Plus, Sergey Brin: ‘Genocide’ term deeply offensive

Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Elbridge Colby, nominee to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, is seen ahead of his confirmation hearing at the Senate Committee on Armed Services in Washington, DC on March 4, 2025.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing Washington meetings, and talk to Republican senators about the White House’s about-face on providing defense aid to Ukraine. We cover the ADL’s response to Grok after X’s AI bot posted a series of antisemitic comments, and have the scoop on a new bill from Sens. Jacky Rosen and Jim Banks to replenish the U.S. weapons stockpile in Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sergey Brin, Dean Kremer and Sarah Hurwitz.
What We’re Watching
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today, as well as with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whose meeting with the prime minister on Tuesday was bumped due to the scheduling of a second meeting between Netanyahu and President Donald Trump.
- Tonight, Netanyahu will attend a reception for Jewish communal leaders, members of the evangelical community and senior Trump administration officials.
- On the Hill this morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing for several nominees to ambassador-level positions, including Jeff Bartos, the Trump administration’s nominee to be the U.S.’ envoy to the United Nations for U.N. management and reform.
- The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a full committee markup of the NDAA today.
- At 10 a.m. ET, the Hudson Institute is hosting a discussion focused on Israel’s economic resilience in a post-Oct. 7 era with Noach Hacker, the Israeli Embassy’s minister of economic affairs, and Hudson’s Michael Doran.
- The Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference continues today. With AI at the forefront of many conversations, OpenAI’s Sam Altman was questioned by reporters about the recruitment competition between OpenAI and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta as the latter scales up its AI operations.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Like with the gradual impact of climate change, the Democratic Party’s shift away from its pro-Israel moorings and its commitments to fight antisemitism is happening in a slow but appreciable fashion. Seemingly every week, there’s a political development, polling nugget or election outcome that underscores that the party’s commitment to Jewish voters isn’t quite where it was in the not-too-distant past.
There were the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac polls this spring showing that most Democratic voters now view Israel unfavorably — with support for the Jewish state dividing more clearly along partisan lines. The results underscored why so few Democrats could muster even some reluctant praise for the U.S. strikes setting back Iran’s nuclear program.
There’s the blowback that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro received from the Kamala Harris campaign for comparing extremist anti-Israel protesters on campuses to Ku Klux Klan members, as recounted in a new tell-all book about the 2024 campaign. Or the similar intraparty animus that another leading Democratic Jewish official, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, received after her office charged anti-Israel student protesters for assaulting police and engaging in ethnic intimidation.
Amid sustained political pressure from the left, these two leading Jewish Democrats have since pulled their political punches. Shapiro, a national political figure who was one of the most prominent targets of antisemitic hate, notably chose to avoid labeling the attack on the governor’s mansion as antisemitic in a nationally televised interview. Nessel later dropped the charges, amid a smear campaign that her decision to charge the students was a result of anti-Muslim bias.
And of course, there was the shocking outcome last month in the New York City Democratic primary where Zohran Mamdani, the far-left candidate who declined to speak out against “globalize the intifada” rhetoric, comfortably prevailed over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his party’s nomination. That result followed pro-Israel stalwart Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s (D-NJ) fourth-place finish in New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, despite ample resources and a message geared towards Jewish moderates.
HILL TALK
Netanyahu blames declining American support on ‘concerted effort’ to vilify and demonize Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blamed coordinated anti-Israel advocacy campaigns for recent polls that show falling support for the Jewish state in the United States, particularly among Democrats, but argued that effective Israeli counter-messaging could reverse those trends, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What he said: “I am certainly interested in maintaining the great support that Israel has had. I think there’s been a concerted effort to spread vilifications and demonization against Israel on social media,” Netanyahu said in response to a question from JI at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “It’s funded, it’s malignant, and we intend to fight it, because nothing defeats lies like the truth, and we shall spread the truth for everyone to see it,” Netanyahu continued. “Once people are exposed to the facts, we win, hands down.”
The ties that bind: Netanyahu signed a memorandum of understanding with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Tuesday, advancing U.S. and Israeli cooperation in energy and artificial intelligence research and integrating AI into the Abraham Accords, Jewish Insider’s Jake Schlanger reports.