jewish figures and senior Trump administration officials gathered at the White House on Monday afternoon for an event hosted by President Donald Trump commemorating the Passover holiday.

Administration officials in attendance at the event, which was closed to the press and took place in the Indian Treaty Room, included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick; White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf; James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs; Jacob Reses, chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin; Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison; and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Marks delivered comments to the crowd remarking on the holiday and the Trump administration’s record of support for Israel, according to an attendee. 

Others spotted at the event were Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association; Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jeff Miller, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; Jonathan Burkan, United States Holocaust Memorial Council member; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); Paul Packer, the former chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, member of the Religious Liberty Commission and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jerry Wartski, a Holocaust survivor, and freed Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander were also in attendance. 

Prior to the official reception, Trump invited about 20 guests to join him in the Oval Office. During the brief gathering, the president called Jared Kushner, an informal advisor to the White House and his son-in-law, and his daughter Ivanka. Kushner, who is Jewish, and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism, spoke to attendees over speakerphone, one guest told Jewish Insider. 

Thursday brought a series of new signals that at least a small number of ideologically varied Republican lawmakers are growing frustrated with the war in Iran and with the administration’s frequently shifting rhetoric about it — including from some otherwise-hawkish lawmakers.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who previously called for an end to the war, told Bloomberg on Thursday that she’s working on a potential authorization for use of military force in Iran, to limit the scope of the U.S. operation and prevent the deployment of ground troops.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Murkowski told the outlet. “I’m worried we get out of town and the president goes in with ground troops aiming for a full takeover.” The Senate is scheduled to be in recess for the next two weeks.

After Murkowski’s comments, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump was considering deploying an additional 10,000 troops to the Middle East.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who has generally been supportive of the war effort, told NOTUS on Thursday after a House Armed Services Committee briefing the day prior that he was unclear on the U.S.’ plans and goals in the war.

“I don’t know the plan,” Bacon said. “What is the end-state goal? What is the mission? I think clarity there would be helpful.”

Rep. Rob Wittmann (R-VA) also told the outlet that he’s seeking “more granularity, more specificity on what specifically is happening on the ground, and then how is that leading to achieving the military objectives.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the Armed Services Committee chairman, emerged from the briefing Wednesday frustrated with what he said was a lack of information from the administration, warning officials that their reticence could have “consequences.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who’s been more critical of the war in general, indicated to Axios she’s now inclined to vote for an upcoming war powers resolution to end the war, bringing it closer to the threshold for passage. She added, “War with Iran needs to end. President Trump has won the war, time to exit.”

House Democrats were initially expected to call a vote on that legislation this week, but have delayed their plans until after the congressional recess, saying they still don’t think they have the votes to pass it.

Regardless of whether the resolution passes the House, it remains unlikely to pass the Senate and could be vetoed by Trump. But passage of the resolution in the closely divided House would be a rebuke of Trump and his strategy.

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee told reporters on Wednesday, after a classified briefing, that the administration isn’t giving committee members enough information about its plans in Iran.

The comments by a senior, generally hawkish Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), are a sign of cracks between congressional Republicans and the administration — who have largely remained in lockstep through the first month of the war — over the strategy in Iran.

“We want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,” Rogers said, according to Politico. “And we’re just not getting enough answers on those questions.”

He said he’d told briefers that “this has consequences if you don’t remedy it” and told administration officials that they should be “thoughtful and deliberate” about the use of ground forces.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters, “I can see why he might have said that” but demurred when asked again about Rogers’ comments later in the afternoon, saying he hadn’t seen the context in which Rogers made the remarks and adding later that he wanted to talk to Rogers before commenting further.

Another House Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has some isolationist leanings and is prone to breaks with her party, was even more critical of the administration and suggested that the U.S. was moving toward putting troops on the ground.

“The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee,” Mace said on X. “This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.”

She also shared multiple posts expressing her opposition to ground forces in Iran.

“Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing,” Mace said. She added, “Washington’s war machine is hard at work. They are try[ing] to drag us into Iran to make it another Iraq. We can’t let them.”

Other Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who participated in a separate Wednesday briefing, said they didn’t share Rogers’ concerns.

“I sit on Intel and I sit on Armed Services, so I get the classifieds on both — I think they’ve given us accurate information,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Jewish Insider. “And we always want more — so I understand the desire to get more information — but I’m not going to fault them for being careful on the information they give us because it’s a very fluid situation.”

“I’m satisfied,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) said of the briefing on Wednesday.

Multiple Senate Republicans said Tuesday that they haven’t heard from the administration specific plans for restoring free trade through the Strait of Hormuz, though most emphasized that doing so is a critical goal.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said that the Pentagon has been planning for this contingency for years.

“I can just tell you, the Pentagon has, for years, been playing out their plans,” Rounds told Jewish Insider. “The question is which plan is next, and that’s based on conditions — the same thing with Kharg Island,” he said, referring to potential U.S. military operations against the Iranian regime’s primary petroleum export hub. “I’m sure that when the time comes, we’ll all know.”

