Alaska’s closely watched Senate race, which will help determine the balance of power in the Senate, is set to pit a consistent — if rarely prominent — Democratic supporter of Israel against a prominent Republican national security hawk. Unlike in some other battleground races, the issue of Israel has rarely come up in the campaign. 

Peltola was not a leader on Middle East policy issues during her time in the House and did not highlight it as a priority, but was generally a reliable vote in support of Israel, breaking on numerous occasions with the majority of her party on the issue.

Peltola’s campaign did not provide comment in response to repeated inquiries from Jewish Insider about whether her stance has changed since leaving the House. But she has said she opposes the Iran war, and would have voted with nearly all other Democrats for war powers measures that sought to force a halt to the war.

“Dan Sullivan voted for the Iran war 12 times,” Peltola said on X on Thursday, highlighting the impact the war has had on rural Alaska communities. “Alaskans are suffering because Dan Sullivan continues to rubber stamp an unpopular foreign war that’s causing energy prices to skyrocket. We need change.”

Peltola was one of just 46 House Democrats who voted in February 2024 in favor of a stand-alone Israel aid package — separate from the bipartisan package that also provided aid for Ukraine and Taiwan — and one of just 16 who voted for a measure that would have forced the Biden administration to proceed with arms sales to Israel that had been withheld.

Peltola also voted for various measures imposing strengthened sanctions on Iran and severely limiting the Biden administration’s ability to lift such sanctions, some of which were opposed by a majority of Democrats. She also was in favor of imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

She voted for a resolution describing anti-Zionism as antisemitic, for a measure calling for the firing of university presidents for their testimony on campus antisemitism, for the Antisemitism Awareness Act and for a resolution describing the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic — though she voted against censuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for using the phrase.

Peltola also voted against a measure — that became increasingly unpopular among Democrats — which would have allowed the Treasury Department to unilaterally revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it deemed to be supporting terrorism.

Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been more deeply involved in national security issues, and has been a prominent supporter of Israel and a hawk on Iran.

Sullivan has been a frequent leader on legislation and other efforts to support Israel, including serving as a lead co-sponsor in 2025 of the U.S.-Israel Defense Partnership Act, to expand and increase funding for cooperative defense programs and the Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act of 2025, targeting parties involved in the Iranian oil trade.

Among other policies, Sullivan has distinguished himself with yearslong calls, in both interviews and hearings with senior military officials, for the U.S. to retaliate against the Iranian military directly for Houthi attacks on American and commercial shipping, dating back at least to mid-2024.

“My view is, at this juncture, the only way to deter the Houthis is to make Iran pay the price. We should sink all their spy ships who probably helped with this attack,” Sullivan told JI at the time. “We should tell them we’ll sink your whole Navy if you continue this. We have the capacity to sink the Iranian Navy [within] two hours, and we just let the Houthis attack us, attack Israel.”

He has traveled to Israel and the Middle East repeatedly, including at least three times since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. He joined a bipartisan delegation to Saudi Arabia and Israel weeks after the attacks, which aimed to salvage progress toward the Abraham Accords.

Sullivan has proven willing to press Trump administration officials at times, having delivered a particularly tough grilling of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby during his 2025 confirmation hearing over Colby’s past accommodationist rhetoric on Iran.

Though he ultimately supported Colby’s confirmation, Sullivan, joining other Senate Republicans, later accused Colby of avoiding the congressional communication and collaboration he had promised during his confirmation proceedings. But he and other senators have said the situation has improved since they aired their concerns publicly.

Sullivan supported the 2024 supplemental aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other U.S. allies.

Sen. Darline Graham’s (R-SC) stumbling performance at the final GOP primary debate on Tuesday has prompted questions among Republicans in Washington about her prospects in next week’s runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).

Graham’s debate performance has been widely panned for her response to a question about Taiwan and the South China Sea, during which she admitted that she is “not that informed on national security.” The moment prompted national Republican operatives to question her qualifications to replace her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and led to an avalanche of attacks from critics about her lack of policy experience. 

Senior Republicans who have been involved in the race privately described Graham’s foreign policy flub as a pivotal moment that could cost her the nomination. 

“It was always going to be a lot harder than she was told when she got into this, but I thought she could win before the debate. Now, I think she’s done for,” a senior GOP campaign official involved with the race told JI. “This loss is going to be an unfortunate embarrassment, and the way this played out could be somewhat of a stain on Lindsey’s legacy even though he had nothing to do with it.”

A spokesperson for Graham’s campaign declined to comment about her debate performance.  Graham defended her answer while speaking to reporters in the spin room following the debate, arguing that, “The people of South Carolina, they’re worried about their pocketbooks more than they’re worried about the South China Sea, quite honestly.”

Veteran Republican strategists who have been involved in high-profile Senate races called Graham’s performance one of those rare moments that could change the trajectory of the race.

“The debate seems fairly consequential for a number of reasons,” Colin Reed, a founding partner of South & Hill Strategies and a GOP campaign veteran, told Jewish Insider. “To me, it seems like a fairly seismic moment in an otherwise sleepy race.”

Reed predicted that Graham’s inability to sound articulate on foreign policy — all but taking a pass on a consequential national security question — was likely to have an impact on the outcome of the race because of the importance of national security issues to South Carolina’s “heavy military presence and large veteran community.”

He added that her comments are already drawing comparisons to “the towering figure her brother was on the matter of foreign affairs” and the fact that the U.S. “happens to be engaged in multiple conflicts, or at least one conflict overseas with Iran, right now.”

“This is a late-summer primary and runoff, and only the most engaged audiences turn out,” Reed said. “Those types of audiences are the ones who were likely paying attention or discussing the debate.”

He argued that Graham’s lack of political experience makes her a “blank canvas” to voters and that, combined with the special election to replace her late brother on the ballot as the GOP nominee being truncated despite Republican primary voters being “wary of coronations,” the South Carolina senator had already been in a vulnerable political position prior to the debate.

Should Graham lose to Norman, it would mark the first time this cycle that a GOP candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump in a Senate race has lost their primary contest. 

The president will hold a campaign rally for Graham in Myrtle Beach on Friday, even as he has scaled back his campaign appearances in recent months. Republicans in Washington expressed skepticism that the rally would significantly alter the outcome of this race, with two sources predicting that most of the attendees were only going to see the president speak. (For his part, Lindsey Graham was frequently booed and heckled when appearing at Trump rallies through the years.) 

Norman said in a statement following the debate that South Carolina deserves to have a senator with “know-how” on foreign policy matters.

“Whether it’s spy balloons flying overhead or buying up land near South Carolina military bases, China continues to prove that it is a threat to the United States,” the House lawmaker told Politico.

Republican senators were told that Graham was not interested in seeking a full term when she agreed to the appointment in the immediate aftermath of her brother’s unexpected death last month. Graham said in a pre-debate interview on Monday that she “didn’t even realize I’d be asked to fill the seat temporarily” and did not accept the appointment last month with the idea of running for a full term. She instead credited the president with convincing her to run during an Oval Office meeting in her first week as senator.

Graham’s surprise decision to run, which two sources told JI came at the urging of Trump and several of Lindsey Graham’s campaign consultants, was met with apprehension in Washington. GOP circles. After Graham launched her campaign, Republican senators and strategists skeptical of her chances of winning began quietly voicing concern to one another about her lack of voting record or political background, the fact that she lacked a policy platform and the optics of sending a grieving sister out on the campaign trail. They also took note of how competitively Norman, Graham’s opponent in next week’s runoff election, was polling in the race.

One senior Senate GOP operative put it bluntly: “If we’re going to do a coronation, we need to be able to do a coronation. If we can’t get our s**t together, then we shouldn’t keep trying.”

Graham was cautioned by several Republicans, including two senators, that she would be setting herself up for a contentious election fight if she got in the race, according to two sources familiar with the matter. She was told by several of her brother’s campaign consultants, however, that while the contest would be challenging, she was likely to win with the president’s endorsement. 

Graham prevailed in the first round of the primary election earlier this month, but only tallied 33% of the vote, far short of the majority necessary to avoid a runoff. She got a campaign boost after winning the endorsement of one leading rival, Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), but her debate stumble only underscored her biggest vulnerability: lack of experience. 

“The debate was challenging to watch. Her performance was very bad. We all empathize with her because of the circumstances she’s under, but that makes it all the more disturbing that folks who claim to love Lindsey would get in her ear and tell her she should run,” the Senate Republican campaign source said.

The winner of the Republican runoff next Tuesday will face Democrat Annie Andrews in the November election. Andrews, a pediatrician, is a decided underdog running in a solidly Republican state, but has been a strong fundraiser, bringing in over $10 million during the campaign cycle.

Florida’s Republican primaries on Tuesday will be a critical test for far-right candidates who have built their campaigns on open antisemitism, providing hard data on how popular those views have become in the GOP.

Neither gubernatorial candidate James Fishback nor Dan Bilzerian, who is challenging Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, are expected to win. But the extent of the support they’re able to pick up will be instructive.

Polling has shown that Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is likely to easily win the gubernatorial primary — and therefore the governorship — with the backing of President Donald Trump. But Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Fishback will be competing for the second-place slot.

Fishback has embraced and celebrated neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes and his “groyper” followers and leaned into a variety of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. He has also vowed to cut ties with Israel and suggested he would scale back state efforts to combat antisemitism. 

He has also run a racist campaign, including repeatedly referring to Donalds, who is Black, as a “slave,” telling a Black Floridian they should be lynched and invoking other bigoted tropes.

Fishback’s campaign has attracted attention from younger GOP voters in particular, with some polls showing him far outpacing Donalds among voters under 35 — as well as support from donors who have backed far-left anti-Israel Democrats.

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist in Florida, said that the extent of Donalds’ victory is the key question at the moment. He predicted that Fishback could pick up more than 10% of the vote, and potentially outperform Collins.

“It’s more of a testament to Byron running away with it and everyone knowing it,” O’Connell said, explaining his prediction of a poor performance by Collins. Trump’s endorsement of Donalds — which the president has frequently highlighted — should push Donalds to a commanding victory, he continued.

At the same time, “the one thing that Fishback has shown himself to be good at is garnering media attention. … I think this is about gaining name ID, gaining attention,” O’Connell continued.

He suggested that Fishback’s gubernatorial run might be a bid to gain public attention as a pretext for a future race for a lower political office. “We don’t know what his ultimate goal is. Is he going to run for another office?”

O’Connell also predicted a poor performance by Bilzerian, who has garnered bipartisan criticism in recent days over a blatantly antisemitic and pro-Hitler advertisement targeting Fine posted by Bilzerian on social media.

He predicted that Bilzerian’s final margin will amount to a “statistical anomaly” and that another candidate, Aaron Baker, who is also challenging Fine, may outperform Bilzerian. Baker has also been critical of Israel including opposing aid for its offensive weapons and calling for conditions on U.S. aid.

Bilzerian has put $1 million of his own money into the race, raising an additional $240,000, trailing far behind Fine, who raised more than $4 million. Baker has only raised $109,000.

Collins, the lieutenant governor, endorsed a third candidate in the primary, Charles Gambaro, a local official.

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) might be in the most danger of any incumbent Florida Republican, having been dogged for months by a growing series of scandals and investigations related to alleged domestic violence and harassment, financial misconduct, sexual misconduct, stolen valor and alleged use of his office for his own financial gain. Mills has denied any wrongdoing.

Mills’ wedding was also officiated by a radical imam who was believed to be a key fundraiser for Hamas and listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who also expressed antisemitic and anti-American sentiments in his sermons. Mills denied any knowledge of the imam’s affiliations.

O’Connell predicted that Mills is likely to lose to Ryan Elijah, a former local TV anchor, consistent with a recent poll showing Elijah opening up a commanding lead over Mills ahead of primary day.

“The allegations might have caught up to Cory in terms of winning there. So that looks like an uphill climb for Cory in Florida[‘s 7th Congressional District], based on all the numbers I’ve seen,” O’Connell said. “He would need a hefty Election Day turnout. It’s not unheard of, but it’s just highly unlikely that he’s going to win.”

Both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have backed away from Mills in recent weeks in light of the scandals and declined to intervene in support of him. O’Connell described Mills as “trying to cling to an endorsement” from Trump that largely predated the scrutiny into his scandals. 

O’Connell predicted that Republicans would be able to hold the seat even if Mills wins the primary election, though Democrats have seen Mills as potentially a ripe target if he’s renominated.

Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) primary opponent, influencer Dan Bilzerian, is pushing blatantly antisemitic and pro-Adolf Hitler messaging in the closing days of Florida’s primary season.

Bilzerian has made no secret of the openly antisemitic tenor of his campaign, having said from the outset that he is challenging Fine because he is Jewish and pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories about Fine, the Jewish community and Israel.

But messaging and advertising from Bilzerian’s campaign has gained increased attention in the final days of the race, after Bilzerian posted a shocking video that leans into a series of blatant antisemitic tropes and overtones.

The two-and-a-half minute AI-generated video repeatedly calls Fine a “fat Jew” and accuses him of serving Israel over the United States. It describes Fine a “Jewish [supremacist]” and “Satan’s creepy little [minion]” over imagery of Fine hugging a bag of money.

It also calls Fine a “satanic whore,” over footage of horns growing out of his forehead, and refers to him as “Shylock.”

Over footage of Hitler, the video asks, “Should we revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions?”

It also suggests that Fine rapes children and calls for him to be tarred, feathered and imprisoned.

“Celebrating Hitler. Having horns grow out of the heads of Jews. Showing me violently assaulted,” Fine said in response to the video. “If this appeals to you, I don’t want your vote.   We have a choice on Tuesday, to embrace the kind of Nazism that led to the Holocaust or to repudiate this filth and reaffirm American values and character. Let’s send a resounding message on Tuesday.”

Bilzerian posted another AI video accusing Fine of staging an incident last week in which an unknown individual spray-painted a swastika on a Fine campaign sign outside of an early voting site.

Several prominent Republicans joined Fine in condemning the pro-Hitler Bilzerian ad.

“This brazen Nazi — who’s urging us to ‘revisit’ the opinions of Hitler— revels in Jew hate & defends Sharia law,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on X. “This evil has no place in the Republican Party.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said that Bilzerian is “disgusting” and that “every single Republican needs to condemn this evil, and every single news outlet needs to expose how bad and antisemitic he is.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called Bilzerian’s messaging “possibly the most disgusting … I’ve seen” and said he had “taken Jew-hate to a new low.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called the attacks “vile” and “disgusting” and said that all leaders on both sides should reject them.

“Antisemitism and outward hatred of Jewish communities have no place in our politics or in America, and we will continue to call them out wherever they arise,” Johnson said. “On Tuesday, voters will reject the revolting rhetoric, and I am proud to endorse [Fine] as he works to continue delivering results for every family in [Florida’s 6th Congressional District].”

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-FL) said the video is “vile and has zero place in our politics, let alone the Republican Party.”

Several Democrats also denounced the video.

“The hateful campaign being run by Daniel Bilzerian in Florida is blatantly antisemitic and shocks the conscience,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said. “People of goodwill regardless of political affiliation must reject his vile attacks on the Jewish community. This cannot and will not stand.”

A group of Jewish House Democrats — Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Laura Friedman (D-CA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Mike Levin (D-CA), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Brad Schnieder (D-IL), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Eugene Vindman (D-VA) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — also condemned the attacks on Fine.

“We don’t agree with Randy Fine on much, if anything, and have condemned his racist, islamophobic statements,” the Democrats said. “But the grotesque, antisemitic campaign video posted by Republican Daniel Bilzerian has no place in America. We unequivocally condemn Bilzerian and his hateful antisemitic attacks.”

The Democrats urged social media platforms to take down the video and other antisemitic posts by Bilzeria, and called on the National Republican Congressional Committee and all Republicans to condemn and disavow Bilzerian and his backers.

Landsman also individually called out the post.

“This is a candidate for Congress, on the ballot in Florida on Tuesday. It’s blatant antisemitism, and could lead to violence against Jews,” Landsman said. “Unless he did this on his own, there is an AI company that created this. Which one? Plus, the social media platforms that don’t just allow this, but most likely boost it to millions. Everyone should be condemning this.”

More than a week after Abdul El-Sayed narrowly clinched the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary, his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is working to fine-tune his campaign’s outreach and messaging to disaffected Jewish voters who could play a decisive role in the closely contested race.

While Republicans in the key battleground state see an opportunity in November to capitalize on Jewish Democrats’ alarm over El-Sayed’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel and lackluster record in confronting the rise of antisemitism, Rogers has in the days following the primary still appeared relatively cautious in directly courting Jewish voters, as he has widened his pitch to Democrats in Michigan whom he reassured in a video message last week have “a home with” his campaign.

He has otherwise called El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, “beyond antisemitic” and said he “hates Jewish people,” echoing the most extreme concerns among Jewish Democrats turned off by the Democratic nominee’s ties to antisemitic Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and comments equivocating over the foiled terrorist attack against a synagogue outside Detroit in March, among other issues.

Despite such criticism, Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP strategist in Michigan not involved in the race, said that he had not seen Rogers “specifically identifying the Jewish community as a target,” underscoring how the campaign is balancing private engagement with a key constituency alongside a more broadly calibrated public invitation for Democrats to join his coalition.

“A lot of this is going to come organically,” Roe told Jewish Insider, referring to Jewish Democrats in the state who are contemplating voting for Rogers. “This is not new territory for him.”

Bobby Schostak, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and a prominent Jewish campaign surrogate, said he had hosted a donor call on Monday with Rogers and his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, joined by some 150 people. “There were people there who were traditionally not Republican voters,” he told JI, citing some Jewish Democrats and other former backers of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), the moderate, pro-Israel lawmaker who lost to El-Sayed.

“Mike spoke to the importance of having a wide-open campaign with multiple coalitions,” Schostak said of the donor call, while stressing that Jewish Democrats in the Detroit area are particularly energized to help Rogers. “It is consequential both in numbers and in names,” he told JI on Thursday. “They are not being passive,” he explained. “They want to beat El-Sayed.”

In one of the first major signs of those efforts now materializing, three prominent Jewish Democratic bundlers in Michigan are hosting a fundraiser for Rogers next Tuesday, according to an email invite sent to Jewish community members on Thursday.