Rounds said he’s confident the administration has “multiple plans” for Kharg Island as well. The administration has reportedly been considering invading or blockading the island to force the regime to lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump previously threatened to destroy the energy facilities on Kharg Island if the blockade continues.

The Strait of Hormuz “has to” be reopened, “but no, I have not heard from them on the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ — how they’re trying to be able to accomplish that,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said. “This has been Iran’s trick for decades, right? When they get mad, they close the Strait of Hormuz. They just hang that over everybody’s head all the time.”

He suggested that any solution to the current blockade should also aim to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

“[However] this is resolved, you can’t have a future of terrorism in the region,” Lankford said. “You can’t have this constant on-and-off of the Strait of Hormuz, and you can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said of the U.S. military, “they’re certainly sending a lot of assets there to do that, so I hope they’re successful.”

Cornyn also characterized the waiver of some U.S. sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil as “temporary disruptions,” which he hopes will be restored once the strait is reopened. 

One Republican senator, however, argued that the onus is not on the United States to reopen the strait, despite the closure’s impact on global oil prices.

“The way I look at it, the countries that need to get it open — they’re the ones who should do it,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said. “We’re energy independent. So the countries that need [to get] product out of there — they ought to figure out how to get it open. I don’t think it’s our responsibility.” Trump has made similar comments about leaving responsibility over the strait to countries that utilize it most, which are primarily Gulf states.

Lankford and Cornyn both said they disagreed with the idea that the U.S. should leave others to handle obstacles to commerce in the strait.

Lankford said he has a “very different view” on the issue, emphasizing that there are hundreds of thousands of Americans living and working in the region.

“America stands with Americans, wherever they stand, so we’ve got to be able to fix that,” Lankford said. “Iran, for 47 years, has performed acts of terrorism on Americans that live in the area. They’ve got to stop that. And the Strait of Hormuz — they can constantly adjust oil prices … based on them opening and closing it. You can’t do that. We don’t let Somali pirates take our ships, we don’t let the Houthis stop international traffic and we don’t let the Iranians shut off the Strait of Hormuz.”

Cornyn highlighted the global economic impacts of the strait’s closure.

“It impacts, obviously, worldwide commodity prices, but it affects our country as well, given the impact on the gas prices,” Cornyn said.

Democrats, meanwhile, have accused the administration of failing to properly plan for the likelihood that Iran would close the strait in advance of the war.

“We’ve known for 80 years that that was a vulnerability to the entire [world],” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said. “Did you think about it? Did you not think about it? If you thought about it, did you just assume Iran wouldn’t do it? I mean, it’s amateur hour.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) on Tuesday urged the administration to work to free one of his constituents, Kamran Hekmati, from prison in Iran. Hekmati, who is Jewish and a U.S. citizen, has been held by the regime for nearly a year for visiting Israel for his son’s bar mitzvah more than a dozen years ago.

This week, the administration formally designated Hekmati as “wrongfully detained,” following an appeal from Suozzi and other lawmakers, a move the congressman praised.

“This is a positive step forward in what has been a very painful case,” Suozzi told Jewish Insider. “It’s really important that we keep on pushing that in any negotiations the administration has with Iran, that Mr. Hekmati be part of those negotiations.”

Suozzi said that being caught in the middle of the war “must be terrifying for him and for his family,” and that he’s concerned the Iranian regime may seek to use Hekmati as a “negotiating chip” in the ongoing conflict.

“We have to recognize that this is a very serious issue that he’s being punished for being an American and for being a Jewish American,” Suozzi said. “We just need more Americans to know that this is going on.”

He said that the administration’s designation of Hekmati as wrongfully detained is an “important step forward,” adding that he hoped it would deliver “a very clear message” that Hekmati’s freedom must be a U.S. priority.

On the conflict in Iran more broadly, Suozzi is walking a delicate line as one of the most moderate and hawkish Democrats in the House. He voted for a war powers resolution earlier this month that would have cut short U.S. operations in Iran. 

He said he has long felt that Iran is a bad actor and must be stopped. But he said that the briefing he received from the administration prior to the vote gave him pause.

“I was like, ‘OK, what’s the plan? What’s phase two?’ And then the whole thing with the Strait of Hormuz — it seems like it’s a pretty obvious issue,” Souzzi said, referring to the critical waterway that has been largely impassable and greatly impacted global oil shipping. “If you were thinking of this in any detail you would have known that this was going to be a major issue, and there’s a reason that we haven’t attacked for 47 years.”

“I’m emotionally very invested in the idea of stopping the bad guys in Iran, I want the administration to work with Congress to give us a plan,” Suozzi continued.

Despite his vote for the war powers resolution, Suozzi said that an immediate withdrawal would leave “everybody vulnerable and exposed.”

“We obviously can’t do that. … There has to be a plan, with the help of all the great minds that do exist, not only in the administration, but in the Congress and the larger community,” Suozzi said. “That’s why we have debate. That’s why we have democracy. That’s why we have the system we have.”