“This is something that none of us has ever done,” said Hannan Lis, who is leading the fundraiser with Brian Hermelin and Rob Orley. “But we feel this is a departure in the direction of the Democratic Party,” he told JI of El-Sayed’s staunch opposition to Israel and refusal to recognize its right to exist as a Jewish state. “We’re taking a stand here,” he added. “This is beyond politics.”

Even though “there are many issues where we don’t necessarily agree with Mike Rogers,” Lis noted, “we trust him” on key issues. The fundraiser is meant to “show we are willing to back up a person” who holds a mutual commitment to a “strong relationship with Israel” and “is not playing politics” on other matters concerning the Jewish community, he explained.

Hermelin, the president of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, confirmed his involvement in the fundraiser but declined to comment further on the event, which he is co-hosting in his personal capacity.

Rogers, recognized as a national security-focused conservative, has also attended pro-Israel fundraisers outside of the state this week, according to a person familiar with the matter. “There is now a lot of enthusiasm in the pro-Israel community for Mike Rogers,” the person said. “A not-insignificant piece is from Democrats.”

A spokesperson for Rogers’ campaign did not return a request for comment on Thursday.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has indicated it intends to aggressively target the nearly 100,000 Jewish voters in Michigan who make up a potential swing bloc, with a special focus on Jewish Democrats who “now find themselves politically homeless,” Sam Markstein, a spokesperson for the group, told JI in a statement.

Markstein said that he could not yet share specifics about the RJC’s plans to invest in the race but noted an independent expenditure is in the works and “will be significant.”

Eric Levine, a top Republican bundler in New York and an RJC board member who hosted a fundraiser for Rogers in late July, said the former congressman is “making a direct appeal to the Jewish community,” including Democrats, and “has been very successful.”

AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group whose super PAC spent over $30 million to help Stevens, has not officially endorsed Rogers, but sources say it is likely to spend on his behalf before the November election. Representatives for AIPAC and its super PAC did not respond to requests for comment.

In a tacit recognition of the Jewish vote’s potential significance in the general election, El-Sayed has, for his part, recently sought to ease tensions with Jewish Democrats who remain skeptical about his campaign, emphasizing his “commitment to Jewish safety” even he has continued to use incendiary rhetoric on Israel in the wake of the primary.

Michael Horowitz, a Jewish Democratic leader and Detroit businessman, said he was “leaning heavily” toward voting for Rogers but that he had not made up his mind, underscoring the inherent challenges in enticing Jewish Democrats to defect from a party that they have long called home. 

Though Horowitz said he will not vote for El-Sayed, he attributed his reservations to delivering a win for the Trump administration as well as a “volatile world” that could shape his assessment in the lead-up to the election. “I would say that the vast majority of people I’ve talked to are voting against El-Sayed — as opposed to voting for Rogers,” he told JI.

He said he is now working to arrange a “more intimate conversation” with Rogers to get a better sense of the candidate, after a surrogate reached out to make a connection. “I don’t think that not voting is an option,” he said, adding, “until I cast my vote it’s not a done deal.”

Shimon Levy, an Israeli American entrepreneur in Detroit who identifies as an independent and backed Stevens in the primary, said he is supporting Rogers’ campaign and had wrapped up lunch with members of his team when he spoke with JI on Thursday.

“I think, at this stage, the Rogers team is just here to listen,” he said. “They’re asking, ‘How do we win your vote?’”

Addressing Michigan Democrats in a videotaped message, Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers said that the “vast majority of people” rejecting Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed — whose bid he framed as a “campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence and the views that are out of touch with your values”— have “a home with us.” 

“If you’re among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up on Wednesday feeling hopeless because the person who won does not represent your values, well, just know there is still hope,” Rogers said seated next to his wife, in a 90-second video message released on Friday.

“Michigan deserves a senator who is ready to sit with you, hear from you and represent you.

The parents across Michigan who want an education system that sets up their kids for success have a home with us. Grandparents across Michigan who are heartbroken from watching their kids and grandkids leave the state, you have a home with us,” he continued. 

“To young people who are looking for real solutions to our housing affordability crisis, you have a home with us. To families who don’t want higher taxes and lower paychecks, you have a home with us. The fight is far greater than just left versus right. The fight is for the very soul of our nation. Over the next 90 days, I’m going to work hard to earn your trust, to earn your support and earn your vote.” 

Most Democrats quickly coalesced behind El-Sayed after he narrowly clinched victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Wednesday morning, while Republicans quickly attacked El-Sayed’s extremist history and ties. 

Just before he was declared winner, El-Sayed doubled down on his criticism of Israel on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that he organized to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the United States, suggested that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was tied to such networks and that his Democratic primary win represented a victory for them.

“[Democrats’] campaign is now openly embracing terrorist organizations waging war on America. Behind El-Sayed’s political rise sits a much older and more entrenched institutional network,” Cruz asserted.

Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, testified under questioning from Cruz that El-Sayed’s win concerned him given the nominee’s father-in-law’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and El-Sayed’s own relationship with groups connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“It shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood network over multiple decades. It achieved what they said they were going to achieve, which was to normalize support for Hamas and normalize support for terrorism,” Shideler said.

He also said that Muslim Brotherhood-connected groups have partnered with organizations including the Democratic Socialists of America, united around a “shared revolutionary objective of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. Constitution.”

El-Sayed, who did not respond to a request for comment, has accused opponents of using Islamophobia to attack him because they lack responses to his policy proposals.

The hearing — which was not attended by any lawmakers other than Cruz — focused primarily on CAIR and other groups that Cruz and witnesses said were linked to a Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States, as part of a long-running plan to infiltrate and usurp Western civilization from within and offer support for Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including by working with and co-opting other groups.

Cruz and the witnesses emphasized that CAIR leaders were part of a 1993 meeting of Muslim Brotherhood-linked anti-Israel activists, captured on an FBI wiretap, in which the activists plotted to undermine the Oslo accords and support Hamas through a range of spinoff and front organizations, including the Holy Land Foundation and Islamic Association for Palestine, which have been shuttered for funneling support to Hamas.

“The Holy Land Foundation prosecution revealed that these organizations do not operate in isolation; they function as part of a broader Muslim Brotherhood ecosystem,” Cruz said. “The events we witnessed on college campuses after Oct. 7 [2023] did not emerge from nowhere. They were not spontaneous. They were not organic. They were the product of an organized network that has spent decades building influence inside the United States.”

Shideler described CAIR as so central to the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans that it received explicit approval and support from Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt. 

Lara Burns, a retired FBI special agent and senior research fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism, said that the wiretapped meeting indicated that CAIR was created “to defend and protect the other elements of the Hamas support network and to pressure others to adopt its narratives or remain quiet.”

Burns was a lead investigator in the Holy Land Foundation case and later supervised national security and counterterrorism investigations and prosecutions.

She emphasized that CAIR has never disavowed the Holy Land Foundation and that it warrants further investigation, also noting that the group had sought to thwart the seizure of documents during the Holy Land Foundation investigation that proved the existence of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood support networks domestically.

Burns emphasized that terrorist infrastructure has existed in the United States for decades, under the guise of charity, advocacy and activism. The network, she said, seeks to funnel support to and rally public support for Hamas; infiltrate universities, media and politics; and reshape American curricula. She said groups in the Muslim Brotherhood network continue to carry on the same agenda and some individuals and groups are still likely providing material support for terrorism. 

Arielle Klepach, senior counsel at the National Jewish Advocacy Center, described CAIR and its affiliates as “a foreign terror-supporting movement on American soil, targeting our Constitution and our founding principles.” 

“I would ask you to remember three things: these organizations are dangerous, they are in our schools and they hide by abusing the very legal system they are working to dismantle,” she continued.

Klepach said that the federal government should work to enforce existing laws to counter this network, arguing for imposing sanctions and prosecuting Muslim Brotherhood-connected groups for material support for terrorism and racketeering and reviewing their tax-exempt status. She said Congress should work to close loopholes that have allowed such groups to avoid legal accountability by shuttering and rebooting under new names with similar leadership.

She also warned that CAIR and other similar groups are receiving and distributing tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

Shideler said that the Holy Land Foundation case provided a trove of intelligence and evidence on the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood support network and its efforts to infiltrate and influence all areas of American life, but that the federal government had subsequently failed to pursue further action, and CAIR and other linked groups have obstructed and dodged efforts to seek justice.

Democrats announced in advance that they planned to boycott the hearing, describing it as Islamophobic and targeted at Muslims writ large, but ultimately none of Cruz’s Republican colleagues appeared to ask questions of witnesses either.

Sen. Darline Graham’s (R-SC) bid to succeed her late brother in the Senate is facing growing skepticism from Republican operatives and lawmakers who say President Donald Trump’s endorsement is unlikely to spare her from a runoff in South Carolina’s special GOP primary next week. 

Over the last week, six senior GOP campaign operatives and Republican lawmakers told Jewish Insider that they believe a runoff is all but certain after the Aug. 11 special election primary, with most predicting Graham will not be able to clinch a majority of the vote to avert one as her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), did with his June primary victory. 

While Republicans believe Graham will be one of the top two candidates in the race, thus allowing her a spot in the Aug. 25 runoff, they are still unsure whether she will face Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) or Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) in that contest. Those who spoke to JI expressed skepticism that Graham could win a head-to-head showdown, despite having Trump’s coveted primary endorsement. 

“The sense that this is going to go to a runoff seems pretty clear,” Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who served as communications director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy communications official for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), said. “What happens after that is anyone’s guess.”

“Ultimately, it’s going to be a question of what Republican voters in South Carolina want to do and how they view the new Sen. Graham,” he continued. “You can’t really factor in what she’s done yet, but you know what she says she’s going to do. She doesn’t have a high name ID, although that is increasing every day, whereas the others who are running have much higher name ID and not just necessarily in their districts.”

The uncertainty surrounding the race has caused some to worry about Graham entering a competitive election contest, which will require her to develop a full policy platform and hit the campaign trail as she mourns her brother’s recent death. 

“It’s being said and unsaid by a lot of people on Capitol Hill right now. Up to this point, most people here have been more concerned about her personally than figuring out her political philosophy, asking if it’s fair to her to put her in this situation,” a Republican senator told JI. “This has got so many consequences. I’ve been very concerned about it. The people who express concern the most are still mainly worried about her personally, which is heartwarming, but the stakes are also very high.”

Four sources noted that Trump’s support for Graham did not deter Norman or Fry from entering the contest, nor has it hurt either of their performances in recent primary polling. 

“There really is an appetite for change, but also for someone who is known, who has a proven record,” a GOP campaign source said. “Love them or hate them, folks know what Ralph and Russell’s records look like. Love them or hate them, you know where they stand. Darline is largely an unknown.”

Republican sources pointed to issues around voter turnout, Graham’s ability to fundraise quickly enough on the compressed campaign schedule, her lack of political background or voting record and the possibility of her losing support if portrayed to voters as being anointed to the role. 

Darline Graham should be able to benefit from some of the leftover cash in her brother’s campaign account. Lindsey Graham’s campaign filed a statement with the Federal Election Commission after his death reporting $2.3 million in remaining funds. 

Lindsey Graham’s campaign was able to transfer some of that money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP campaign arm, for Darline Graham to use for her campaign, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. The figure expected to be transferred is under $1 million, one source confirmed, leaving Darline Graham with a possible cash disadvantage for the primary and the general election, where the Republican nominee will face Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who handily won the Democratic primary in June and has proven to be a strong fundraiser. 

Prior to Lindsey Graham’s passing, Andrews drew attention for outraising the incumbent senator in the first two quarters of 2026. Despite the fundraising success, national Democrats declined to commit resources to the race against Graham, which the Cook Political Report continues to rate as solid Republican even after his death. 

Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) got behind Norman’s campaign before Graham had entered; once she did, she quickly secured her own endorsements from three members of Senate GOP leadership: Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY); Senate Republican Conference Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR); and Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said after Graham announced her candidacy that he would not be weighing in with an endorsement, though he praised the incumbent senator as a “strong candidate” who “obviously carries on Lindsey’s legacy.” 

Beyond those who have already endorsed her, Graham does not appear to have asked her other Republican colleagues in the Senate for their backing, according to two Republican senators and one senior GOP Senate staffer. The senators suggested that perhaps Graham was not in the right frame of mind to ask about endorsements herself, though both senators expressed surprise that no one from Graham’s campaign had made those overtures on her behalf. 

“Many of us had never met her before. All I knew was how much Lindsey adored her. He talked about her a lot. He referenced her a lot. He’d take her call whenever it happened to be,” a GOP senator told JI of Graham. “But we don’t have a clue how Republican she is. I don’t have the faintest idea what her basic philosophies are.”

“She hasn’t asked me or the members that I’ve talked to,” one GOP senator told JI on condition of anonymity of Graham seeking out endorsements late last week. “If she isn’t asking and nobody is asking on her behalf, she sure as heck won’t get a lot of them. Maybe she’ll get around to that next week now that she’s on the job full time. It’s kind of a pivotal week, I would say.”

Graham has picked up one House endorsement from Rep. William Timmons (R-SC), who opposes Norman’s candidacy, while Norman has been endorsed by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and former Rep. Bob Good (R-VA). He also has the support of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who served with Norman in the House. 

The slow drip of congressional endorsements have since ground to a halt, as it became clear that Graham’s surprise campaign launch and Trump’s support for her candidacy had not deterred her Republican opponents or hurt their polling numbers.

“Many of us had never met her before [she was sworn in to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term]. All I knew was how much Lindsey adored her. He talked about her a lot. He referenced her a lot. He’d take her call whenever it happened to be,” a GOP senator told JI of Graham. “But we don’t have a clue how Republican she is. I don’t have the faintest idea what her basic philosophies are.”

“She’s still grieving,” a senior GOP campaign official involved with the race told JI. “Nobody wants to be seen hitting someone whose brother literally just died — and then was vaulted into a very public, very national spotlight — but at some point the gloves are gonna have to come off at least somewhat.”

“I suspect that being through what she’s been through the last couple of weeks, reliving his whole life basically in written word and broadcast and even just storytelling, she’s probably getting a pretty good lesson if she’s still forming her positions,” the senator continued. “I doubt she’s 180 degrees from him, but I don’t know what’s in her heart.”

Several Republicans have expressed concern that voters would respond poorly to the idea of Graham running while mourning the loss of her brother. They also worry about the possibility that the contest turns negative and the consequences of that shift.

“She’s still grieving,” a senior GOP campaign official involved with the race told JI. “Nobody wants to be seen hitting someone whose brother literally just died — and then was vaulted into a very public, very national spotlight — but at some point the gloves are gonna have to come off at least somewhat.”

One Republican senator told JI that they were “afraid it could be a brawl before it’s over, especially if her opponent feels like they’re up against a wall and corners her. We know how this goes.”

“If they get to a runoff, at that point, it is a whole new ball game and she’s no longer a grieving sister. She becomes a semi-incumbent obstacle to whoever wants to win,” the senator said. “These things happen faster nowadays. We have short memories.”

The South Carolina senator faced her four leading opponents in a televised debate on Monday evening. Graham was joined on the debate stage by Norman, Fry, former Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) and Mark Lynch, a MAGA-aligned businessman who lost to Lindsey Graham in last month’s primary by 30 points. 

The debate was largely respectful, though Graham called out Lynch in her closing statement for repeatedly criticizing her late brother while on stage. “I don’t know if I can rebut, but Mr. Lynch mentioned Lindsey Graham multiple times. I don’t know if he’s just afraid Lindsey beat him and now his little sister is going to beat him, but I just don’t like hearing that,” Graham said. 

Graham used the debate to highlight where she and her late brother agree and disagree on policy matters, emphasizing their shared support for the U.S. war in Iran and how they diverge on the filibuster, which Darline Graham said she supports abolishing to pass the Save America Act despite her later brother’s opposition to the move. 

It is unclear if the two candidates who advance to the runoff, should one be triggered, will hold another debate. 

“Lindsey just made his way through a pretty contentious primary himself, and there is a degree of the primary electorate that was not a fan of his. I think that segment will still be very much adamantly opposed to this because they’ll see it as a continuation of the policies that they don’t support,” a senior GOP campaign source said. “Ralph Norman is a little bit better positioned to capture some of these hardcore conservative voters. I think she’ll have a difficult time even with the president’s endorsement.”

“This is potentially a race where debates could have a real impact, in part because this would be part of her introduction statewide as a candidate,” Heye said. “In moments like that where you have somebody in that situation, it’s very important for the other people on stage, including the moderators, to be appropriately respectful.”

While several Republicans acknowledged Trump’s endorsement as a key booster for Graham, they pointed out that her late brother, who was known to be close to the president, struggled in his own primary.

“Lindsey just made his way through a pretty contentious primary himself, and there is a degree of the primary electorate that was not a fan of his. I think that segment will still be very much adamantly opposed to this because they’ll see it as a continuation of the policies that they don’t support,” a senior GOP campaign source said. “Ralph Norman is a little bit better positioned to capture some of these hardcore conservative voters. I think she’ll have a difficult time even with the president’s endorsement.”

Heye noted to JI that, “Not everything that happens in a Republican primary is about Donald Trump. His endorsement is always a boost, but that’s it.”

Reached for comment, Graham campaign press secretary Abby Zilch told JI in a statement, “Sen. Darline Graham has had to work hard for every single thing she’s ever done — running for the United States Senate will be no different. That’s just one of the many reasons why President Trump has endorsed her and why so many South Carolinians see a true fighter in this campaign.”

As Abdul El-Sayed pulls ahead in the final days of Michigan’s bitter Democratic Senate primary race, Republicans are eyeing a chance, in the general election, to peel support from disaffected Jewish Democrats anxious about their party’s sharp turn to the left on Israel and its tolerance for actions they view as antisemitic.

For many Jewish Democrats in Michigan who have long called the party home, the bruising lead-up to the primary on Tuesday has been difficult to experience, as El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, has continued to gain traction while fiercely attacking Israel, using anti-Zionist rhetoric and centering his messaging on opposition to AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group whose super PAC is aggressively promoting Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in a record ad barrage that has exceeded $30 million.

If Stevens loses, Republicans are eager to present former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the GOP’s presumptive nominee who was narrowly defeated in his bid for Senate last election cycle, as a safe alternative to El-Sayed for Jewish Democrats in the general election who may not be able to stomach voting along party lines.