Suozzi is a sponsor of an alternative war powers resolution likely to come up for a vote this month that would set a 30-day time limit on the war, with the goal of providing sufficient time to responsibly and carefully wind down U.S. operations against Iran.

The Long Island congressman also said that “one of the most frustrating things” about the current U.S. effort is the lack of involvement from Gulf and European allies. arguing that the administration should have done outreach to those partners before attacking to bring them into the campaign.

Dan Caldwell, a vocal GOP critic of the administration’s Middle East strategy who hails from the isolationist wing of the party, has been hired for a job at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Caldwell, once a top advisor and ally to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, was dismissed last spring, accused of leaking to the press, and publicly criticized by Hegseth. Caldwell blamed his firing on opposition from the “foreign policy establishment.”

“In his new position, Mr. Caldwell will serve as an adviser to senior intelligence officials who are responsible for coordinating the work of 18 federal intelligence agencies and drafting the president’s daily intelligence briefing,” The New York Times reported.

A spokesperson for the ODNI said in a statement, “Any individual who is hired by ODNI goes through an extensive background review, including record checks and personal interviews, with a trained official to ensure the individual is trustworthy and does not pose a threat to national security.”  

An administration official said that there “was no evidence released to suggest Mr. Caldwell had, in fact, leaked information from the Pentagon. The matter was investigated, and he was cleared” and that he has not yet started in his role but that it “would be an administrative role.”

Caldwell joins the administration amid ongoing operations in the Middle East — after having adamantly opposed the more limited U.S. strikes on Iran last June, maintaining his view that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon should not be a top U.S. priority.

The isolationist wing of the party has established an apparent power base inside ODNI under officials including Gabbard, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent and Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration Will Ruger, who like Caldwell worked for the isolationist Koch-backed Defense Priorities think tank before joining the Trump administration.

Prior to Ruger, Gabbard sought to hire Daniel Davis — also a Defense Priorities affiliate and a strident critic of Israel and opponent of U.S. action against Iran — for the role but reversed course amid public scrutiny.

Donald Trump Jr. praised Caldwell on Monday as a “true loyalist to my father and the entire MAGA movement” and an “America First Patriot.”

One former administration official told JI they see the hire as part of an ongoing effort by Ruger to “undermine the president on Iran,” “bring down” the U.S. operations against the Islamic Republic and attack CIA Director John Ratcliffe. “The sooner the president gets rid of Gabbard the better. He needs someone loyal at DNI, not leakers with political agendas,” the former official said.

Right-wing commentator Laura Loomer also lamented Calwell’s rehiring, alleging that Caldwell threatened to kill Hegseth when he was fired and that “to be hired to work at ODNI, you have to be an anti-Semite, a Trump hater, a Never Trump, funded by Koch, or a Democrat,” adding, “Their whole purpose is to undermine Trump and amplify the Tucker Carlson shadow government network.”

Caldwell’s first stop after his firing last April was an interview with Tucker Carlson, on whose show he has made subsequent appearances. He said in his initial appearance on the program that his dismissal was instigated by individuals who objected to his restrained approach to foreign policy matters. 

“I have some views about the role of America in the world [that], as we’ve discussed, are a little controversial. All of us in our own ways threatened really established interests,” Caldwell told Carlson in April of himself and the other accused Pentagon leakers. “We threatened a lot of established interests inside the building and outside the building, and we had people who had personal vendettas against us.” 

In between his two roles in the second Trump administration, Caldwell served as a senior fellow for foreign policy at American Moment, an organization aimed at staffing Republican political offices with young conservatives that advocates for a restrained foreign policy. He was also a frequent online commentator on Middle East policy issues.

Ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, Caldwell argued adamantly against them, warning that they would turn into an extended nation-building effort and accusing Israel of trying to drag the U.S. into a war and undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts. He also dismissed a report suggesting that Iran had resumed its nuclear weapons program.

“The costs of a conventional strike against Iran’s nuclear program are potentially catastrophic in lives, dollars, and instability,” he said. “Yet, the long-term impact on the effectiveness of Iran’s nuclear program is likely to be limited.”

Throughout the war, he repeatedly warned that the U.S. and Israel lacked the air defense stockpiles to defend against sustained and ongoing Iranian attacks.

When the U.S. attacked Iran, Caldwell co-wrote an op-ed lamenting the U.S. decision and stating that the “move carries immense risks, potentially plunging the United States into yet another costly, dangerous quagmire in a region that is less important to Washington than foreign-policy elites would have you believe.”

The op-ed continued, “If Trump’s military operation isn’t tightly defined or properly managed, or if actors in the US government or outside of it are allowed to willfully expand the scope of the operation, the second outcome is the most likely — and the most disastrous,” referring to an extended war aimed at regime change.

After the strikes he said, in a co-written report, that no military approach other than a full occupation of Iran would permanently stop its progress toward a nuclear weapon and that U.S. strikes “may set the program back without destroying it, allowing Iran to reconstitute and even speed up its program over time.”