“I think that Jewish voters and many Democrats in general feel” the party “has moved away from them,” Bobby Schostak, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who sits on the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board, told Jewish Insider, calling Rogers “unconditionally and unapologetically pro-Israel and part of the fight against antisemitism in America.”

He predicted that Jewish Democrats “are going to flock to” Rogers “come November if El-Sayed wins the nomination,” referring, among other things, to the candidate’s refusal to distance himself from the antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and controversial remarks following a foiled terrorist attack against a synagogue in Michigan in March in which he said, “Hurt people do hurt people.”

“Playing that response back is all it takes,” Schostak said of the anticipated GOP attacks against El-Sayed in the still-hypothetical general election. “That clearly showed his position and lack of concern for Jews and Jewish children,” he added of the comments. “I don’t think it takes much more than that.”

Sam Markstein, a spokesperson for the RJC, which has endorsed Rogers, said that “Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat is at the center of the political battlefield” in the fight for control of the upper chamber.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for Mike and other Republicans in Michigan to build on Jewish support,” Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP strategist who has served as the executive director of the state’s Republican Party, told JI.

“With nearly 100,000 Jewish voters in a state where the margins of victory are incredibly close,” he said in a statement to JI, “Michigan’s Jewish community will once again be a decisive group in one of the most important contests in the country this November.”

Markstein suggested that “Michigan Jews are well aware of the stakes,” pointing to divisive comments in which El-Sayed declined to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and said “I call bullshit” on “a definition of antisemitism to include a foreign government and its leaders,” among others that have faced scrutiny.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for Mike and other Republicans in Michigan to build on Jewish support,” Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP strategist who has served as the executive director of the state’s Republican Party, told JI.

While he called El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel “a big factor” influencing that dynamic, Roe argued there are deeper issues at play, notably including the Democratic state party convention in April at which pro-Israel candidates were heckled by activists and an attorney with a history of praising Hezbollah was nominated to sit on the University of Michigan Board of Regents.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, said last week that she planned to skip her party’s nominating convention next month, citing the episodes as sowing fears of antisemitic harassment.

“What happened at the” state convention “has really animated Jewish donors and voters and moved them in the direction of Republicans,” Cabel Roe explained to JI. “I think it’s very significant.”

Alyssa Brouillet, a spokesperson for Rogers, said his campaign is “beginning to see more and more Jewish Democrats coming to us who feel abandoned by their party.”

“It’s easy to see why when you have a candidate in this race who fundraised off of Oct. 7 and sympathized with the terrorist attacker who attempted to mass murder 140 kids at Temple Israel synagogue. That’s terrifying,” she told JI in a statement. “Unlike his opponents, Mike Rogers stands with the Jewish community in Michigan and across the country — and he will continue fighting to make life better for working families all across the state.”

The former congressman, recognized as a pro-Israel hawk while serving in the House from 2001 to 2015, has also raised concerns over rising antisemitism as well as anti-Israel sentiment on the far right, which he has said the GOP needs to more forcefully fight.

He has said publicly that it “doesn’t matter” who he faces in the general election, claiming he is confident that he will beat either of them. During a private call with supporters last month, he said that he would be “in good shape” if El-Sayed clinched the nomination as opposed to the moderate Stevens, describing him as “so radical,” according to audio obtained by CNN.

Polling has suggested that a general election matchup between Rogers and El-Sayed would be competitive.

It remains to be seen if the depth of disillusionment among Jewish Democrats in Michigan who feel their party is abandoning them will ultimately translate to a vote for Rogers should El-Sayed be the nominee — given accompanying reservations with how it could help Republicans flip a crucial seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).

But Stevens herself in some ways gave Rogers a path to make inroads with Jewish Democrats who distrust El-Sayed when she directly accused her opponent of antisemitism in a fiery social media post on Thursday underscoring the increasingly personal animosities in the closing stretch of the primary.

“After Tuesday, you will see a plethora of Jewish Democrats openly supporting Mike Rogers,” said Dennis Bernard, national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, adding such support could help tip the scales in a general election that is expected to be close. He said Rogers has been doing “significantly more events in the Jewish community” and is being more favorably received than last cycle, when he lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Jewish Democrat.

“Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans,” she wrote in the post addressed to El-Sayed, after he had taunted AIPAC and called her the “least capable candidate in America.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, did not return a request for comment about its plans for the general election.

A source familiar with UDP’s thinking told JI that “no decision has been taken yet because we’re not there,” but suggested that the group would support Rogers if Stevens loses to El-Sayed. “What would the expectation be?” the source told JI. “That they would do everything they can do to beat this guy.”

Dennis Bernard, a Jewish leader in Michigan who says he supports both Stevens and Rogers in their respective primaries, echoed others who told JI that even as there are Jewish Democrats planning to pull the lever for Rogers if Stevens loses on Tuesday, they are not willing to admit that publicly until the results are in.

“After Tuesday, you will see a plethora of Jewish Democrats openly supporting Mike Rogers,” said Bernard, national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, adding such support could help tip the scales in a general election that is expected to be close. He said Rogers has been doing “significantly more events in the Jewish community” and is being more favorably received than last cycle, when he lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Jewish Democrat.

Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who splits his time between Michigan and Israel, said he would vote for Rogers in the general election if El-Sayed wins the nomination, adding he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.

His reservations over the prospect of Republicans preserving their Senate majority by picking up the Michigan seat, Lis told JI, were overshadowed by his deeper objections to El-Sayed and his views on Israel and antisemitism. “El-Sayed is no Democrat,” he told JI.

“If Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary, I will have to spend more time seeing if El-Sayed is as dangerous to Israel, America and American Jews as he appears — and I haven’t seen anything so far to the contrary — and I will also spend some time examining Mike Rogers’ record on Israel and other issues that the Jewish community cares deeply about,” Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and is backing Stevens, told JI.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about tensions with Jewish voters. 

One pro-Israel strategist in the state who is close to Stevens estimated, on gut instinct, that it was more likely what he called mainstream Jewish Democrats who support Israel would not vote at all rather than pull the lever for Rogers if El-Sayed is the nominee, pegging that number at some 50% of the community. 

He speculated that 25% of such voters would support Rogers because they are “disgusted with Democrats,” while another 25% could swallow their concerns and choose El-Sayed, motivated by loyalty to their party.

Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and is backing Stevens, said he is trying to keep an open mind for the general election if the congresswoman loses, even as he has “been deeply disturbed by many quotes from El-Sayed regarding Israel and by many of his ads, in which AIPAC is attacked as what I see as an antisemitic dogwhistle.”

“If Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary, I will have to spend more time seeing if El-Sayed is as dangerous to Israel, America and American Jews as he appears — and I haven’t seen anything so far to the contrary — and I will also spend some time examining Mike Rogers’ record on Israel and other issues that the Jewish community cares deeply about,” he told JI.

Lopatin added that he would also “want to make sure” that Rogers is “someone who can stand up to” President Donald Trump.

Noah Arbit, a Jewish Democratic state legislator in Michigan who is outspoken against antisemitism in his party, declined to confirm how he would vote in a general election without Stevens as the nominee, even as he has accused El-Sayed of helping to “stoke and inflame hatred against Jews” and grappled with whether he belongs in a party he sees as “hostile” to his community.

For now, he told JI, “I’m entirely focused on winning a third term representing my district in Greater West Bloomfield,” a heavily Jewish suburb of Detroit, “and electing a Democratic House, Senate and governor in Michigan.”

Michael Horowitz, a Jewish community leader and Detroit businessman, was reluctant to engage in any hypotheticals before the primary’s end. “I still think Haley is going to pull it out on Tuesday,” he told JI on Friday. 

Pressed to clarify how he would vote if she loses, he wrote in a text, “I try to avoid playing games with the Devil,” inserting an upside-down smiley face emoji reflective of the uncomfortable position that Jewish Democrats now find themselves confronting as the primary finally comes barreling to a close this week.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, insisted at a Wednesday hearing that Israel could not be excluded from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, and called out U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack for apparent efforts to advance an alternative trade corridor through Syria.

The hearing was called to focus on efforts to expand the Abraham Accords. The IMEC corridor, a proposed regional trade route that would connect Europe to India through Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations, was repeatedly raised by witnesses and lawmakers as a key next step in expanding existing normalization agreements and moving toward future ones.

“Unfortunately, reporting came out recently that anonymous Saudi officials were considering connecting these two countries through Syria instead, and just the other day it came out that Ambassador Barrack out in Turkey was also supporting this,” Lawler said. “In my mind, that is unacceptable.”

Barrack last week announced and promoted plans for a Middle East trade route through Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Lawler previously wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to ensure that Israel remains part of IMEC.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, noted in his testimony that Iran’s ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz highlighted the potential value of the IMEC corridor.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that the IMEC corridor would be “integral to a more peaceful and cooperative Middle East” and was dismissive of the idea that a pipeline through Syria could be a practical solution in the near-to-medium term, given the recent and continued instability in the country.

He argued that the pipeline should run through the West Bank as a job-creation opportunity for Palestinians that he said would help advance the prospects of peace.

Asher Fredman, the executive director of the Misgav Institute for National Security, said that even short of full Saudi-Israeli normalization, there were ways that the IMEC corridor and Saudi-Israeli ties could be advanced, such as allowing the transit of goods to or from Israel though Saudi Arabia, similar to how Saudi Arabia permitted airlines to fly over Saudi territory going to and from Tel Aviv beginning in 2022.

Highlighting and advancing such steps that serve Riyadh’s own interests could be a way to expand ties and move in the direction of normalization even short of an immediate agreement, Fredman said.

Witnesses and lawmakers also emphasized the importance of appointing a dedicated special envoy for the Abraham Accords, an ambassador-rank position established by Congress that neither the Biden nor Trump administrations have filled.

Shapiro also called on the administration to fill ambassador and other senior diplomatic posts in the region that the Trump administration has left absent while vesting significant responsibilities in envoys including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The former Biden administration official told lawmakers that efforts to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations had continued even following the disruptions of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, which would have been paired with an end to the war in Gaza and a release of hostages. 

He said that Saudi demands for a component related to advancing a two-state solution have also remained consistent — repeatedly referencing comments to that effect by former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had long worked on Saudi-Israel normalization.

President Donald Trump announced the morning after the hearing that a new civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is “totally subject” to Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords. Shapiro and Democratic lawmakers had criticized the administration for reportedly inking that ideal without connecting it to normalization, but Friedman suggested there might be more at play that had not been reported.

Friedman argued that Saudi Arabia’s core security interests in normalization, for the purpose of countering Iran and its proxies, remains the same. And he emphasized that no new Israeli government is likely to take a more positive stance toward a two-state solution, highlighting widespread support among the Palestinian population for Hamas and the Oct. 7 attacks.

Friedman said that other countries won’t be interested in pursuing normalization without a durable, bipartisan U.S. consensus in support of Israel, which he said is slipping on the extreme fringes of both parties.

“These countries are watching this every single day. … Until we know who we are, where we stand as a country with regard to Israel, no one’s going to take a gamble,” Friedman said.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a founder and co-chair of the House Abraham Accords Caucus, also warned that politicization of the U.S.-Israel relationship at home is counterproductive to the cause of normalization.

“We risk squandering the opportunity to help lead the region of the Middle East — critical to the United States — we risk squandering the opportunity to lead them to a more stable, secure, prosperous and, ultimately, more peaceful future,” Schneider said. “We have to be united in our commitment to that vision of regional integration, the vision of a safe and secure Jewish democratic state of Israel, living collectively integrated with the 21 Arab [states], the states of the Arab League, and the Palestinians and their aspirations to self-determination and peace with Israel.”

Shapiro repeatedly warned that the Iran war is a major stumbling block toward further normalization, arguing that the conflict is making Gulf states doubt their long-term alliances with the U.S. and see Israel and, to an extent, the U.S. as destabilizing actors. He said that further Israeli action against violent settlers in the West Bank would also be an important step.

Friedman said that settler violence should be opposed but argued that the scope of the problem has been significantly overstated and Palestinian violence in the West Bank has been overlooked.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza, Shapiro argued that Arab publics in the region are less interested in normalization, and the Israeli public has likewise grown more aggressive toward potential security threats, neither of which are conducive to further normalization.

But he pointed to the governmental changes in Syria and Lebanon as providing opportunities for normalization.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), another co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus, warned that the Accords currently lack grassroots buy-in and also emphasized the need to work to maintain and strengthen the current agreements, in addition to looking for ways to expand them. She criticized moves by the Trump administration to cut funding for people-to-people peacebuilding programs.

Fredman laid out a multi-point strategy for expanding the Accords, which received praise on both sides of the aisle, including advancing IMEC, pursuing a coordinated roadmap and strategy to advance projects and other economic harmonization efforts, advancing technology and security partnerships and pursuing people-to-people connections through expansions of existing U.S. scientific, leadership and education programs.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) sudden death last weekend is complicating an already difficult dynamic between Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, as legislators try to muster enough support in the caucus to pass the president’s key legislative priorities. 

Graham’s committee chairmanships, vast donor network and his close relationship with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made him a critical leader in Washington whose presence helped move forward multiple bipartisan efforts, especially on foreign policy. He became one of the most geopolitically connected members of Congress, with world leaders and captains of industry on speed dial.

“It’s impossible to fill that void, number one, so I’ll just take that off the table,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Jewish Insider at a press conference at NRSC headquarters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. 

Scott, who represented South Carolina alongside Graham for 13 years, said he has spoken with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) about the challenges Graham’s death creates for the party and detailed several areas where Senate GOP leadership is hoping some of their members will attempt to step in on the late senator’s behalf.

The first of those “three layers,” Scott said, is “the foreign policy front.” The second was Graham’s “budgetary responsibilities” as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. The third area, he said, was “bridging the gap between the two sides of the aisle.”

“Those are the three areas that I know that we’ve been consciously considering,” Scott said. “I have spoken to Leader Thune as well. I think those are three big areas that we’d love to see, probably, a couple people step into.”

On the foreign policy front, Scott noted, “There’s no doubt that when you’re looking at leaders around the world who disagree vehemently with each other, the one guy you might be willing to sit at the table with was Lindsey Graham. He just did a really good job.”

“Frankly, you go to the Middle East and without any question, I’m not sure that there was a bigger, more enthusiastic supporter of the president’s actions in Iran — I happen to be one of them as well — than Lindsey Graham,” Scott said. “[Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi [Netanyahu] calling him at lunch was kind of fun to watch. I’m a big fan of Bibi myself, and just knowing the relationship that they had when I spoke with Bibi myself years ago, I would say without question, Lindsey Graham’s name always came up. You know why? Because, frankly, he took the time to make the trip there.”

“Whether it’s the European front, the Middle East, or frankly, his enthusiasm around Venezuela, he was always in the midst when it came to solving problems around the world because he believed in peace through strength,” he continued. “It was not just a tagline. It was not just a philosophy. It was embedded in his DNA.”

Scott said Republicans will need to focus on “finding someone who has that passion” that Graham applied to his foreign policy dealings. Graham spearheaded the passage of the second Trump administration’s two reconciliation packages — the One Big Beautiful Bill last July, which made the tax cuts implemented in the first Trump administration permanent and enacted a wide range of spending cuts, and the Secure America Act in June to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“We are living in polarizing times politically. Lindsey Graham was not completely aware of that. He thought you could still find common ground to get something done,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said. “He turned out to be right. Being able to have [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal (D-CT) knocking on the door for Russian sanctions is only possible because Lindsey Graham spends so much time talking to people that vehemently disagree with him on 85% or 90% of topics. Find that one, you march together.”

As to the budget reconciliation process, Scott said, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) would step in as budget chair. “Big shoes to fill,” Scott added. 

Scott touted his late colleague’s ability to reach across the aisle and argued that “bridging that gap is going to be really important.” 

“We are living in polarizing times politically. Lindsey Graham was not completely aware of that. He thought you could still find common ground to get something done. He turned out to be right. Being able to have [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal (D-CT) knocking on the door for Russian sanctions is only possible because Lindsey Graham spends so much time talking to people that vehemently disagree with him on 85% or 90% of topics. Find that one, you march together.”

As one of the few lawmakers capable of closing the gap between Senate Republicans and the president, Graham became somewhat of a mediator. 

“Lindsey left an indelible mark on the Senate, on the nation and on the hearts of his colleagues,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told JI. “At times when senators were at each other’s throats, were angry, Lindsey could cut the tension with a self-deprecating quip that brought everything to a stop and brought people back together again.”

Leading Democrats also paid tribute to Graham’s legislative acumen. “Lindsey was part of every important policy issue and an indispensable player in every Senate ‘gang.’ He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of Graham after his death was announced.

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI on Sunday of Graham. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Graham was involved in every successful bipartisan piece of legislation that Trump has signed into law thus far in his second term. During the Biden administration, Graham was one of the 19 Republican senators who crossed party lines to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and his decision to come out against the bipartisan immigration reform deal organized by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has been described as the final death knell that sealed the legislation’s fate.

Graham was also the Republican in Trump’s orbit to whom Senate Democrats would go when trying to settle a legislative dispute or join forces on an issue of bipartisan concern. 

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI on Sunday of Graham. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Graham’s passing puts the longtime legislative and geopolitical priorities he fought for in jeopardy. 

The South Carolina Republican spent the last five years lobbying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to bring Riyadh into the Abraham Accords. Graham tried to secure an agreement on several occasions under Trump and former President Joe Biden, and said repeatedly that he was on the verge of reaching a deal that would see Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel in exchange for Israel recognizing a Palestinian state. 

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Graham maintained that Iran ordered the attacks to upend his Saudi-Israeli normalization efforts. 

Graham was one of the most outspoken and effective Republican advocates in Congress for increasing military funding. Prior to his death, he had been lobbying the president to get behind the Russia sanctions bill he co-sponsored with Blumenthal, and expressed optimism in his final phone call with Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration, that Trump was coming around to the idea.

Trump said on Tuesday that he was considering supporting the bill, which he has long hesitated to get behind, “in honor of Lindsey.”

“This was his thing, he wanted this more than any other thing. You know how he felt,” Trump said from the White House. “There’s a good chance that it gets done. But they’d like to add Iran. And they’d like to add Hezbollah to it. That’s what I’m hearing.”

Ortagus told JI, “There was not a fight on domestic or foreign affairs that he didn’t want to jump into. If he believed in an issue and believed that a particular policy was the right thing, he really didn’t care about the politics.”