In the wake of the operation, Caldwell argued in a co-written analysis piece that the U.S. force posture in the region is “more of a burden than a benefit” and that around two-thirds of U.S. forces deployed to the Middle East as of July 2025 be withdrawn. 

He said that there is no “existential military threat to the U.S. homeland” in the Middle East, therefore additional assets deployed after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks should be removed, U.S, air defenses should be pulled back, carrier strike groups should be removed from the region and all U.S. forces should be removed from Iraq, Syria, Kuwait and Qatar, as well as some of the U.S. forces in Jordan.

“While a nuclear-armed Iran is not ideal, it does not pose an existential threat to the United States, as Tehran has no delivery vehicles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland,” Caldwell wrote. “Israel might view the threat posed by a nuclear Iran differently, but the interests of a U.S. partner — one that itself has nuclear weapons and receives significant U.S. military aid — should not solely drive the U.S. posture in the region.”

He additionally claimed that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East has no impact on the Iranian regime’s calculations “when it comes to the country’s nuclear program or its wider regional military strategy.”

And he said that the U.S.’s military presence “encourages risk taking by Israel” and that Israel might not have launched strikes on Iran last year if not for the U.S. presence.

Caldwell argued last November that conservatives shouldn’t rule out opposing U.S. aid to Israel.

He also dismissed the “freak out” among conservatives about a reported plan to establish a Qatari air force training facility in the United States.

And he warned that ongoing U.S. strikes against the Houthis could have dragged the U.S. into “another forever war in the Middle East.”

The conservative Caldwell additionally defended progressive Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner when Platner first disclosed that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, claiming that Nazi tattoos were “fairly common” in the Marines during the war on terror.

Both of Missouri’s Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, argued that the administration seems to have largely achieved its key objectives for the war in Iran — a posture that distinguishes him from most GOP colleagues and highlights subtle but emerging divisions among Republicans on the proper scope and duration of the war.

Pointing to comments by President Donald Trump saying that the war was substantially complete and that the U.S. had achieved its objectives, Hawley said on Fox News earlier this week, “I agree with what the president said last night. You look at all the success that we’ve had in the last 10 days. I mean, this thing is a victory. I think we should be hailing our military. We ought to be saying we’ve achieved our objectives here. … If this isn’t success, I don’t know what would be. … Now it’s time to declare victory.”

He also posited that Iran has nothing remaining with which to reconstitute its nuclear program — though the regime maintains a stockpile of enriched nuclear material which many experts argue cannot be fully secured without some form of on-the-ground presence.

Continuing a trend of making contradictory comments on the war’s timeline, Trump had said the same day that the U.S. could and would go much further in Iran, and that the U.S.’ aims could expand significantly.

Asked by Jewish Insider on Thursday about the metrics by which he was judging the success of the war, Hawley — who is one of the more prominent senators from the populist wing of the GOP — said he was referring to Trump’s own comments on the subject.

“I assume our overriding national security objective when it comes to Iran is to prevent them from getting nukes. And between our bombing last June and in the last … 12 days, I don’t know how they’re going to reconstitute their nuclear program anytime in, maybe, our lifetimes,” Hawley said.

“Our military has done an amazing job. I think it’s been an overwhelming display of force,” Hawley continued. “I know my Democrat colleagues, a bunch of them are saying, ‘This has accomplished nothing, nothing’s happened.’ It seems to me a lot has happened. And I think we should say that’s a good thing.”

Pressed on whether the war can be ended while Iran continues to fire missiles and drones at countries throughout the Middle East and is dropping mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Hawley said he would defer to Trump’s judgement on when to end the war.

“My point is just that I think the military has achieved a tremendous amount. It has ended [Iran’s] nuclear program for all intents and purposes. It has destroyed their navy. It has eliminated most of their ballistic missiles — those are good things,” he continued. “I’d be glad to take that [win].”

“Seems pretty good to me,” Hawley added.

Schmitt, who is also aligned with the populist wing of the party, likewise emphasized the progress the U.S. has made and pushed for a quick conclusion to the war.

“I know they’re way ahead of schedule. I’d look for a swift end to it,” Schmitt told JI. “I’m not interested in forever war in the Middle East, I don’t think the president is either. And I think that, again, they’ve laid out clear objectives and [are] making a lot of progress.”

Other Republicans are taking a distinctly different approach. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told reporters on Thursday that “victory isn’t determined by declaration, it’s determined by the outcome.” He argued that the U.S. can’t and shouldn’t end the war prematurely.

“If you pull 90% of the weeds of our garden and you leave 10%, you’re going to have a weedy garden,” Cramer continued. “The last 10% are the hardest, in many cases.”

The North Dakota senator, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed surprise that the U.S. had not been better prepared to secure the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a potential “miscalculation” and saying that the attacks on ships in the critical waterway “could have been avoided.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the most vocal supporters of the Iran war on Capitol Hill, said that he thinks there are “weeks more of this coming.”