As President Donald Trump returned to Washington on the first Sunday of the new year, he was joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had traveled to the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate a day earlier to be with Trump after he ordered the operation that deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Graham, 71, had been encouraging Trump since returning to office last January to take a more aggressive posture toward the Maduro regime, and vigorously defended the president’s decision to launch a series of strikes targeting Venezuelan boats that the Trump administration alleged were carrying drugs meant to reach U.S. soil. By late October, he was calling on Maduro to flee Venezuela and cede power as tensions between Trump and the dictator escalated. 

During an impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One, Trump and Graham defended the merits of the operation and predicted that the Cuban regime was likely to fall as a result of the mission. The South Carolina senator, one of the most hawkish Republican lawmakers on foreign policy, grinned as he heralded the mission as a success.

“When I was on Air Force One with the president flying back and we did that news conference, if you thought I was smiling big on the outside, you have no idea how much I was smiling on the inside,” Graham told Jewish Insider in an interview shortly after arriving in Washington with the president. “This is the best time in my political life because I’ve aligned myself with the strongest president in modern times. We’re getting results that are making this world safer and America more prosperous.”

By that time, more than 10 years after rejecting Trump’s candidacy and decrying him as a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot” whose rhetoric would “kill my party,” Graham had become one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate and a close confidante on foreign policy matters.

“This is what happens when you stay in his orbit, realizing there’s far more good than bad and understanding that this man has magic that nobody on the planet has,” the South Carolina senator told JI. “It’s not so much that I’m on a roll. It’s the fact that talking with President Trump, he is embracing policies that he calls common sense, and the small part I play on the end of this, I’m so proud of.”

Following Graham’s sudden passing this weekend, Trump somberly reflected on the loss of his friend, political confidante and golfing partner, praising the late senator for his political acumen and his patriotism in a pair of media interviews and two social media posts.

“He’s a tough one to lose. He was great. He was unique in every way, actually,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning of Graham. “He was really a worker. … He was a great politician, actually.”

“He was such an advocate if he wanted to get something. He had a unique ability, he was able to deal with Democrats. If I had a problem, a real problem, I wouldn’t often ask, but if I had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out,” he continued. “There was nobody like him. He loved being a politician, and he was going to win his election [in November for a fifth Senate term]. … He just had it made.” 

Graham passed away on Saturday evening after returning from a congressional delegation that included stops in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Ankara, Turkey, for last week’s NATO summit.

The South Carolina senator arrived to his Capitol Hill townhome late Saturday afternoon and began making phone calls to Republican political allies in the early evening about legislative business, developments in the Middle East and to share details of his recent trip, according to two sources with direct knowledge. 

One of those calls was to the president. Another was to Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration and one of Graham’s closest confidantes in Washington. The president said that Graham mentioned being “tired” during their conversation, but noted that “he was fine” and expressed shock at his sudden passing. Ortagus told JI on Sunday afternoon that Graham was upbeat during their final conversation, expressing optimism that Trump was coming around on supporting his Russia sanctions bill and with resuming military operations in Iran. 

“Nobody was expecting this. That’s for sure. Not even Lindsey was, or he wouldn’t have been running for another term,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has had close relationships with both Graham and Trump, said of the senator’s sudden passing. “When a person cuts as wide a swath as Lindsey cuts, it is shocking. It will take some time to process the reality of it. It should really hit on Monday when we show up for work.”

It came as a shock to Trump, Ortagus and everyone else in Graham’s orbit when his office announced his passing in the early hours of Sunday morning, which the Washington D.C. medical examiner’s office, in a preliminary autopsy report, attributed to aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

“He was extremely jazzed up in our last conversation. He had just gotten off the phone with the president, and he was super excited about the Russia sanctions bill and the president deciding to go back into Iran,” Ortagus told JI. “He could not have been happier when I spoke to him last night. He was in the best mood and in a great place. He spoke about how he felt like he was doing consequential work.”

“Nobody was expecting this. That’s for sure. Not even Lindsey was, or he wouldn’t have been running for another term,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has had close relationships with both Graham and Trump, said of the senator’s sudden passing. “When a person cuts as wide a swath as Lindsey cuts, it is shocking. It will take some time to process the reality of it. It should really hit on Monday when we show up for work.”

Asked about his phone call with Graham during his “Meet the Press” appearance — on which Graham had been scheduled to appear — Trump said, “I just can’t believe it. He was like a member of the family to me. It’s very tough, actually. It’s amazing.”

Trump and Graham formed an unlikely relationship over the course of the first Trump administration, finding common ground with the establishment of the Abraham Accords and the confirmation of the president’s Supreme Court nominees. 

Graham briefly broke with Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, condemning the attack and recognizing Biden’s 2020 victory. But within months, Graham was regularly visiting Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., and publicly urging his party to rally around the president’s bid for a second term in 2024. 

“He genuinely had a fantastic relationship with President Trump. They really actually liked each other a lot. I think Trump was his best friend in many ways,” Ortagus said. “He loved the president. It was genuine. They were incredibly good friends.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Graham got to know each other as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the presidential campaign trail in 2016. The two developed a close working relationship in the last decade, finding common ground on economic and foreign policy issues that pitted them against the expanding populist wing of the GOP. 

Speaking to JI on Sunday, Cruz said that Graham and Trump “became close friends. Lindsey would call the president early in the morning, late at night and at every hour in between. And the president listened to him. He didn’t always agree, but he trusted him and he knew that Lindsey was speaking from the heart.”

“[Senate Majority Leader] John Thune (R-SD) is going to miss him terribly. Donald Trump is going to miss him terribly,” Cramer told JI. “It confounds them, MAGA world. They love Donald Trump and can’t stand Lindsey Graham, so they’re befuddled by the relationship.”

Cramer noted that Trump has developed political alliances with several former critics, the most notable example being Vice President JD Vance, who was similarly disapproving of the president during the 2016 election. Like Graham, the vice president became an avid defender of Trump during the president’s first term. 

While both men found their way into the president’s orbit, they remained on opposing sides of the conservative movement, with Vance becoming one of the leading GOP voices wary of U.S. military engagement abroad and Graham emerging as a leading force behind the effort to maintain an engaged foreign policy. 

“With Lindsey, he was talented,” Cramer said. “He was bright and he knew things that a lot of people don’t know. He had a historical perspective a lot of people don’t have. He had a Rolodex that’s probably in several languages, and he called you from all kinds of time zones. You never knew where he was when he called.”

Despite having those conservative detractors, following his death, Graham was lauded for his humor, his friendship and his public and private support for Trump by those in the president’s orbit — including Vance and other prominent Trump administration officials who were not often ideologically aligned with the late senator.

“Early in my Senate tenure, I remember getting into a shouting match with Lindsey about a Ukraine funding bill at lunch and then learning the very next day that he was pushing rail legislation I really cared about behind the scenes,” Vance wrote on X. “That was Lindsey Graham. He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted.”

“Lindsey had the best sense of humor in the Senate. He loved the game of politics. He was constantly asking which races were up and down, and how he could help,” the vice president continued. “As he liked to say, ‘I don’t care if you’re an isolationist or a religious fanatic, so long as you have an R next to your name, I want you to win.’ We certainly had our disagreements. But I couldn’t help but like him. A one of a kind figure in our politics.”

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a longtime Trump advisor, described Graham as a cherished ally to the president in implementing the administration’s policy goals and spoke of telling the late senator “what his friendship meant to me and to us all.”

“I cannot describe to you how much joy President Trump’s leadership and friendship brought to Lindsey,” Miller wrote on X. “Meetings with Graham at the White House were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”

“The fact that Lindsey started out as a political opponent only to become one the President’s most steadfast and faithful supporters underscores that Lindsey believed emphatically in the voice of the people,” he explained. 

Miller described Graham as “a senator’s senator” and praised his ability to “move a room,” calling it “a glorious thing to witness.”

Sander Gerber, the CEO of Hudson Bay Capital and the architect of the Taylor Force Act, the passage of which Graham championed, told JI, “Lindsey was a maverick. He didn’t care about convention. He cared about doing what was right. When Lindsey set his mind to something, he was going to deliver on it, and he had a keen sense of the politics to be successful at that. He should be remembered as one of the greatest champions for Israel among members of Congress.”

“As heartbreaking as his sudden passing is, I hope it will bring some measure of comfort to those who cherished him to know just how much he was living his dream every day,” Miller said. “Very rarely in life do you get to be exactly where you want to be, when you want to be there, with who you want to be with, doing precisely what you want to do — that was every moment for Lindsey.”

Many of those who spoke about Graham after his passing described the South Carolina Republican, who spent more than two decades in the Senate, as a professional at navigating choppy political waters 

“He wasn’t just a good talker, he had depth,” Cramer said. “He knew what the hell he was talking about. He had interesting insights.”

Sander Gerber, the CEO of Hudson Bay Capital and the architect of the Taylor Force Act, the passage of which Graham championed, told JI, “Lindsey was a maverick. He didn’t care about convention. He cared about doing what was right. When Lindsey set his mind to something, he was going to deliver on it, and he had a keen sense of the politics to be successful at that. He should be remembered as one of the greatest champions for Israel among members of Congress.”

“In order to get things done in Congress, to actually make a difference, you need to have the relationships,” Gerber said. “Lindsey was able to cultivate those relationships, and that’s what enabled him to get things done. There are 100 senators, but he was able to get his voice to stand out and to drive policy forward.”

Republicans and Democrats alike predicted Graham would be remembered as a legendary American political figure known for his ability to take political risks and find common ground in unexpected places. 

“There was not a fight on domestic or foreign affairs that he didn’t want to jump into,” Ortagus said of Graham. “If he believed in an issue and believed that a particular policy was the right thing, he really didn’t care about the politics. Ultimately, he wouldn’t change what he believed was right based on politics, and that’s in very short supply politically right now.”

Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and head of U.S. Central Command, told JI that Graham’s legacy would be “that of someone who was fiercely committed to the enduring principles, values and freedoms that we cherish, and who had the political skills and determination to see what he supported promoted by legislation, policies and strategies.”

“Sen. Graham’s dedication to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people was deeply sincere. We talked about it all the time. I went to Israel with him many times,” said Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration and one of Graham’s closest confidantes in Washington. “He was a Southern Baptist and believed in the importance of the Jewish state to his core, and was willing to defend it.”

“I think he would be pleased to hear me say that he was not just adept, but was diabolically creative when necessary to achieve the outcomes to which he was committed,” Petraeus said.

Many of Graham’s allies said they expect his longstanding support for Israel and his commitment to aiding Ukraine in Russia’s war against it to be signature pieces of his foreign policy legacy.

“Sen. Graham’s dedication to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people was deeply sincere. We talked about it all the time. I went to Israel with him many times,” Ortagus said. “He was a Southern Baptist and believed in the importance of the Jewish state to his core, and was willing to defend it.”

“We talked a lot in the past year about the rise of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in both parties. He was very close to my daughter and she called him ‘Uncle Lindsey,’” she continued. “I would always remind him that I have a Jewish daughter and that throughout our history, the Jewish people have always thought we were safe until we weren’t.”

Ortagus said she and Graham “agreed that we have to fight antisemitism back in our party, that it can’t be allowed to fester. He would always talk about how important it was. He had deeply held personal beliefs on what America’s relationship with Israel should be. There was nothing cynical or craven about it.”

Cruz described Graham as “a passionate and formidable defender of Israel” and noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “trusted Lindsey and listened to him.”

“Lindsey loved the nation of Israel. He loved the people of Israel, and he believed ferociously in defending and strengthening America’s friendship and alliance with Israel,” the Texas senator said of his late colleague. “Now, Lindsey would sometimes tell his friends messages they didn’t want to hear. Lindsey was not one to just blow smoke. He would tell people exactly what he thought, but that made him an incredibly effective advocate for Israel.”

“Lindsey understood that standing with Israel is overwhelmingly in America’s national security interests,” he continued. “He and I collaborated very closely on articulating why standing with Israel makes America safer, that the enemies of Israel, whether Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran, are the enemies of America as well.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) credited Graham with doing “a masterful job of pulling” senators from across the ideological spectrum “in the same direction” in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, swiftly organizing a bipartisan congressional delegation alongside former Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as he sought to salvage his longstanding efforts to achieve Saudi-Israeli normalization. 

“It was an incredible trip, and all of us said it was just one of the most consequential, constructive trips we’d ever been on,” Coons told JI. “[Sen.] Katie Britt (R-AL) came on the trip. It was one of her first trips as a senator, I think. Think about the range of members who we had. We had [Sens.] Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in the same meeting.”

“Even though it was two weeks after Oct. 7 and it was in the middle of that shock, he knew what he was doing,” Coons continued. “He was building a coalition of supporters for the deal that he was hoping he could pull off.”

Coons was one of several people to point to Graham’s well-documented friendships with the late Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), known as the Senate’s “three amigos,” as an important part of his legacy. 

“I think he continued McCain’s legacy of fighting for freedom, and he never gave up on the possibility of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Coons said. “That was his prize.”

“He was not afraid to be critical and he was never uncritical of friends. He believed that friends owe it to each other to try to enable them to do better,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “He had a vision, which was in effect the normalization of relationships throughout the Middle East, an extension of the Abraham Accords. He pursued it relentlessly.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who maintains a similarly bipartisan reputation in Congress, worked with Graham frequently on foreign policy matters. Blumenthal began traveling abroad with Graham in 2012, two years after being elected to the Senate. Their first trip together was a congressional delegation to the Middle East organized by McCain. The two traveled repeatedly to Ukraine and its European neighbors since Russia’s invasion, and to the Middle East since Oct. 7. 

“He loved the Jewish people and he loved the Jewish state, which was so striking to me when I first traveled with him and John McCain to Israel,” Blumenthal told JI. “He and McCain loved the faith of the Jewish people, which of course is so much a part of life in Israel, but Sen. Graham also loved Israel’s ingenuity and inventiveness and the prowess and scrappiness of its military.”

“He was not afraid to be critical and he was never uncritical of friends. He believed that friends owe it to each other to try to enable them to do better,” he continued. “He had a vision, which was in effect the normalization of relationships throughout the Middle East, an extension of the Abraham Accords. He pursued it relentlessly.”

On the Taylor Force Act, Gerber noted that he convinced Graham to push for the Palestinian Authority to end its controversial payment program to Palestinian terrorists and their families, also known as “pay-for-slay,” after showing the senator video footage of the Palestinian Authority celebrating the terrorist who murdered Taylor Force, a U.S. army veteran killed by a Palestinian while visiting Israel in 2016.

“I’d shown this to many other senators, but no one was as upset as Lindsey. I remember him shaking when he saw the footage,” Gerber said. “Originally, I just wanted to educate Congress about what was going on, so I was trying to meet with as many members as I could to let them know the Palestinian Authority had this institutional infrastructure in place.”

Leading Jewish and pro-Israel organizations praised Graham in statements on his passing as a champion for the Jewish state and in the fight to combat rising antisemitism. 

“For more than two decades in the United States Senate, his voice was a constant reminder that a strong Israel is firmly in America’s national security interest, and his commitment to these principles never wavered,” AIPAC said. “His many visits to Israel and his love for the Israeli people reflected not just a policy position, but a deep personal connection to the Jewish state and its citizens.”

The American Jewish Committee described the late senator as “a powerful advocate for many of the issues AJC champions, including American global leadership, Israel’s security, a robust North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Ukraine’s defensive fight against Russian aggression.”

AIPAC called Graham “a great friend and true champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

“For more than two decades in the United States Senate, his voice was a constant reminder that a strong Israel is firmly in America’s national security interest, and his commitment to these principles never wavered,” the organization said. “His many visits to Israel and his love for the Israeli people reflected not just a policy position, but a deep personal connection to the Jewish state and its citizens.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition released a statement from Matt Brooks, the organization’s CEO, and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), the organization’s national chairman, describing the late senator as “a dear friend” to both men personally and the organization as a whole. 

“On a personal level, Lindsey was a man of deep loyalty, humor, and heart. He treated everyone, ally or adversary, with warmth and respect, and he built friendships across the aisle that many said were impossible in today’s Washington,” the statement read. 

The GOP senator’s slow embrace of Trump earned him criticism from constituents and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. As a former conservative House lawmaker who had fought the rise of the Tea Party movement in the early 2010s, Graham had built a reputation as a defense hawk with a penchant for bipartisanship when Trump was first elected in 2016. 

Some Democrats were angered by his political pivot, especially during and after the first Trump administration, but Graham maintained strong relationships with his Democratic colleagues and continued working with them frequently on efforts to support Ukraine and other areas of agreement. 

“He deeply, genuinely loved the Senate. He tried really hard to do positive things for the institution at the same time that he was a fierce partisan,” Coons said of Graham. “Our fight over Kavanaugh was one of the worst I’ve ever had.”

Another of those Democrats is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who became close with Graham in the two-and-a-half years since the Oct. 7 attacks. Graham and Fetterman, whose decision to vocally support Israel amid declining support in the Democratic Party prompted his relationship with the progressive left to collapse, frequently engaged on foreign policy matters, especially related to developments in the Middle East. 

Fetterman described Graham to JI as “warm, friendly and thoughtful” and called his passing “a tragedy.” 

“Israel lost a huge champion with Lindsey Graham,” the Pennsylvania senator said. 

Libertarian and isolationist Republicans, meanwhile, grew frustrated that such a hawkish voice was being consulted so closely on foreign policy matters in an America First administration. 

“There should be a law that Lindsey Graham can only enter the White House every other week, and that he’s only to meet with under mid-level people, not the president. No more golf outings,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a foe of Graham’s in the Senate Republican Conference who opposed the president’s actions in Venezuela, told reporters in January. 

Across the political spectrum, those who knew Graham described him as an irreplaceable fixture in the Senate and predicted that his loss would cause many voids in the upper chamber, where the late senator was supposed to take over as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee next year.

“He links so many things and so many people that without him, there’s a missing link in a lot of relationships between Middle Eastern countries between members of the Senate, between Budget Committee members and leadership, between the Republicans and Democrats,” Cramer said of Graham’s expansive presence in the Senate. “We’ll find out the consequences of losing him in time like this soon, but it’ll be hard to navigate to be sure.”