“I don’t see this conflict ending today. I think the mission is to make sure they cannot regenerate, that they’re going to be beyond capable of building missiles to hit us, and they’ll never go back to the nuclear business,” Graham continued.

Also on Thursday, in a rare Senate floor speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), emphasized that the war against Iran cannot be decoupled from the global axis, including Russia and China, with which Iran is aligned. 

Russia, McConnell emphasized, has reportedly been providing Iran with targeting intelligence. He criticized Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who said earlier this week that he takes Russia at its word that it has not been doing that. 

“I’ve warned successive presidents to take the Russian-Iranian axis, actually, more seriously,” McConnell said. He emphasized the supportive role that Ukraine has taken in helping to protect the U.S.’ allies in the Gulf, and criticized administration officials for not moving more quickly in pre-war discussions to acquire Ukrainian anti-drone technology.

He also urged lawmakers who oppose the war to nonetheless support an expected request for supplemental military funding as “an overdue opportunity to invest in urgent and strategic defense priorities.”

A group of six moderate House Democrats introduced an alternative war powers resolution on Iran, which — rather than demanding an immediate end to the ongoing U.S. operation — would give the administration 30 days in which to either end the campaign or come to Congress to seek approval for continued strikes.

The resolution is sponsored by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Jared Golden (D-ME) and Jim Costa (D-CA). It signals concern from the group of hawkish pro-Israel House Democrats about the efforts by their colleagues to demand an immediate end to operations in Iran, though at least some of the sponsors of the resolution still plan to vote for the existing war powers resolution this week as well.

“Iran is actively firing drones and ballistic missiles at U.S. troops, our embassies, allies, and is targeting civilians across the region,” Gottheimer said on X on Tuesday. “This new Democratic War Powers Resolution will uphold Congress’s constitutional authority — while also ensuring the U.S. can defend our troops, embassies, and allies from Iranian aggression.”

Landsman said that the resolution “allows for the short-term, targeted strikes on the regime’s missiles and bombs, requires Trump to come to Congress for a vote, and specifies ‘no ground troops.’ Destroy the [regime’s] ability to destroy more lives or cause any more mayhem or violence. Nothing more.”

In a press release, Gottheimer’s office pointed to concerns that the resolution led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), which is set to receive a House vote this week, would pull out U.S. forces even as Iran is targeting U.S. troops, assets, facilities and allies. “It is vital that we allow for a safe transition, that protects our service members, embassies, and allies, not a potentially precarious withdrawal,” the statement reads.

Lawmakers supporting the war powers resolutions in both chambers have largely not articulated what an immediate end to the war would entail or the potential consequences of abruptly pulling out U.S. forces.

The new resolution includes specific language forbidding the administration from deploying ground troops into Iran “in a combat role, including for regime change, or for occupation unless explicitly authorized by Congress,” but includes an exception for search and rescue and intelligence operations.

Gottheimer’s press release argues that an “open-ended commitment” and a potential commitment of ground troops would both be “unacceptable,” while also warning that “it is equally unwise to act in a precipitous way and endanger America’s security and put our service members in additional harm’s way.”

The Gottheimer-led resolution also contains language that would allow the U.S. to continue to defend its facilities, personnel and allies from “imminent attack;” keep forces in the region “for defensive purposes” and who are engaged in other missions and continue sharing intelligence with partners.

The war powers resolution that is set to receive a House vote later this week does not include similar language to specifically allow for continued intelligence sharing and defensive operations protecting allies, which could raise concerns for pro-Israel Democrats.

The Senate version of the resolution does include such protections.

While Gottheimer and Landsman have said they oppose the Massie-Khanna resolution, Panetta said on Tuesday that he would support it, despite also backing the Gottheimer resolution.

“The President has not abided by our Constitution when it comes to invading foreign sovereign states,” Panetta said in a statement. “That is why Congress must fulfill our obligations under the constitution by supporting this week’s bipartisan War Powers Resolution.”

Asked about the Gottheimer resolution, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, emphasized that the Massie-Khanna legislation will be coming to the floor on Wednesday. “That’s the one we have. This is continuing right now. We need to vote on this resolution tomorrow. I’m not considering any other [resolution].”

Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency under the Obama administration, told JI that the Khanna-Massie resolution is reckless.

“We have U.S. servicemembers in harm’s way. Some are flying combat sorties as we speak. We can’t call them in the cockpit and say ‘Congress has prohibited you from completing this mission. Please turn around and stop what you’re doing.’ If that sounds a little strange, it is because the Ro Khanna resolution requires that very strange outcome,” Bash said. “An immediate withdrawal is dangerous for our troops. Any pullback needs to be orderly and safe. We need to give the combatant commander at least a few weeks to do this safely.”

He said that Congress can and should be involved in debating the war and providing oversight, but “for a war powers resolution to be credible, it has to build in several days for the commanders to act responsibly to protect their troops. This cannot be done immediately.”

Bash called Gottheimer’s resolution a “very sensible alternative that will protect our troops.”