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Cruz told JI that, “nobody will fill that void” left by Graham’s absence, citing the respective impacts of McCain and the late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to the upper chamber. 

“When John McCain passed away, that was a void that was never filled. When Orrin Hatch, another longtime legend of the Senate, passed away, that was a void that was never filled,” Cruz said. “Nobody will fill Lindsey’s shoes. Others will step up and lead in different ways, but Lindsey left an indelible mark on the Senate, on the nation and on the hearts of his colleagues.”

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Coons said. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who represented South Carolina in the Senate for more than two decades and was a stalwart supporter of Israel during his time in office, died on Saturday, his office announced. He was 71.

Graham, who served in the House of Representatives for more than a decade before being elected to the Senate in 2002, had recently returned from Ukraine, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Prior to Ukraine, he had been part of a bipartisan U.S. delegation in Ankara, Turkey, for the NATO summit.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) @LindseyGrahamSC died Saturday following what his office described as “a brief and sudden illness.”

Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu called him “a great American patriot and a great champion of the Israel-American alliance.”

President Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/sKzQc2XnmT

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026

NBC News reported that emergency personnel had responded on Saturday evening to a call regarding a cardiac arrest at Graham’s home on Capitol Hill.

A longtime advocate for Israel, Graham traveled to the country in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, making at least 10 trips to the region since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. He last traveled to Israel days before the outbreak of the Iran war in February 2026, during which he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Graham was openly critical of Iran and skeptical of Western engagement with the Islamic Republic. He was a vocal opponent of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and favored military engagement to address the threats posed by the Islamic Republic. He defended the Trump administration’s recent negotiations with Tehran, but said in June that he thought those talks were “going to fail.”

The South Carolina Republican had been up for reelection in November after easily clearing the GOP field in the state’s primary last month. Graham’s death is expected to trigger a special primary in the state to determine who will replace him on the ballot.

The Republican lawmaker was swiftly eulogized by top Israeli political figures.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had “lost one of its greatest friends.” Graham, Netanyahu said, “understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable. He devoted his life to defending America, strengthening our alliance and standing up for the free world.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that he was “shocked and heartbroken” to learn of Graham’s death, calling the senator a “dear friend” and a “great American patriot, a great friend of Israel.”

“Senator Graham was a beacon of moral clarity and a true leader of the U.S.-Israel partnership,” Herzog said. “We will never forget how he stood by the people of Israel in our most difficult moments, and we will remain eternally grateful for his sense of justice, truth, and loyalty.”

In a social media post, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is running in the current election, mourned Graham as one of the country’s “greatest friends,” who “stood with Israel through our darkest hours, with courage.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) reelection race has turned into a local and national flashpoint following the Republican-led redistricting process in Florida, and risks driving a wedge in traditional Black-Jewish alliances in the state and the party.

Wasserman Schultz is running in South Florida’s newly redrawn 20th Congressional District, a decision pitting the longtime Democratic leader and former Democratic National Committee chair against leaders who have criticized her for running in a seat historically represented by a Black lawmaker.

Yet, Wasserman Schultz also maintains dedicated supporters in the district and her home state at large, especially within the Jewish community.

“I have spent my whole adult life fighting for Broward County, and I want to continue the fight to make life more affordable for the families in CD20 who are stretched to the breaking point by the Trump MAGA agenda,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

“And as I meet with voters throughout District 20, the overwhelming response is that voters know my record of standing up for them and delivering billions in local funding for Broward parks, clean water and transit and other projects and all the jobs that come with them,” she continued. “Voters also know that I’ve always spoken out for them and they want me to keep up the critical fight against Trump’s high-cost, corrupt agenda.”

Despite repeatedly expressing support for all Democratic incumbents, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has so far declined to endorse Wasserman Schultz for reelection. 

“As I’ve indicated relative to the congresswoman, she’s had an extraordinary career,” Jeffries told reporters last week. “She’s a valuable member of the House Democratic caucus, and I’m looking forward to having more to say about that when we are closer to the Florida Democratic primary.”

Black leaders in the area brought together various candidates running against Wasserman Schultz in an effort to consolidate around a single candidate, but ultimately failed to do so, leaving a divided field opposing the longtime legislator.

Democratic leaders in and around the district lamented the situation that the redistricting process, that effectively erased Wasserman Schultz’s previous district, has created, accusing the GOP both of trying to gerrymander seats for its own gain as well as create racial divisions in the Democratic Party.

“The situation we’re in is the result of a deliberate decision by the Republican leadership in our state to target all three Jewish members of Congress from South Florida, to target the two African American members of Congress from South Florida and deliberately set something up that was going to result in, let’s say, tension between those two historically allied communities,” said Joe Geller, a former Florida House Democrat, who lives outside the district and is supporting Wasserman Schultz.

Geller argued that the redistricting explicitly violates the Florida state constitution, which bans the drawing of districts based purely on partisanship, arguing that the recent Supreme Court decision allowing for racial gerrymandering doesn’t override that provision.

“This was done deliberately by enemies of both communities to create dissension between traditional allies,” Geller continued. “It’s cynical, it’s illegal and it’s disgusting.”

He said that state courts should immediately halt the redistricting and require that the election be run under the previous lines until the issue can be litigated further, claiming that Republicans had timed the redrawing specifically in order to try to avoid judicial review.

Wasserman Schultz, throughout her time in Congress, has been a fierce and vocal advocate for Israel and for the Jewish community, breaking at times with her party on the issue. She’s currently a co-chair of the Abraham Accords caucus, was a co-founder of the Congressional Jewish Caucus and is one of the most prominent Jewish leaders inside the Democratic caucus.

Mitch Ceasar, a former chair of the Broward County Democratic Party, predicted that, given challengers’ failure to unite behind a single candidate, Wasserman Schultz should still be favored to win the seat with a plurality of the vote.

Wasserman Schultz faced pressure to run in another neighboring district, but, observers on the ground acknowledged, that seat would have been tougher for Democrats to win.

Polling released in early June showed Wasserman Schultz leading with around 39% support, followed most closely by self-described democratic socialist Elijah Manley at 21% and former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness at 15%. 

The polling found Wasserman Schultz would trail either of them, or rapper and free speech activist Luther Campbell, in a head-to-head race, though it’s now too late for any candidate to withdraw from the ballot.

A poll by Wasserman Schultz’s campaign released around the same time found her leading all of the other candidates combined, at 52%, with near-universal name recognition and 80% favorability across the district.

Manley’s candidacy is causing consternation among members of the Jewish community, due to the anti-Israel stance he has staked out over the course of the campaign, which includes an endorsement from the antisemitic group TrackAIPAC. Prior to his congressional bid, he described supporters of Israel as cultish and accused pro-Israel Americans of “meddling in our country’s affairs.” He said in 2020 he was in the process of converting to Judaism.

Manley has picked up support from the Florida Democratic Progressive Caucus and the president of the Democratic Black Caucus — though the caucus as a whole did not offer an endorsement.

He has also offered other fringe views, including describing police unions as “terrorist organizations.”

Ceasar noted that, while Manley has gained attention and support, he’s also a perennial candidate for office whose past runs have been unsuccessful. He also mounted a failed bid for the Socialist Party’s presidential nomination in 2020. 

Ceasar also said that the other candidates in the race, including Holness, Campbell and former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) — the latter of whom resigned from Congress earlier this year and is facing federal criminal corruption charges — have taken more pro-Israel stances.

Wasserman Schultz has long enjoyed strong support from — and spoken proudly of — the Jewish community in the district, joking at times at Jewish community events about representing the large Jewish retiree population.

Ceasar said that there is still a Jewish bloc in the district, but the demographics even in traditionally Jewish parts of the area have been changing, with a growing minority retiree population — though he said that political stances of the two communities are fairly similar.

Cherfilus-McCormick, whose corruption trial isn’t slated to begin until after the election, remains something of a wild card, Ceasar noted. Holness, he said, has posted strong performances in the district in the past. Ceasar said he was somewhat surprised by Campbell’s candidacy, given that he has stronger roots in a neighboring district, which is also an open seat.

Richard Stark, who chairs the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus, which is remaining formally neutral in the race, said that Wasserman Schultz has been a strong and aggressive campaigner going back to her first campaigns for political office — “she worked hard, she campaigned, walked door to door and she got that support, and chances are she’ll do the same thing now.”

Speaking in a personal capacity, Stark said Wasserman Schultz is also popular and well-known for delivering results for various communities she represents. He speculated that, given her stature in the state, Republicans particularly hoped to see her pushed out of Congress.

“She’s a star within the Democratic Party, for the most part. It’s really a shame that we have to have a race like that,” Stark said. “She’s looking for the best that she can do for the United States of America and for the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Mark Winer, Stark’s predecessor as the Jewish Caucus chair, said that Wasserman Schultz is “the most important Democratic politician in Florida, over many, many, many years” who has had “phenomenal influence beyond her district and beyond the Congress” and is a “real force within the district.”

Winer said it’s a “real question for the future whether she’ll get reelected — it’s tough — but she is a formidable politician, she really knows how to do retail politics.”

Winer and Stark traced some of the hostility toward Wasserman Schultz, particularly among progressives, to her role as DNC chair in 2016. Progressives continue to accuse the congresswoman of putting her thumb on the scale for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she campaigned against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the presidential campaign. 

Looking further ahead, even if Wasserman Schultz ends up winning with a plurality of the vote against a divided opposition, that could signal vulnerability in a future primary election against a more unified opposition effort. But, Ceasar emphasized, “human nature always makes that difficult.”

Jewish Republican donors and activists are voicing their strong disappointment with President Donald Trump’s newly announced memorandum of understanding with Iran, which has been met with criticism from GOP lawmakers as well as influential hawkish conservatives.

Trump has fiercely defended the deal to end the war with Iran, the text of which was released Wednesday, claiming it is superior to the nuclear agreement with Tehran that was reached by former President Barack Obama in 2015.

But in interviews with Jewish Insider on Thursday, several Jewish conservatives who supported the war expressed misgivings about the deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz, saying that it had granted too many concessions to a weakened Iran — including waiving sanctions on oil exports — while neglecting to broach the regime’s funding of terror proxies and its ballistic missile arsenal.

They also raised concerns that the memorandum of understanding with Tehran had not been favorable to Israel, a U.S. partner in the war, pointing to a term of the preliminary agreement that calls for a permanent end to military operations in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah, a key Iranian ally.

And they expressed serious doubts over Iran’s willingness to finalize a nuclear agreement during the 60-day negotiating period, fearing it could be indefinitely extended by “mutual consent,” per the terms of the MOU.

Their reactions highlight a rare point of tension between Trump and pro-Israel Republicans, who have long applauded his commitment to upholding a close alliance with the Jewish state, even amid rising hostility to Israel from the populist far right opposed to foreign wars.

Vice President JD Vance, who had initially been skeptical of the war, delivered a scathing public rebuke of Israeli officials who had criticized the agreement, saying on Thursday that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time” and warning Israeli detractors against “attacking the only powerful ally” they have “anywhere left in the entire world.”

But Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser who is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that the war “achieved none of its stated aims,” including Trump’s pledge to liberate Iranians from a theocratic regime and nuclear disarmament. “We ran 26 miles, and then chose to stop at the last 385 yards,” he told JI. “I don’t understand why.”

“The most disturbing thing about the deal is that we have conceded to the Iranians up front that they can leave Lebanon alone,” Levine added, saying the deal effectively constrained Israel’s right to defend itself.

Levine predicted a future scenario in which Hezbollah would be “lobbing missiles into Israel” before the upcoming elections in Israel and the United States, prompting a disastrous chain reaction that could lead to the collapse of the deal and result in widespread GOP losses in November.

“Call me disappointed that we’re going down this road,” he sighed.

The RJC, for its part, was more positive about the deal, saying on Thursday that it had confidence in Trump’s decision, even as it was “deeply skeptical that the Islamic Republic has a genuine interest in peace or will abandon its Islamist, hegemonic malign ambitions in the region.”

The group said it was reassured that Trump had threatened to strike Iran again if it reneged on the agreement. “We take the president at his word and trust him to finish the job in the best interests of the United States and our allies in the region,” the RJC wrote in a lengthy statement.

Other Jewish leaders, however, have not been as charitable in assessing Trump’s motivations. One prominent Jewish Republican donor criticized the deal, speculating it had only come as a response to Trump’s fears about GOP losses in the midterms, as the war and rising gas prices have emerged as potent sources of Democratic attacks.

Gabriel Groisman, a Republican donor in Florida, said the terms of the deal were “certainly worrisome,” noting that “there is still no agreement on the major issues” such as “uranium enrichment, Iran’s ballistic missile program and its funding of terrorist proxies,” even as “sanctions relief appears poised to take effect immediately.”

“This MOU is not the end of the war and it unfortunately will not bring lasting peace,” he told JI. “Instead,” he added, “it appears to signal a significant realignment of American policy in the region, which raises serious concerns for many Americans, for U.S. allies and of course for American Jews, who have a special interest in the safety and security of the world’s only Jewish state.”

Joshua Katzen, the publisher of the Jewish News Syndicate and an RJC board member, echoed that sentiment, saying that he was “disappointed to see” Trump “apparently throwing away the leverage he has painstakingly accumulated and trading it for promises that are likely to be broken.”

“The worst aspect is that by relieving sanctions and allowing Iran to sell oil before they have performed more than letting a few ships through Hormuz,” he added, “Trump had given them the funds to rebuild and reconstitute the threat that he just spent billions of dollars to degrade.”

Katzen expressed hope that Trump was “playing four-dimensional chess here, as he often has in the past, but right now, I’m not so sure his horizon is larger than temporarily reducing oil prices while giving Iran the funds and time to renew their existential threat.”

While many Jewish Republicans acknowledged that Trump had been a strong friend to Israel and praised his initial decision to attack Iran, they were otherwise largely baffled about his decision to end the war, even as some attempted to put a positive spin on the move.

“I’m on a bunch of various threads and the majority are not happy, to say the least,” Alan Sager, a Jewish Republican donor and activist based in Texas, told JI. “I’m a wait-and-see guy.”

Still, he added that he was confused with Trump’s decision and doubted the Iranians would operate in good faith — particularly with regard to nuclear talks that have long proven to be unfruitful. “I don’t know what Trump is thinking,” he told JI. “I don’t trust the Iranians as far as I can throw them.”

Brad Kastan, a GOP donor in Ohio, said he was “taken aback like everybody else” when he learned about the deal, while acknowledging there was “no doubt” Trump ceded valuable leverage in readily agreeing to a range of key concessions. 

“But as in most things in life, things are never as good as you hoped or as bad as you feared,” he told JI, speculating that perhaps Trump agreed to an end to the war in order to “buy more time” for the United States and Israel to replenish their eroding munitions reserves. “Why would you let them off the mat unless you needed to?” 

“For every disappointment, I can’t help but think of all the good that happened. There are a lot of people rushing to jump to conclusions” while ignoring “the bigger picture,” Kastan said. “To conclude we are not better off today than we were a year ago is objectively false,” he argued, claiming “Iran is back on its heels.”

Marc Zell, an Israeli-American lawyer and chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, said in a social media post on Friday that he did not “like the content of the MOU or the tone of certain statements from the” White House “defending it, but that’s politics in an election year.”  

“The bottom line is the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is strong and inviolable,” Zell wrote.

One top Jewish Republican bundler said he was also more sanguine about Trump’s deal. “He took a huge risk for Israel, and people need to see what happens and calm down,” the bundler told JI, referring to the start of the war in February. “No president has done more than him or would do more.”

But Joel Geiderman, an RJC board member in Los Angeles, argued that “Israel’s last reliable ally seems to have abandoned her,” telling JI that he was “very disappointed” with the recently approved agreement.

Another top GOP donor, who also spoke with JI on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject in the wake of the deal, suggested that he was looking at the agreement through a realist’s lens.

In initially launching the war, Trump had “greatly underestimated Iran’s capabilities and willingness to stick with it,” and “put himself in a box where he had to make a deal,” the donor explained. “Every time he announced we had won the war, they’d shoot another ballistic missile.”

“Do I like this deal? Hell no. Nobody thinks he made a great deal. But there’s a difference between making a great deal and making the only deal you can make,” he told JI. “Knowing Donald Trump, he was going to make a deal.”

Republican senators said on Tuesday that they’re skeptical that Iran will hold to any commitments it has made or may make in negotiations with the U.S., and urged the administration to release the terms of the memorandum of understanding announced on Sunday.

The administration has not yet communicated any specific plans to brief Congress on the deal.

“Rather than an end to the activities in Iran, I think it’s more of an intermission,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters. “We still haven’t seen what the documents look like, and regardless of what they look like, I don’t think you can trust the Iranian regime.”

Cornyn added, “I need to see the writing — I need to see the print. But I don’t believe that the regime will abide by it.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) emphasized that the U.S. has been in similar positions with Iran before, and that they have not resulted in a viable long-term agreement. He told Jewish Insider that he thinks it’s “generous to call it a deal, it sounds like it’s a deal in progress … and if we’re making progress, that’s good.”

But he said that it’s hard for him to assess an agreement “that we only get described in broad strokes.”

He said he would also be uncomfortable with any arrangement that provided Iran with a financial windfall. Multiple outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that the MOU includes financial incentives for Iran, including lifting various sanctions.

“I’m worried only because at least some of our decisions seem to be affected by the short-term economic impact [of the war], and that’s not a good decision,” Tillis said. “Talking about some of the money that Iran’s going to start receiving. … If all of the sudden we’re pulling back some of the things that were in place even before the operation, I’ve got a real concern because they’re a totalitarian regime.”

He told JI that the U.S.’s current posture and negotiations with Iran make it appear that “we’re willing to accept a totalitarian regime, and so the question is, how does this agreement match up against the original objectives of this initiative” as laid out by the administration at the beginning of the war.

Tillis added that Trump should explain to the country the national security interests and necessities of the U.S. operations against Iran, and that some short-term economic harm might be a consequence of that.

“That should be the case to the American people, and then you stay strong, versus have a sub-optimal or bad deal that actually enriches the very people that you were focused on trying to take out,” Tillis said. “Now that we’re here, you can’t all of a sudden say that because people are really frustrated with gas prices, that the nuclear threat in Iran is a manageable risk, because that is 180 degrees away from the predicate for going in there to begin with.”