Daniel Silverberg, a former advisor to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), emphasized that a similar effort to cut off the U.S.’ Libya operations led by “one of the most ardent anti-war activists in the House,” then-Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), included a 15-day wind-down provision. 

“The Massie-Khanna resolution lacks it. The notion that Democrats would not, at a minimum, support that amendment to allow for a responsible withdrawal of forces is problematic from a national security perspective and from a messaging perspective,” Silverberg said.

Amb. Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and senior State and Defense Department official, said that the resolution could serve as a “fallback” if the Massie-Khanna resolution fails, one which might have a chance of attracting GOP support.

“The 30 day clock … arguably addresses a concern that some members might have about troops who are actively engaged and in the field, and would need some window of time … to wind down and safely conclude operations,” Shapiro said.

The NYPD — part of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration — declared before the City Council on Wednesday that it has “no objections” to Council Speaker Julie Menin’s proposal compelling the department to develop a policy for establishing “buffer zones” outside houses of worship during protests.

The legislation formed the core of a suite of antisemitism-battling legislation that Menin, the body’s first Jewish speaker, rolled out in January. The bill, which obligates the NYPD to codify protocol for ensuring worshippers can enter and exit religious facilities without obstruction or harassment, initially contained language that would set the range of police barricades or tape at “up to 100 feet.”

However, an updated iteration of the legislation released Monday night eliminated any specific reference to distance, in response to objections that such language could actually constrict the NYPD’s range of protective activity. As a result, the department announced before a hearing of the Council’s Committee to Combat Hate that it has no issues with the bill, following the mayor’s previous allusions to unspecified concerns he and his NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch had with the proposal.

“We greatly appreciate that dialogue and collaboration,” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Legal Affairs Michael Gerber, who explicitly stated he was providing the opinion of Tisch. “The result is a bill that is consistent with the NYPD’s ability to protect people entering and leaving places of worship, as well as our commitment to facilitating First Amendment activity.”

The Menin bill is distinct from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for 25-foot buffer zones around houses of worship, which would subject violators to criminal penalties. Despite the controversy over the Council proposal, which inspired dueling rallies in opposition and support prior to the hearing, Gerber noted that the law would not impose new policies upon the NYPD but simply require Tisch to formalize and publish their procedures.

“To be clear, the policy will not alter our practices but rather will articulate and describe what we are already doing,” Gerber said. “I think the bill fosters transparency.”

A corollary piece of City Council legislation, introduced by Councilmember Eric Dinowitz — chair of the body’s Jewish Caucus — would apply the same standards to educational facilities. Gerber said his department could not offer the same carte blanche support for this proposal, because it would set uniform standards for police conduct on both public and private property. 

Menin pressed Gerber regarding the NYPD’s failure to set up a clear path of access and egress to Park East Synagogue in Manhattan amid an anti-Israel protest in November spearheaded by openly pro-Hamas activists. Gerber reiterated a statement of regret that Tisch, a scion of one of the city’s most prominent Jewish families, also made at the time.

“We got that one wrong,” said Gerber. “We didn’t have the appropriate frozen zone at the entrance, and that led to a situation that should not have happened.”

But the deputy commissioner stressed that the NYPD must guarantee the right of protesters to demonstrate in sight and earshot of their targets, even if their message is hateful and even if the targets are entering or exiting a house of worship.

“The NYPD must protect the First Amendment rights of protesters,” said Gerber. “If individuals choose to protest against those entering a place of worship, the NYPD will ensure that they have sight and sound to the entrance of that location, consistent with the First Amendment. At the same time, the protesters will not be permitted to obstruct, impede or interfere.”

Several left-wing members of the Council pressed Gerber for statistics and responses to hypothetical scenarios, and to make a straightforward declaration of support or opposition to the measure.

Other council members shared their view that the bill does not go far enough. “My concern is that we’re putting forward a symbolic bill that doesn’t really address the real concerns and fears that are being expressed today,” said Councilmember Sandy Nurse.

Menin’s proposal now has 27 co-sponsors, two more than the needed majority of the Council’s 51 members — though seven short of the number required to override a mayoral veto. Mamdani has so far declined to say whether he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Several senators said on Friday that the administration’s unilateral offer of defense guarantees to Qatar — similar to those the U.S. has made to protect its NATO allies — deserves scrutiny from Congress.

The administration on Monday quietly issued an executive order stating that the U.S. would offer defensive guarantees to Qatar, “shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States” and “shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), a top Republican voice in favor of reclaiming congressional war powers, said that the deal “certainly strikes me as unconventional and the sort of thing that the Foreign Relations Committee might want to hold a hearing on.”

“In the end, it’s the chairman’s prerogative, but it does strike me as worthy of attention and explication in a public setting,” Young said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), another leading advocate on war powers issues and in opposition to the administration’s acceptance of a Qatari luxury jet for use as Air Force One, said that the move will carry the perception of corruption.