Tillis said that the final deal should be made public, or at least shown to members in a classified setting — though he said he was skeptical there was much substance in the page-and-a-half document described by Vice President JD Vance, given its length.

He also reiterated comments from Monday that any final agreement should be subject to ratification by Congress, as the only way to ensure that such a deal would last. 

“Trump could have a real foreign policy legacy but he’s been poorly influenced because he’s just so insecure. I’ve never seen anything like it. His conviction is his own popularity, his own attention, his own credit. It hurts my heart a little,” another Republican senator told JI. “I just was hoping that the second term he wouldn’t do what he’s done, and that is to make it all about himself like his first term.”

“I don’t know what’s in [the MOU],” the senator added. “Don’t trust any senator who says they know what’s in the deal. They don’t know. I mean, none of us know, not really.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told JI the agreement “looks to me like it’s a deal to make a deal.”

“The only facts I know today are that the blockades on both sides have been lifted. We’re supposed to negotiate more over [60] days,” Kennedy continued. “The Iranian government Iran lies like fish swim. I have no idea, and neither does anyone else, whether they will make concessions. The other thing I know is that Iran is immeasurably weaker today than it was a year ago.”

He added that he does not expect that the “religious zealots” in Iran have “had an epiphany” and will give up their nuclear program.

Kennedy said he’s “sure” the text of the deal will be released this week. In the interim, “If you don’t know [what’s in it], you should shut up, and none of us … know what’s in it. I think we ought to wait and see what’s in it first,” Kennedy continued.

Asked about reports that Iran would be receiving up-front sanctions relief as part of the MOU, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said, “I’d be surprised, I haven’t seen that. I think we’re all in the position we’d like to see the MOU. Unless there’s something in there that they’ve already changed their ways, I don’t know how you’d be entitled to sanctions relief.”

“I think we’d all like to see it,” Scott reiterated, when asked whether he was concerned the administration hasn’t released the text yet. “Then we’d be able to answer questions on specifics.”

Though some Senate Republicans are eager to see the agreement, there do not yet appear to be any specific plans to brief them on it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told JI on Tuesday that he was not yet aware of any plans for the administration to brief Congress on the contents of the MOU between the U.S. and Iran, as lawmakers continue to call for transparency on the agreement.

“Not that I’m aware of yet. [I’m] going to find that out,” Thune told JI, when asked whether the administration had notified him of plans to brief lawmakers.

On the other hand, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), said, “The administration probably has a reason for doing what they’re doing. I don’t know what it is, have not been briefed. We’ll all find out on Friday, and then I expect a briefing after that.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) likewise said his understanding is that the text of the agreement will be released after the formal signing ceremony on Friday.

Democrats have also been critical of the administration for failing to release the text of the MOU, and described it as a bad deal — though many say they support an end to the conflict anyway.

 “He has not released text, but we know one thing about this president: if he had a great deal, he’d be jumping up and down, and doing a press event with the text. The fact that he announced the deal, got on a plane, left the country, and is now letting JD Vance explain it tells you everything you need to know,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI.

He said he doesn’t expect the administration to come to “consult, brief or include us” in any capacity, including under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“They should have come to us, consulted us, briefed us and explained to the American people what their objectives were at the outset, but I don’t expect their conduct to be any different at the conclusion, if there is one. This is such an internally flawed arrangement that it seems to be inevitable that it will fall apart in a matter of weeks,” Coons continued.

“Trump must hold a classified meeting on his so-called ‘understanding’ with Iran. He must brief all of Congress,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “He must inform the American people and make the ‘understanding’ public. … Americans need to know how and when this war will truly end.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that if the deal touches on Iran’s nuclear program, the administration legally has to submit the agreement to Congress, but if the current deal does not include specific commitments on the nuclear program, it may not need to be submitted.

“We’ll know on Friday, and at that point, when it’s all out on the table, I probably have more to say,” Kaine said, declining to comment on potential concessions in the deal until it has been publicized.

Today’s mayoral primary in Washington, D.C., has not gotten the same kind of frenzied national attention that accompanied recent mayoral contests in New York City, which pitted Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, against a centrist Democrat, and in Los Angeles, where Republican Spencer Pratt made an insurgent bid against Mayor Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, a Democrat Socialists of America-affiliated councilmember.

Still, there are some similar dynamics in the race in Washington, where DSA member Janeese Lewis George, a District councilmember, faces Kenyan McDuffie, a former councilmember running a more moderate campaign. And, like in New York, divisions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have surfaced in a way that would once have been unexpected in a municipal election, at least before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

Early this year, Lewis George sparked concern among some Jewish Washingtonians when she said in a DSA questionnaire that she would not attend events that “promot[e] Zionism” and that she would avoid engaging with “the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups.” 

She has since done a degree of damage control — meeting privately with rabbis and pledging at a Jewish candidate forum last month not to exclude people “based on your opinions or feelings on matters here and across the world,” even as she avoided answering a question asking her to clarify her views on Zionism. In March, she said it is not a conflict to support “Palestinian human rights” and to “stand firm in my commitment against antisemitism.” 

McDuffie saw an opening with the DSA endorsement kerfuffle, particularly when talking to Jewish voters, a constituency he has sought to engage. He told Jewish Insider in April that he would not seek the endorsement of DSA or any organization “that requires some sort of divisive pledge to exclude people that are a part of the fabric of the community.” And he has opted not to weigh in on questions about Israel at all, saying it is not the role of a mayor to conduct foreign policy. 

But zoom out, and the candidates’ approaches to Israel and Jewish communal issues were not front and center in the closing days of this race. The campaign has otherwise zeroed in on cost-of-living concerns and a dispute over who will better be able to counter President Donald Trump. 

Last week, Trump waded into the race for the first time when a reporter asked what he thought of a socialist candidate running a “Zohran Mamdani campaign,” referring to the mayor of New York. “I wouldn’t like it,” he said. “Maybe we’d take back Washington and run it on the federal basis. We won’t put up with it.” 

In deep-blue Washington, the threat from Trump has united both McDuffie and Lewis George in doubling down on their opposition to the president and his threat to meddle in local politics, a sensitive topic for the District, which was not allowed by Congress to elect its own government until 1973. 

McDuffie told CNN that the best way to counter Trump is not to give him what he wants (namely, Lewis George): “If you believe Donald Trump is a threat to D.C.’s local autonomy, then the last thing we should do is elect someone whose agenda would make it easier for him to justify federal intervention.”

Lewis George called Trump’s comments “an attack on democracy itself.”

“The people of D.C. elect their mayor, and they want someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump,” she said in a recent campaign video. 

Polling in the race has been scarce. A Washington Post poll conducted in late May found Lewis George leading McDuffie by 11 points, with a quarter of voters still undecided. Today’s election is the first open mayoral race since Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is backing McDuffie, was elected 12 years ago. Whoever wins will usher in a new political era for the nation’s capital.

With the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District coming down to a two-person race between veteran and former national security official Cait Conley and Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson, an alleged Republican-linked group is spending big in an effort to block Conley from the nomination.

The district, currently represented by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), has one of the largest Jewish populations in the country and could be one of the Democrats’ best pickup opportunities come November. The primary is set for June 23.

The most recent public polling in the race conducted by a pro-Conley group, more than a month ago, showed Conley up seven points over Davidson, 29-22%, with other candidates in the mid-to-low single digits and 38% of voters undecided.

A previous poll conducted in late April on behalf of another candidate put Davidson in first with 26%, and Conley in second with 15%.

Conley is backed by various national Democratic groups including Democratic Majority for Israel and the New Dems, as well as Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY) and Jason Crow (D-CO), while Davidson has been leaning into her support among local Democratic officials. 

Effie Phillips-Staley, a progressive Democratic candidate lagging behind in the race, also received a $3500 direct donation from the PAC affiliated with the anti-Israel, antisemitic group TrackAIPAC, which has endorsed her campaign. Phillips-Staley is one of the first candidates to directly receive funds from the group.

But a shadowy group that has been tenuously linked to GOP operatives recently announced plans to spend at least $1.5 million in the race against Conley, running ads echoing Davidson’s own messaging against Conley. The campaign suggests Republicans see Conley as the more competitive general election candidate.

The spending campaign has even caught the eye of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lives in the district and has not endorsed any candidate.

Clinton, in a post on X, called the field “talented” while sharing a story about the anti-Conley effort, warning that a “dark money Republican group is trying to manipulate the outcome of this and other key primaries.”

Jake Dilemani, a Democratic strategist who lives in the district, said that Davidson has “done a good job of defining herself and also defining Conley,” explaining that he’s seen a significant amount of negative Davidson ads targeting Conley, but little from Conley’s camp going after Davidson.

He said that none of the other candidates have been able to keep pace in their advertising with Conley or Davidson, making the two the frontrunners.

Davidson, Dilemani said, has been highlighting her work as a legislator and experience in public office, while she’s been aggressively targeting Conley for working for defense and intelligence firms, which Davidson has claimed were involved in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. Conley’s opponents have also sought to frame her as a carpetbagger.

“It all forms one big boogeyman that is unpopular writ large, but certainly [among] the Democratic primary electorate,” Dilemani said.

He said both candidates would be strong in the general election though, at this point, Davidson might leave the primary race with less baggage.

At the same time, Dilemani said, the GOP-linked ad campaign against Conley indicates that Republicans do not want to run against a Democrat with national security experience, like Conley.

“A dark money Republican super PAC just dropped $1 million in attack ads targeting me and lying about my record and who I am,” Conley said in a video on X on Monday. “That’s how scared Mike Lawler, Donald Trump, and MAGA Republicans are of facing me in November, because they know I’m the only Democrat that’s going to beat Lawler.”

With scant details provided by the Trump administration about the contours of the peace deal with Iran, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on Monday afternoon that he doesn’t yet know enough about the administration’s deal with Iran to determine whether it is a good deal that will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t know enough about it to say,” Thune told reporters. “I think the issues are going to be compliance, and how you can enforce that, and what are the financial incentives that the Iranians have from our country, and what are they conditioned upon.”

The South Dakota Republican said that a positive deal would include financial incentives that are conditioned upon Iran winding down its nuclear program, the disposal of Iran’s enriched uranium and Tehran giving up its capacity to have a nuclear program in the future.

Thune also indicated that he believes the deal should be submitted to Congress for review under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“There are some requirements that are triggered because of the nuclear components of the deal, in terms of notification or informing Congress,” Thune said. “I know there is probably some expectation that there may be a vote at some point, whether that’s on a resolution of disapproval or something. We’ll see. I just don’t know enough about it yet. And I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much.”

The administration hasn’t publicly commented on the issue of INARA yet, and has offered varying timelines for when it might release the text of the agreement. In media appearances, Vice President JD Vance has been framing specific nuclear issues as part of the next round of talks, rather than the current MOU, which could give the administration an avenue to attempt to dodge INARA review.

Thune said that “somebody” from the administration, whether that be Vance or other officials, “will need to” come to the Hill to brief members.

“For sure, our members are going to have a lot of questions about it,” Thune said.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 2 Senate Republican, indicated he was similarly in the dark about the agreement.

“I haven’t seen anything from the president in terms of what’s in it. I’ve seen some press reports,” Barrasso told reporters. “I want to see what’s actually in it and I congratulate the president for his continued efforts.”

But asked whether he was concerned that the deal would be an effective surrender to Iran in providing sanctions relief, Barrasso rejected the idea out of hand.

“President Trump is never, ever going to do what you just suggested,” Barrasso said. “He’s not going to accept a deal that doesn’t eliminate nuclear weapons, isn’t enforceable, isn’t verifiable and doesn’t take Iran completely out of what they’ve been doing to try to undermine and attack us for the last 47 years.”

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who has repeatedly faced controversy during his time in the House, appears favored to win the Republican Senate primary runoff in Georgia against Derek Dooley, a former college football coach backed by popular moderate GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Collins led Dooley 41-30 in the May 19 Republican primary, with Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) coming in at 25%. The runoff will take place on Tuesday, with the winner to face Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in November.

Polling shows Collins maintaining a sizable lead. Two late May post-primary polls, by JMC Enterprises and CivicLens Research, showed Collins ahead. Collins led by 16 percentage points in a JMC poll, 55-39, with 7% undecided, and by 10 points in a CivicLens poll, 50-40, with 10% undecided.

President Donald Trump endorsed Collins — generally seen as the more MAGA-aligned candidate — late on Saturday, while Kemp — who national Republicans initially sought to recruit for the race — has been aggressively campaigning around the Peach State in support of Dooley.

Trump described Collins as a “a true Friend, Fighter, and WARRIOR, who has been with us from the very beginning,” while dismissing Dooley as an unknown figure who lived outside of the state “for most of his life,” didn’t vote in 2020 or 2016 and said that Trump lost Georgia in the 2020 election, which Trump continues to deny.

Charles Bullock, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, said that the state’s election history has shown that candidates who finish with such a commanding lead in the primary generally win the runoff, and that the little publicly available polling has largely reflected that Collins is maintaining his 10-point lead.

Dooley’s major asset, Bullock continued, remains the support he has received from Kemp. But Collins entered the race with name recognition in the Atlanta area, particularly from his work leading the Laken Riley Act, multiple previous runs for Congress and his father’s own service as a member of Congress.

Dooley, by contrast, entered the race as a largely unknown candidate. Collins’ advantages carried him despite the fact that he spent the least money of any of the GOP candidates in the race.

Bullock said that Dooely’s best chance of victory on Tuesday will be if there is strong turnout in the Atlanta area, rather than the more rural areas that have been Collins’ bases of support.

Collins and his campaign have repeatedly faced controversies relating to antisemitism and affiliations with extremist figures.

A recent report by Slate showed that Collins’ current congressional chief of staff, Kip Talley, was involved in a group chat that also included prominent white nationalists and Holocaust deniers, in which Talley pledged that he would “try and use the levers of the legislative branch” to defend and attempt to free from prison the far-right activist and Holocaust denier Charles Johnson. 

Talley also said in the group chat that he contacted federal officials in an effort to “to get [Johnson] out” of prison.

In a statement to Slate, Talley denied acting at Collins’ direction or using official resources on behalf of Johnson, whom Talley described as “an acquaintance I have known for years.”

Collins himself faced criticism for endorsing an X post by an antisemitic, racist account attacking a reporter for being Jewish in 2024. Collins continued to deny that the original post for which he offered support was antisemitic and refused to apologize.

He also voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, though he has otherwise maintained a generally strong record on measures related to antisemitism and Israel policy in the House.

“Mike Collins has condemned the hate speech seen on college campuses and around the globe, and has been an ardent supporter of Israel in Congress. While [Georgia Sen.] Jon Ossoff capitulated to woke activists and voted to cut aid to Israel, Mike Collins has stood strong and protected its right to exist,” a Collins campaign spokesperson told JI last year, when asked about his online history and vote on the antisemitism bill.

Talley isn’t the only Collins aide who has caused controversy.

William Paul, a former Collins staffer and son of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), recently accosted Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) at a bar in Washington with an antisemitic rant, though Paul was no longer working in Collins’ office at the time of the incident.

In the final weeks of the runoff, a Collins campaign account on X made a crude post mocking a pro-Dooley GOP strategist over accusations of sexual assault made by the strategist’s wife against former news anchor Matt Lauer. Collins apologized and fired his former chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, who has long been dogged by scandal and is under House Ethics Committee investigation.

Dooley and his allies argued that the incident highlighted concerns about Collins’ electability against Ossoff.

Dooley has enjoyed support from conservative members of Georgia’s Jewish community since he entered the race. Emanuel Fialkow, a prominent member of the community, hosted a meet-and-greet with prominent Jewish leaders ahead of his campaign launch. He described Dooley as “very receptive” to their feedback and as a “staunch supporter of the Jewish people, and all religions, and of Israel” in an interview with Jewish Insider last week. 

“Derek Dooley is our best chance to get rid of Ossoff, and I think that Derek Dooley will be true and unwavering in his support for Georgia, Israel and religious freedom, period, including Jewish people,” Fialkow said.

Fialkow did not comment on Collins beyond saying that Phillips’ activity was “awful and [Collins] should have fired him sooner.”

Though he predicted that Collins would win the primary, the University of Georgia’s Bullock said that Dooley would likely be the more electable candidate in November, which he said has been the factor driving Kemp’s support for the former football coach. “If he were to be chosen, Derek would probably be a stronger candidate in November,” Bullock said — though Ossoff would likely be the favorite against either man.

The swing voter population in the state, according to Bullock, consists of white, college-educated voters identifying as Republicans. If a Democrat can increase his share among those voters, he will likely win, and Ossoff is well-positioned to do so in November.

Campaign consultants, Bullock said, are “increasingly acknowledging” that it will be difficult to beat Ossoff, and are looking to direct money toward other Senate battlegrounds.

Vice President JD Vance tapped Cliff Sims last month as his national security advisor last month, picking a longtime GOP operative with close relationships across the party’s ideological spectrum on foreign policy. 

The hire bolsters Vance’s foreign policy operation at a time when intraparty fissures are widening over the lack of diplomatic or military progress in the war with Iran and the broader question of American engagement abroad.

Sims will be leading Vance’s foreign policy team alongside Andy Baker, one of the vice president’s closest aides and a deputy national security advisor. 

Sims is a longtime political ally of President Donald Trump, a friend of several members of the Trump family — including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — and has longstanding personal and professional relationships throughout the president’s orbit and in Republican politics. 

In addition to being a Vance confidante, Sims, 42, has advised or worked with Trump, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, most recently serving as chairman of the CIA’s external advisory board. 

Sims is known in Republican foreign policy circles as a China hawk. He led several China-related efforts during his tenure as director of message strategy for the White House and deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Sims and Ratcliffe co-authored numerous op-eds from late 2021 to early 2022 where the two claimed the Chinese Communist Party poses the greatest threat to U.S. national security. 

After serving as deputy director of national intelligence under Ratcliffe in the first Trump administration, Sims was appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2024, serving a two-year term. Later that year, he took over as executive director of the Trump 2024 presidential transition, also leading the CIA’s transition process from the Biden administration to the current one. 

“Cliff served as one of my deputies when I was DNI and I saw firsthand his exceptional judgment and command of the most sensitive national security matters,” Ratcliffe told JI. “He has been a fearless advocate for President Trump’s foreign policy, and one of my most trusted advisors. Vice President Vance made an outstanding choice in selecting Cliff as a national security advisor.”