“I’m very troubled by it,” Kaine said. “It just looks like it was a trade for the jet. Maybe it’s not that, but that’s the way it looks. And why would you pollute something that maybe has a good rationale — but now it’s polluted with the way everybody looks at it.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a leading Republican critic of U.S. support for Qatar, said that he planned to speak to the president about the order. “I haven’t talked to him [the president] about it. I don’t understand why. He hasn’t explained it to me, but I’ll ask him about it,” Scott told Jewish Insider.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that the deal “will have to be reviewed carefully, depending on whether it serves our security interests and Israel’s.”

Multiple Republican senators emphasized that the deal does not carry the force of congressional ratification as a treaty.

“I don’t think you can do that by executive order,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said.

Asked about Congress granting Qatar those protections, Graham replied: “I don’t like its chances [of getting through Congress]. I appreciate trying to stand up for Qatar because they’re helpful, but they also have another side of the story. You can’t confer Article 5 protections by executive order, and I don’t think there’d be any appetite at all to do that through a treaty.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) framed the deal as part of Trump’s pressure campaign on Hamas to agree to his framework for peace in Gaza.

“The president is always thinking about negotiations, and certainly the president can have his policy,” Ricketts said. “However, it is not something that is a treaty, so it’s really, I think, meant as a negotiating thing to help get Qatar to get Hamas to surrender.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he hadn’t reviewed the details of the agreement yet, but noted that any long-term foreign agreement would require congressional ratification to remain in effect.

“If we’re going to a national security agreement long term, that’s going to be lasting,” Congress should be consulted, Lankford said. “Things only last if they have the imprimatur of Congress actually put on it — whether it’s a trade agreement or a defense agreement. It’s got to be statute.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI he had “not heard anything about” the deal before noting, “It’s always up to the president to decide what he would like to suggest that he would like to do. Article 5 is part of a treaty right now, and if it is a treaty-type of an agreement, it would have to come before the Senate.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) defended the president’s support for Qatar, telling JI, “Qatar is an important piece of the pie, a piece of the puzzle in the Middle East. We have to recognize that. We don’t always agree with everything they do, but we don’t agree with everything Israel does and we don’t agree with everything Jordan does, but they’re still close friends of ours. We know they want to be close to us and we want to, we can still use them as a strategic ally.”

A bipartisan group of House members urged the administration to “be very careful” in negotiations with Turkey about its potential re-entry into a program allowing it to acquire and potentially co-produce F-35 fighter jets, ahead of a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday.

Trump said Friday that he would host Erdogan at the White House for trade and military talks, “including the large-scale purchase of Boeing aircraft, a major F-16 Deal, and a continuation of the F-35 talks, which we expect to conclude positively.” 

Lawmakers have been pressing for months for the administration to be cautious in allowing Turkey to acquire the advanced fighter jets, something it has been banned by law from doing since it purchased a Russian S-400 missile defense system. By law, Turkey must dispense with that system before it can be re-admitted into the F-35 program, but some lawmakers have pushed for additional conditions, given various conflicts with Turkey, including its hostile posture toward Israel.

“The United States must be very careful when engaging in negotiations particularly as it relates to discussions surrounding Turkey’s potential reentry into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Turkey was rightfully removed from the program in 2019 following its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system—a clear violation of U.S. law under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA),” Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chris Pappas (D-NH), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) and Dina Titus (D-NV), who chair the Congressional Hellenic Caucus, said in a joint statement on Monday.

They emphasized that the Turkish-Russian cooperation, in spite of Turkey’s NATO status, “directly undermines the security of U.S. defense technology and poses a threat to the strategic integrity of allied defense cooperation,” as well as “risks exposing sensitive U.S. military capabilities to Russian intelligence, eroding allied trust, and jeopardizing the development of next-generation military platforms.”

In addition to the formal legal obstacles that should ban F-35 acquisition under current conditions, the four lawmakers added that Erdogan has “consistently demonstrated a disregard for international norms and democratic principles.”

They said that upholding the sanctions law is critical both to protect U.S. defense technology as well as to demonstrate the U.S.’s commitment to the rule of law.

“Rewarding Erdogan’s government without meaningful changes in behavior would set a dangerous precedent and weaken the credibility of U.S. foreign policy,” the lawmakers wrote. “The United States must stand firm in defending its laws, its alliances, and the international order.”

Two Senate Republicans are urging the administration against lifting any sanctions on Iran in absence of real concessions from the regime, following comments from Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff indicating the U.S. had already rolled back some sanctions.

Witkoff, speaking on CNBC on Wednesday, appeared to confirm that President Donald Trump had lifted some oil sanctions on Iran this week, as a signal of cooperation to China and Iran. Trump also said at the NATO summit that Iran would “need money to put that country back into shape. We want to see that happen,” adding, “If they’re going to sell oil, they’re going to sell oil.”

The comments came after Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this week, “China can continue to purchase Oil from Iran” — comments that a senior White House official said did not indicate any policy shift or sanctions relief.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told Jewish Insider he had heard Trump and Witkoff’s comments and that he was not sure what they were referring to, but said no sanctions should be removed until Iran ends its support for terrorism and guarantees that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have access to facilities in Iran.