Unlike with China, Sims’ views on Middle East policy are not as clear. 

Two sources with direct knowledge of his ideology in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Jewish Insider that Sims believes that some issues can be solved through U.S. military action without engaging in extended military intervention, which he opposes.   

Both sources said that Sims and Vance are closely aligned on foreign policy, especially regarding China. 

One source argued that Sims’ experience in political communications and speechwriting will be an asset for Vance with messaging on the war in Iran amid the ongoing negotiations to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Vance’s decision to tap Sims has been a source of reassurance to some in the pro-Israel community who have been concerned about Vance’s foreign policy worldview and relationships with antisemitic podcasters like Tucker Carlson.  

Sims’ hiring won praise from two of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board members who worked with Sims at the conservative public affairs firm, Watchtower Strategy, that they cofounded last year.

Jeff Miller, a leading Republican lobbyist and the board chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, told JI that Sims “knows the president’s and vice president’s foreign policy inside and out.”

“I’ve seen firsthand his talent and competence and he’s going to be a great asset to the White House, and not just on U.S.-Israel issues, but across the whole national security landscape,” Miller said of Sims. 

Dan Conston, former president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House GOP super PAC, similarly celebrated Sims joining Vance’s team.

“Cliff has talked often about his support for Israel’s unconditional right to destroy Hamas, particularly after the Oct. 7 attacks, and his belief that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Conston told JI. “Like the president, Cliff’s always going to put America’s interests first, and where Israel’s interests and U.S. interests align, Israel couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

Before joining the second Trump administration, Sims also ran a strategic advisory firm and served on the board of POLARIS National Security, a nonprofit that supports political candidates who prioritize defense concerns. The group was founded by Morgan Ortagus, who briefly served on White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s team last year before joining U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz’s staff in New York. Ortagus is a close ally of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and other hawkish Republicans.

An Alabama native, Sims is also a lifelong Baptist who participated in Christian missionary work in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America. He wrote a book, released in May 2024, using stories about his time in the West Wing and his personal upbringing to offer reflections on how Christian Americans should use their faith as a compass to navigate the current hyper-partisan nature of U.S. politics. 

He also is the author of a 2019 tell-all that led to a temporary falling out with the president, in which he detailed how several of Trump’s foreign policy decisions framed parts of his worldview. The book initially sparked the president’s ire despite its positive portrayal of him for exposing the chaotic nature of the first Trump administration, one source told JI.

Sims wrote in the memoir, Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House, that Trump’s unemotional reaction to Palestinian protests in response to his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was a significant life lesson, while praising the president’s move.

“The president had done nothing wrong. He had taken a stand and made good on a promise that [former presidents] Clinton, Bush, and Obama had all bailed on. I was proud of what he had done — we all were,” Sims wrote. “But I could not help but feel uncomfortable as he calmly watched a mob carry a stuffed Trump through the streets hanging on a cross.”

“I find it difficult to explain what it feels like to watch that level of hatred being displayed on TV screens all over the world while standing right next to the person at whom the hatred is being directed. And yet the president was the calm in the eye of the storm,” he continued. “I learned something important from the president that day — something that I have tried to make a core operating principle in my life: you have to make peace with being misunderstood.”

Sims came back into the fold and mended his relationship with the president in early 2020, just prior to joining Ratcliffe’s team at ODNI, a source with direct knowledge told JI. Trump agreed to the rapprochement after Kushner and Trump Jr. urged him to consider resolving their dispute and defended Sims’ 2019 tell-all for portraying the president positively.

The House passed a war powers resolution on Wednesday that would halt U.S. military operations against Iran, after House Republicans postponed an expected vote on the resolution for more than a week, in an ultimately futile effort to stave off defeat.

The resolution passed 215-208, with four Republicans breaking ranks to vote for the resolution, and all present Democrats remaining united on the issue for the first time since the war began. Six Republicans and one Democrat were absent for the vote — so the resolution likely still would have passed even with full attendance.

The vote comes after the Senate advanced a procedural vote on a similar resolution, and is a notable signal of opposition from Congress to the war in Iran, even if President Donald Trump can veto such a resolution if it passes the Senate. Some Republicans have suggested that the underlying 1973 War Powers Act is unconstitutional or invalid, and should be challenged in court or ignored by the administration.

A final Senate vote on the war powers resolution that advanced last month is still pending.

Republican Reps. Warren Davidson (R-OH), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Tom Barrett (R-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) broke ranks to support the resolution. Davidson and Massie are libertarian-leaning isolationists, while Barrett and Fitzpatrick represent hotly contested swing districts.

Davidson voted for a war powers resolution at the outset of the conflict, but voted present and then against subsequent resolutions, before flipping his vote back to yes on the latest vote.

Fitzpatrick told reporters his vote was an issue of the law. The War Powers Act gives the administration 60 days to conduct military operations without congressional approval. 

“We’re past the 60 days, so you have two choices: you either follow the law or you change the law,” Fitzpatrick said. “You can’t violate the law, that’s not an option. … I don’t see what’s complicated about it. Bring it to Congress, debate it on the merits and have us vote. That’s the way the system’s supposed to work.”

The administration has claimed that its military operations against Iran that began in February have concluded, and that its continued limited strikes against Iranian targets do not qualify as warfare.

Barrett, who introduced a limited Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iran, offered a similar stance in a statement.

“Congress has the exclusive authority under the Constitution to declare war and authorize the use of force,” Barrett said. “The War Powers Act of 1973 delegates some of that authority to the president for a limited period of time. That authority has expired, so my consistent belief is that it is time for Congress to decide the scope of the mission and the appropriate limits on the use of force in Iran.”

Other Republicans argue the legislation sends a message of weakness and division and strips the U.S. of leverage in the midst of negotiations.

“I think what it signals to Iran is that, especially from the Democratic standpoint, it gives them confidence to try and drag these negotiations out. So I think it undermines the position of the United States of America,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, told reporters. “They’re actively undermining the United States position in these negotiations, so, from my standpoint, I think it’s foolish, and that’s why I voted no.”

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), the sole Democratic holdout on previous votes, also flipped his vote to support the resolution in Wednesday’s vote.

Golden said that, after the 60-day mark of the Iran war passed, the statutory cutoff for military operations undertaken without congressional authorization, he believed the war could not continue without such approval. But he described a war powers resolution the House voted on last month as textually flawed and outdated.

“The passage of my War Powers Resolution is a significant bipartisan rebuke of President Trump’s illegal and costly war in Iran, and the first step toward ending it once and for all,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Greg Meeks (D-NY) said in a statement. “The passage of this WPR today signals a significant turning point: more and more Republicans are listening to their constituents who do not want another open-ended war in the Middle East. Now the Senate must take up this measure and make clear to the President that enough is enough.”

Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we spotlight the Los Angeles mayoral race, where Mayor Karen Bass is locked in a close three-way race against Republican Spencer Pratt and DSA-affiliated Democrat Nithya Raman ahead of tomorrow’s primary, and cover yesterday’s Israel Day on Fifth parade in New York City. We report on Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s trip to the United Arab Emirates last week, where he met with UAE National Security Advisor Tahnoun bin Zayed and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, and talk to Theo Baker about his new book about power structures at Stanford, where he’s a student. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Shmuel Ben Ezra, Ilan Shchori and Andy Baker.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• We’re keeping an eye on the escalation in Israel’s north and in southern Lebanon as the IDF and Hezbollah continue to exchange fire. Efforts to reach a ceasefire over the weekend following an hours-long meeting on Friday between Israeli and Lebanese security officials fell short, with Hezbollah rejecting a proposal from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the Iran-backed group end its missile and drone attacks against Israel in exchange for Israel agreeing not to resume attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut. The escalation comes amid a deeper Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, and the IDF’s capture of the Crusader-era Beaufort Castle.
• On Capitol Hill,  the House is expected to vote on war powers resolutions on both Iran and Lebanon later this week, while the Senate is likely to vote on final passage of an Iran war powers resolution that cleared a procedural vote before the Memorial Day recess.
• The American Jewish Committee’s annual Global Forum continues today in Washington. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, author Dara Horn and historian Jonathan Sarna are slated to speak at this morning’s plenary, while JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar will address attendees this afternoon alongside Axios’ Barak Ravid and Kan’s Gili Cohen for a panel about the upcoming U.S. midterms and Israeli elections.
• The Israeli Embassy in Washington is holding a memorial this morning for slain staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who were killed in a terror attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum last May.
• This afternoon, the Israeli Embassy in Washington will host an event with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on the Isaac Accords Fund.
• In Israel, the Knesset is holding its first reading of a bill to dissolve the body and trigger elections. The Michigan Democratic Party’s Jewish, Black, senior and faith caucuses are jointly holding a debate this evening for the state’s open Senate seat. Democrats Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and physician Abdul El-Sayed are all expected to participate.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

The latest revelations that Graham Platner, the Democrats’ anti-establishment, far-left standard-bearer in the Maine Senate race, was sending sexually explicit texts to as many as a dozen women while he was married — an issue his wife raised to campaign staff as a potential liability — is another sign that the candidate’s extensive baggage may be too much for the party to handle. (As commentator Haviv Rettig Gur posted on X: “I’m starting to think that SS tattoo might have been a red flag.”)

Meanwhile, a New York Times interview, published over the weekend, with leading New Jersey Democratic congressional candidate Adam Hamawy about his past affiliations with Islamist extremists is going to raise more red flags for Democrats.   

Asked about his travels with Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the “Blind Sheikh,” who was connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Hamawy downplayed the spiritual leader’s jihadist sermons. “He wasn’t preaching death and destruction all the time,” Hamawy said. “He had certain views that he spoke in certain forums, but that’s not what he did every single day.”

With the calendar now turned to June, it’s yet another reminder that Democrats are on the verge of nominating some truly radical and damaged candidates for congressional office as a critical mass of primaries take place this month.

Many of the races are taking place in safely blue seats, so Democrats haven’t raised that much concern over candidates such as Hamawy, whose terror ties (including volunteer work for what was later revealed as an al-Qaida front group) at the very least, raise questions about suitability for public office.

But others, such as Platner, are running in battleground Senate seats where the stakes couldn’t be higher. In California and Montana, candidates are running in swing districts where the battle for the House majority will be fought. 

If May was the month that tested President Donald Trump’s power over the Republican Party (lesson: he’s still firmly in control of GOP voters), June will be the month that determines whether the Democratic Party is going to abandon its moderate moorings and nominate a roster of radicals.

The stakes couldn’t be higher — especially for Jewish Democrats, who have been among the leading voices alarmed by the rise of these candidates, who, not surprisingly, often hold virulently anti-Israel views and don’t have a problem mainlining antisemitic rhetoric. 

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

ANGELENO AFFAIRS

Wide-open Los Angeles mayoral race could hinge on support from Jewish voters

In the closing weeks of the Los Angeles mayoral primary, the two candidates challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass — from both the left and the right — had a lot to say on areas of interest to Jewish Angelenos, which was particularly notable in a race in which those issues have, for much of the campaign cycle, not been front and center. The race features an embattled Mayor Karen Bass facing a spirited challenge from her right in reality TV star Spencer Pratt, and from her left in City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Community issues: In a race that appears to have the three leading candidates bunched together in a three-way tie, the winning votes could come from anywhere, and recent outreach by Pratt to the Jewish community suggests he knows that winning over Jewish Democrats could help him make it to the general election. The Los Angeles metro area is home to roughly 560,000 Jews, although not all of them live in the city of L.A. That means that a pressing question facing moderate Jewish voters who have supported Bass, a liberal Democrat and former member of Congress, is whether taking a chance on Pratt is worthwhile.

Read the full story here.

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PRIDE AND PROTECTION

Israel Day parade marked by celebratory crowd and large police presence

As an estimated 50,000 New Yorkers stretched along Fifth Avenue waving Israeli and American flags and Hebrew music echoed through the streets, this year’s annual “Israel Day on Fifth” parade carried a palpable sense of relief. For the first time since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, attendees could swap out their hostage pins and “Bring Them Home Now” signs for simple flags — marking the first parade since the attacks in which all hostages held by Hamas have been released and Israel’s war in Gaza has ended, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Pulse check on Fifth: For the first time in more than six decades, the city’s mayor was notably absent from the bipartisan tradition. While Zohran Mamdani’s boycott was intended to make a strong statement, attendees appeared largely unfazed. Instead, attendees seemed focused on the notable figures marching — from politicians from both parties to social media influencers and the largest-ever delegation from the Knesset, including Speaker Amir Ohana and members of both the governing and opposition parties. 

In the crowd: Spotted on the Jewish Agency’s float were Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra, an Israeli American IDF officer killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. State Assemblymember Alex Bores, who is running in the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District, was in attendance, as were Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and former New York City Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Eric Adams. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), flanked by city and Jewish communal leaders — including New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein — addressed attendees.

Read the full story here.

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BOOKSHELF

21-year-old author Theo Baker says he feels more Jewish as a result of antisemitism at Stanford

In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen, 21-year-old author Theo Baker discussed his new book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, in which he reflects on his turbulent college years and lays bare an elite university corrupted by Silicon Valley’s pursuit of power. Weeks away from graduation, Baker spoke with JI about his past four years on campus, the role that technology plays in rising antisemitism —  and what the future might hold for universities.  

Turning point: “In fall 2022, I went home for Thanksgiving and said, ‘There’s so much antisemitism at Stanford.’ I was shocked by that … As soon as I arrived at Stanford — even in the first week — someone asked me, ‘Why are all Jews so rich?’ By the end of that year — and this is before Oct. 7 —- someone in my dorm, a kid who was Jewish, talked about being Jewish for the first time and someone put a bunch of swastikas and an image of Hitler on his door later that day. So Jewishness is an identity and not one I would have placed much investment in prior to coming to college … Certainly, I, like many college students in the last few years, have been made to feel more Jewish just by the circumstances around us.”

Read the full interview here.

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FOLLOW THE MONEY

Anti-Israel super PAC’s funding bolstered by GOP-linked donors

A recently launched super PAC positioning itself as a progressive counterweight to AIPAC’s involvement in Democratic primary elections has accepted financial contributions from a number of individuals who have also donated to Republicans, campaign filings show. The financial support for American Priorities PAC, created in February, has come even as AIPAC and its super PAC have faced backlash from critics on the left who accuse it of meddling in Democratic primaries as a sort of front group for GOP-funded attacks against anti-Israel candidates in safely blue districts, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

PAC picks: American Priorities is investing significantly in New Jersey’s 12th District race on Tuesday on behalf of Adam Hamawy. The super PAC, in another race in California, is boosting Randy Villegas, a progressive critic of Israel running for a red-leaning seat held by Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), who is endorsed by AIPAC. Those investments have been fueled, most notably, by at least $525,000 from Hussein Mahrouq, a Texas businessman who has backed far-right Republicans including the recently ousted Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), both of whom have been accused of using antisemitic tropes about Jews and Israel.

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TRIP TALK

Gottheimer meets with top officials in UAE

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) visited the United Arab Emirates in his capacity as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last week, meeting with National Security Advisor Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Readout: “The United States and the UAE are close partners, and I am grateful for the warmth our hosts extended throughout this trip,” Gottheimer said in a statement to JI. “The UAE has stood firm throughout Iran’s relentless missile and drone attacks on Emirati cities and demonstrated the enduring strength of the Abraham Accords by engaging in a deeper partnership with Israel than ever before. We are completely aligned that Iran cannot continue threatening its neighbors.”

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

The Ties That Fray: Matthew Schmitz, the religion editor of The Washington Post’s opinions page, warns that “Democrats’ traditional Jewish alliance is fraying as never before” as anti-Zionist activism has crossed boundaries into antisemitism. “Antisemitism is rising on the left and the right, but its presence in the Democratic Party is particularly jarring. Jewish support for the Democratic Party was sealed during the New Deal era, when Jews rallied to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jonah Goldstein, a leader in New York’s Jewish community who made the mistake of running for mayor as a Republican in 1945, joked in Yiddish that Jews had three veltn, or worlds: di velt (this world), yene velt (the other world) and Roosevelt.” [WashPost]

Calling on Congress: In Fox News, Ruby Chen, whose son, Itay, was killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and his body held in captivity, calls on Congress to create a bipartisan committee to investigate the attacks, in which dozens of Americans were killed. “We are seeking justice, but not only for those who carried out the murders. Also for those who financed, enabled and armed them as well. … When Americans are killed in a war zone, Congress has a duty to determine what happened, why it happened and who bears responsibility. That duty does not disappear because geopolitics are complicated. It does not pause because allies may be implicated. American lives cannot be subject to selective accountability. For decades, the United States has operated on a clear standard: kidnapping and killing Americans must carry consequences.” [FoxNews]

MBS’ Brotherhood Two-Step: In Alhurra, Abdulaziz Alkhamis observes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s opposition to Muslim Brotherhood elements inside Saudi Arabia while backing Muslim Brotherhood offshoots in conflicts in the region and in Africa. “When the state wages war on the Brotherhood’s discourse at home while aligning with its affiliates abroad, it hands critics a potent argument: Why is political Islam considered a threat in Riyadh but a necessary partner in Yemen or Sudan? That question alone is enough to complicate Saudi Arabia’s new national narrative, weaken the rhetoric of the modern state, and create an opening for advocates of ‘reconciliation,’ ‘accommodation,’ and political reintegration.” [AlHurra]

Syria As the New Strait: In Foreign Policy, the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister looks at Syria’s efforts to position itself as a “transformational corridor” and logistics hub in the region amid the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. “Syria could become one alternative overland artery in a network of new ones, spanning from the Gulf, to Egypt, to Jordan. This would be of enormous global significance — to regional states and Gulf energy producers, to customers in Europe, and, of course, for Syria itself. Iran’s shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz has also surged maritime shipping insurance rates, which, even if peace returns, are not expected to return to pre-conflict levels, thereby making overland transit structurally competitive.” [FP]

Word on the Street

The U.S. struck several sites in Iran over the weekend after Iran downed an American MQ-1 drone, while Kuwait said early Monday that it was being targeted by missiles and drones that triggered sirens across the Gulf nation…

U.S. officials told The New York Times that American forces had helped some 70 vessels transit through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks as the key waterway remains largely closed amid stalled talks between Tehran and Washington…