“We’re trying to get additional details, because we’re hearing the sanctions are still there, as well they should be. They still have acts of terrorism. Until we can actually verify that they’ve actually set aside planting terrorism around the region, we need to continue to be able to put pressure on them,” Lankford told JI.

He said the U.S. should not be removing any sanctions at this point, noting, “We can’t verify anything on the ground yet. … They’re literally trying to be able to block out the future [International Atomic Energy Agency] certification,” referring to an Iranian parliament effort to block IAEA inspectors from Iran going forward.

“We know they don’t have the power and the ability to be able to highly enrich uranium at this point, but we don’t have the ability, still, to be able to verify things on the ground,” Lankford continued. “And we have no shift in their policy, as far as we can tell — and certainly not in their charter — on what their stand is for terrorism in the region and to us.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that sanctions relief should “[depend] on what we get for it. If we get complete denuclearization and a peace between Israel and Iran, that might be worth talking about.”

He said that the U.S. should not remove any sanctions preemptively.

“We should get something for it. Certainly, Iran is back on its heels now, and this is exactly the right time to negotiate some sort of long-standing arrangement,” Cornyn said. “I wouldn’t do anything preemptive.”

Georgetown University administration said it was “appalled” after a prominent faculty member called for Iran to conduct a “symbolic strike” on a U.S. military base in a social media post on Sunday.  

“We are reviewing this matter to see if further action is warranted,” a spokesperson for the university told Jewish Insider on Monday, noting that the administration is “appalled” by the since-deleted tweet by Jonathan Brown, a tenured professor and chair of the university’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service, who has a history of spreading anti-Israel vitriol.  

On Sunday, one day after the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear facilities, Brown tweeted: “I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops.” 

Brown, who is the son-in-law of convicted terror supporter Sami Al-Arian and has gone on several X tirades since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks slamming Israel — including calling the country “insanely racist”  — deleted his tweet on Monday, claiming that it was misinterpreted. 

“I deleted my previous tweet because a lot of people were interpreting it as a call for violence,” Brown wrote. “That’s not what I intended. I have two immediate family members in the US military who’ve served abroad and wouldn’t want any harm to befall American soldiers… or anyone!” 

The condemnation of Brown’s post comes as the House Education and Workforce Committee has called on Georgetown’s interim president, Robert Groves, to testify on July 9 about its handling of campus antisemitism. The funding Georgetown has received from Qatar, in connection with its Qatar campus, has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of Oct. 7. 

At a time when some elite universities are acquiescing to the Trump administration’s demands to crack down on antisemitic activity on campus, Georgetown has pushed back. In March, for example, the administration issued statements supportive of Badar Khan Suri, a university professor and postdoctoral scholar who was detained by federal authorities. 

Speaking at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon laid out the administration’s expectations for campus antisemitism policies, but sidestepped how the administration will execute on those directives while making substantial cuts to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

“We’re saying we mean business, these programs and policies have to have teeth, they have to be enforced,” McMahon said. 

She outlined a series of policies the Trump administration wants to see campuses enforce, including banning encampments, prohibiting the use of masks and better vetting of students and professors. Professors, she said, must not teach ideology.

She added that the Office for Civil Rights has opened “many cases” on campus antisemitism and is taking enforcement actions, including pulling funds from multiple schools.

But she failed to directly address concerns from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the subcommittee chair, that cuts to OCR could hamper the administration’s ability to adequately address campus antisemitism.

The top National Security Council officials overseeing the Middle East and Israel and Iran portfolios — seen as pro-Israel voices in the administration — were among the dozens of officials dismissed in a widespread purge of the NSC on Friday, two sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

Eric Trager, who was the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa — the lead official on the Middle East — and Merav Ceren, the director for Israel and Iran, were both Trump administration political appointees but were pushed out in what one official called a purge of “the Deep State” inside the NSC.

Their firings come as voices skeptical of the U.S.’ role in the Middle East increasingly establish a foothold in the administration, and as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the acting national security advisor, seek to restructure and slim down the key foreign policy-making body.

According to Axios, officials cut from the NSC will be moved to other positions in the government. Ceren previously came under fire from the far left and far right after false claims that she had previously worked as an Israeli Ministry of Defense official generated accusations of dual loyalty.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes defended Ceren at the time and denied the accusations, describing her as “a patriotic American who has served in the United States government for years, including for President Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Congressman James Comer. We are thrilled to have her expertise in the NSC, where she carries out the President’s agenda on a range of Middle East issues.” He said she “was never employed by the Israeli Defense Ministry, let alone was she an Israeli official.”

Trager and Ceren were hired under former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who was pushed aside after he added a journalist to an administration group chat about U.S. strikes on the Houthis, and after right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer accused him of staffing the NSC with a host of neoconservatives out of step with Trump.

Trager and Ceren had maintained their positions at the time, even as several of Waltz’s top hires were dismissed.