The report comes days after President Donald Trump reportedly asked senior officials to make some changes to a draft ceasefire proposal with Iran, prompting a new back-and-forth with Tehran over the reworked items, which largely focus on Iran’s nuclear program…

The Financial Times spotlights Operation Jailbreak, a recent hackathon convened by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll during which defense firms and startups worked to build inter-operative weapons systems; FT reports that Driscoll wants to send some of the solutions from the hackathon to CENTCOM’s areas of operations in the Middle East within the next month to assist in countering Iranian drone threats…

The office of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said that the Syrian leader spoke by phone to Trump on Sunday about regional developments and the Syrian economy…

Reps. Jefferson Shreve (R-IN) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) introduced legislation to prohibit funding for UNIFIL, which has faced criticism for its inability to deter Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south, after Oct. 1, 2027…

Reps. Danny Davis (D-IL), Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC) introduced legislation to establish a National Park honoring Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and the network of schools for Black students that he founded…

Politico reports that the New York chapter of the Working Families Party declined to endorse Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) in his reelection bid over his failure to support the Block the Bombs Act as the New York Democrat faces a primary challenge from democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier…

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed an executive order requiring the state’s public schools and universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in investigating complaints and directing the state’s Board of Education to provide educational materials about antisemitism, Israel and American Jewish history…

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul formally signed the state’s buffer zone bill, which enacts a 50-foot security perimeter around religious institutions, into law on Sunday at the Met Council’s annual legislative breakfast…

PBS interviews the father of slain Israeli Embassy staffer Yaron Lischinsky on the anniversary of the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in which Lischinsky and his partner were killed, about how he plans to honor his son’s legacy…

The Washington Post spotlights the “enduring mystery” of the post-World War II lives of Louis “Speedy” Weber and his wife, Frances, whose letters to each other while Louis was stationed in Europe during the war were recently digitized by the USO…

In The Wall Street Journal, Gil Troy reflects on the origins of anti-Zionism on the 81st anniversary of Iraq’s Farhud, the pogrom that marked a turning point for Iraqi Jews and initiated the mass exodus of the country’s Jewish community…

Far-left streamer Hasan Piker and Young Turks co-founder Cenk Uygur said they were both banned from the U.K. ahead of their scheduled upcoming appearances at London’s SXSW convening; Piker accused London of acting at “the behest of Israel,” while Uygur, who is Piker’s uncle, said the U.K.’s Home Office called him a “serious risk to the public order”…

Italian authorities canceled a Kanye West show scheduled for July in Emilia-Reggiano — as well as a concert by rapper Travis Scott slated for the following day — amid concerns from the country’s Jewish community over West’s past antisemitic rhetoric; West was previously slated to perform in the U.K., France, Switzerland and Poland at concerts that have since been canceled, with some countries revoking his entry visa…

Paris Saint-Germain beat Arsenal 4-3 in the UEFA Champions League match on Saturday night in Budapest, Hungary, the second year in a row the Qatar-owned team has won the league’s championship…

Australia’s royal commission investigating antisemitism in the country rejected an effort by the government to keep confidential official minutes from Cabinet meetings between 2020-2025 that pertain to the government’s budget for counterterrorism enforcement…

Far-right attorney Abelardo de la Espriella will face off against far-left activist Ivan Cepeda in Colombia’s presidential runoff next month after Sunday’s election in which no candidate reached the requisite 50%…

The Financial Times profiles Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, the son of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed who is being groomed to lead the Gulf nation…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the appointment of Shmuel Ben Ezra to serve as national security advisor and head of the country’s National Security Council; Ben Ezra, who oversaw the development of Israel’s Arrow 3 missile-defense system, will replace Gil Reich, who had been in the role in an acting capacity since October 2024 after Netanyahu fired Tzachi Hanegbi from the position…

Historian Ilan Shchori was named the senior vice president of B’nai B’rith International; Shchori, who is based in Tel Aviv, will also serve as the organization’s lead historian…

Longtime Newsday journalist Cara Trager died at 71…

Marion Miliband, a Holocaust survivor whose sons, David and Ed, went on to become leading figures in U.K. politics, died at 91…

Pic of the Day

Rabbi Andrew Baker, who is retiring as the American Jewish Committee’s director of international Jewish affairs after 47 years with the organization, was honored by AJC Board of Governors Chair Melanie Nelkin at last night’s plenary session at the AJC Global Forum in Washington.

Birthdays

Comedian, writer, actor, director and producer, Amy Schumer turns 45… 

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, pianist and conductor, he has taught at Yale, SUNY Purchase, Cornell, Brandeis and Harvard, Yehudi Wyner turns 97… Holocaust survivor as a child, he served as the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel for 10 years and twice as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau turns 89… NYC-based attorney, author of two books regarding the history and operations of El Al, owner of 40,000-plus pieces of memorabilia related to El Al, Marvin G. Goldman turns 87… Grammy Award-winning classical pianist, Richard Goode turns 83… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Shimon Ohayon turns 81… Retired attorney in Berkeley, Calif., Thomas Andrew Seaton… Pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area, longtime AIPAC activist, Elliot Charles Lepler, MD… Former member of the Knesset for the Shinui and the Hilonit Tzionit parties, Eti Livni turns 78… Founding editor of The American Interest, a bimonthly public policy magazine that is on hiatus since 2020, Adam M. Garfinkle turns 75… Former editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News and co-author with Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg by Bloomberg, Matthew Winkler turns 71… Senior business editor at NPR for 25 years until his scathing review of liberal bias at the network in 2024, now a contributing editor at The Free Press, Uri Paul Berliner… Founding rabbi of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, N.Y., Rabbi Moshe Weinberger turns 69… Former IDF officer and now a London based political scientist and journalist, Ahron “Ronnie” Bregman turns 68… Member of the Knesset for the Shas party for 16 years ending in 2015, Amnon Cohen turns 66… Owner of MLB’s Athletics, his parents were the co-founders of Gap, Inc., he is a board member of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation, John J. Fisher turns 65… Poet, performance artist and essayist, Adeena Karasick turns 61… Founding editor and publisher of the Dayton Jewish Observer, Marshall J. Weiss… Television personality and matchmaker, Sigalit “Siggy” Flicker turns 59… Actor, voice actor and film director, Danielle Harris turns 49… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer, Spencer J. Ackerman turns 46… Partner in Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm, Daniel Tannebaum… President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein turns 42… Musician, songwriter, author, actor and blogger, Ari Seth Herstand turns 41… Former CEO of The Good Food Institute, Ilya Sheyman turns 40… Political reporter for NBC News until last year, now a newspaper editor in Maine, Alex Seitz-Wald… Senior writer at Barron’s covering the Federal Reserve, Nicole Goodkind… Head of responsible AI policy at Palantir, Naomi S. Kadish… Executive business partner at Lyft, Isabel Keller… NYC-born Israeli pair skater, she competed for Israel at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Hailey Esther Kops turns 24…

A recently launched super PAC positioning itself as a progressive counterweight to AIPAC’s involvement in Democratic primary elections has accepted financial contributions from a number of individuals who have also donated to Republicans, campaign filings show.

The financial support for American Priorities PAC, created in February, has come even as AIPAC and its super PAC have faced backlash from critics on the left who accuse it of meddling in Democratic primaries as a sort of front group for GOP-funded attacks against anti-Israel candidates in safely blue districts.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has taken far more from GOP-linked donors than its new rival, American Priorities — now funded largely by a handful of deep-pocketed contributors. UDP supports both Democrats and Republicans.

But American Priorities, which has thus far only supported Democrats and pledged to spend at least $10 million during the midterms, has not acknowledged that the source of some of its funding is from donors who have at the same time given to GOP candidates and groups — and more extensively than previously reported.  

A spokesperson for American Priorities did not respond to a request for comment about whether the group is comfortable with such financial support and how it views the donations in relation to AIPAC’s own pro-Israel fundraising.

American Priorities, which has raised $5.4 million thus far, has sought to mimic AIPAC’s playbook of spending aggressively in progressive congressional districts to elect its preferred primary candidates. The new group is investing significantly in New Jersey’s 12th District race on Tuesday on behalf of Adam Hamawy — a plastic surgeon who opposes all U.S. aid to Israel and whose past ties to a convicted terrorist mastermind as well as a now-shuttered al-Qaida-linked group in Bosnia have drawn scrutiny in the final weeks of the election. 

The super PAC has vowed to spend around $2 million by the end of the crowded primary — where Hamawy has been surging — and it recently reached $500,000 in another race in California boosting Randy Villegas, a progressive critic of Israel running for a red-leaning seat held by Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), who is endorsed by AIPAC.

Those investments have been fueled, most notably, by at least $525,000 from Hussein Mahrouq, a Texas businessman who has backed far-right Republicans including the recently ousted Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), both of whom have been accused of using antisemitic tropes about Jews and Israel.

In 2024, Mahrouq, one of the top contributors to American Priorities, also gave $100,000 to boost Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and donated $25,000 to Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, state filings show.

Meanwhile, American Priorities accepted a $5,000 contribution from Omar Khawaja, a personal injury lawyer in Houston, who in March donated to a super PAC supporting hard-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won last week’s GOP primary run-off in the state’s closely watched Senate race. Khawaja has also contributed to a Republican House candidate in Texas as well as Massie, who is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the GOP congressional caucus, according to filings.

Moiz Ali, an entrepreneur and investor in Texas who gave $150,000 to American Priorities in March, also donated to Massie last fall — shortly before he drew a challenger, Ed Gallrein, who defeated the libertarian congressman earlier this month with the backing of President Donald Trump. AIPAC also spent heavily against Massie, a top target of the group this cycle. 

Another American Priorities donor, Nadeem Baig, a gastroenterologist in New Jersey who gave $50,000, has previously contributed to former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), former Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), all of whom have been known as staunch supporters of Israel. LaHood is backed by AIPAC, while Lance served as a co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus before he was unseated in 2018.

In a statement shared with Jewish Insider by a spokesperson for Mahrouq, he called himself “an independent businessman, not affiliated with any political party,” and said that his “support has always been guided by what I believe is in the best interest of the United States, its economic strength, security and long-term prosperity.”

“I have supported individuals and organizations across the political spectrum when their positions align with those priorities,” he continued. “My focus is not partisan politics, but rather promoting policies that strengthen America, encourage opportunity, and serve the interests of American citizens. I believe decisions affecting our country should be made based on what is best for the United States, independent of pressure from any foreign government, foreign interest group or partisan agenda.”

Mahrouq was the only American Priorities donor reached for comment by JI who shared a response.

The contributions to Massie and Greene in particular suggest anti-Israel sentiment can transcend partisan boundaries, in the way pro-Israel advocacy has been seen as a bipartisan effort connecting Democrats and Republicans.

Still, American Priorities has only backed Democrats, while AIPAC has championed bipartisan advocacy — even as it has stirred controversy over its engagement in Democratic races that show the group is navigating mounting hostility toward Israel from candidates and elected officials.

American Priorities is led by Hannah Fertig, a strategist with ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the far-left group Justice Democrats, which also gave to the super PAC and is likewise backing Hamawy in his primary on Tuesday. “We want our foreign policy views to reflect where the Democratic base has moved, particularly on Gaza, and on unconditional U.S. military to Israel,” Fertig told Semafor in March following the group’s launch. “We’re seeing this as a generational inflection point, and we launched because there’s a huge gap in the progressive spending ecosystem.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) political spokesperson denied on Wednesday allegations that Johnson was involved in boosting Maureen Galindo, an antisemitic Democratic candidate in Texas’ 35th Congressional District.

The spokesperson said that Johnson had no involvement in the district’s Democratic primary, which Galindo lost on Tuesday.

The statement came after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted Johnson in response to an article in the newsletter Popular Information that linked Lead Left PAC, the shadowy super PAC that supported Galindo, to a prominent GOP compliance consulting firm. One of the founders of that group, Caleb Crosby, has served as the treasurer for the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund, the primary super PAC arms of House and Senate leadership.

The origins of the pro-Galindo effort have been heavily shrouded in mystery, but national Republicans would have had an interest in boosting the less-electable Galindo in a swing-district race that Democrats hope to win. It’s unclear the extent to which Crosby or his firm, which advertises compliance reporting, budgetary and fiscal management and other similar services, would have been involved in any strategic decision-making for the Lead Left PAC.

“Mike Johnson’s political operation boosted a dangerous antisemite in the TX-35 Democratic primary runoff in an attempt to gain political power,” DCCC spokesperson Courtney Rice said in a statement. “This should shock the core of the Republican Party, and every single Republican needs to stand and speak out against this cynical political move.”

CLF and Crosby’s consulting firm, Crosby Ottenhoff Group, did not respond to a request for comment.

In last night’s Texas primary runoffs, Democrats successfully prevented a virulent antisemite from becoming the party’s nominee in a battleground House race, while voters also ousted one of the party’s longtime anti-Israel lawmakers for a younger, more pragmatic replacement. 

On the Republican side, President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was the decisive factor in Paxton’s sweeping victory over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a widely respected pragmatic conservative who served for years in party leadership. 

The results painted a picture of a volatile electorate in both parties. A late push by the Democrats’ House campaign arm and the pro-Israel advocacy group Democratic Majority for Israel helped prevent sex therapist Maureen Galindo, who advocated putting pro-Israel Jews in internment camps as part of her campaign message, from winning a valued nomination in Texas’ swing 35th Congressional District.

Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy long touted by national Democrats as a top recruit, won the Democratic nomination by 28 points (64-36%) despite finishing in second place in the primary. He will face Republican Air Force veteran Carlos de la Cruz in the general election.

DMFI’s political action committee touted its role as an early endorser of Garcia’s campaign, and for being one of the first and few groups to raise the red flag on Galindo’s extreme views. In its victory statement, DMFI also condemned the efforts from a secretive GOP group to spend nearly $1 million on Galindo’s behalf, in hopes of elevating a more vulnerable Democratic candidate to the general election. 

On the positive side, an extremist was defeated thanks to leading Democratic Party organizations and officials rushing to condemn her candidacy. It’s a sign of how institutions can use their power to unify in speaking out against hate. On the other hand, she still won over one-third of the runoff vote despite the full-court press from Democrats to oppose her, a sign that it may take aggressive measures simply to stop a crank from prevailing.

Pro-Israel leaders also cheered the resounding defeat of Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who has alienated the Houston Jewish community with his anti-Israel votes in Congress in recent years and lackluster constituent services. Green lost by nearly 40 points to Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), who was just elected to Congress in a neighboring district and was forced to run against his colleague as a result of redistricting. 

AIPAC tweeted a congratulatory note to Menefee after he prevailed, cheering his “victory tonight over one of the most outspoken anti-Israel voices in Congress.” Menefee, a former Harris County attorney, was generally a critic of Israel’s wartime actions during its campaign in Gaza, but unlike Green, refused to describe its war against Hamas as a “genocide.” He also said during a debate against Green that he understood why a democratic nation would want to wage a war against a terrorist group.

And in a suburban Dallas district that pitted former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) against his successor, Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX), Allred prevailed in the battle of the two experienced politicos. Allred was the party’s unsuccessful nominee for the Senate in 2024 and considered another Senate campaign before pivoting and deciding to run for the House again. 

The race generating the most national headlines was Paxton’s resounding victory over Cornyn by 28 points (64-36%) — proving another example of Trump’s endorsement power in Republican nomination fights. Cornyn had been one of the state’s most popular Republican elected officials before facing growing grassroots opposition from the right over his pragmatism and lack of deep MAGA bona fides. Paxton, despite facing considerable personal baggage, sensed Cornyn’s vulnerability with the base — and in the end, parlayed a Trump endorsement to victory.

This month alone, Trump defeated five of seven targeted Indiana state senators for resisting redistricting efforts, ousted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in primaries over perceived disloyalty and handily dispatched the battle-tested Cornyn. Trump is struggling to maintain support with many Americans, but within the Republican Party, his grip is still tight.

A newly launched super PAC with ties to Republicans has spent nearly half a million dollars to help boost a Democrat running for a competitive open House seat in Texas who is facing growing bipartisan furor over a series of virulently antisemitic social media remarks.

Lead Left PAC, the GOP-linked group, has been aggressively promoting Maureen Galindo, a fringe San Antonio activist who finished first in the primary and has said that Jews “own Hollywood” and “worship the synagogue of Satan.” Last week, she said that, if elected, she would turn a local immigration detention center “into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” while adding, “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists.”

The comments, which circulated online Tuesday, fueled widespread condemnation from members of both parties, and drew further scrutiny to Lead Left, which has faced accusations of meddling in the race to prop up a weaker candidate in the redrawn district. Democrats see the district as winnable in November if they elect Johnny Garcia, Galindo’s moderate rival, in the May 26 runoff. 

Lead Left, which has not returned requests for comment, had invested around $430,000 in the runoff to elevate Galindo as of Tuesday, according to federal filings. The shadowy PAC was expected to double that figure on Wednesday with a roughly $500,000 investment, bringing its total spending in the district to around $1 million with less than a week until the election, according to media buying figures from an internal reporting database that were shared with Jewish Insider.

Lead Left, which has not yet disclosed its donors, has also recently spent in other Democratic races across the country. While no Republicans have taken credit for the group, the metadata for its website links to a major GOP fundraising platform, strongly suggesting Republican fingerprints.  

In a joint statement on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), chair of Democratic Congressional Campaign Campaign Committee, said that “House Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy, pull spending in the race and forcefully condemn these comments.”

“This vile language by her is disqualifying and has no place in American politics, and certainly not in the Democratic Party,” the Democratic leaders added on Tuesday. “To embrace and uplift a fringe candidate with antisemitic — and extremely dangerous — rhetoric and views in order to win an election is beyond the pale.”

The DCCC recently added Garcia, a sheriff’s deputy in Bexar County, to its “Red to Blue” program for House candidates in battleground districts key to reclaiming the majority.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s political arm, which is also supporting Garcia, accused Republicans of “deliberately elevating one of the most grotesque antisemites in American politics this cycle because they think it helps them win.”

“It is sick, it is cynical, and it tells you everything about a party that will fund anyone, including someone openly invoking the language of pogroms, as long as it serves their politics,” Brian Romick, who leads DMFI PAC, said in a statement after Galindo’s most recent comments came to light. “Democrats across the ideological spectrum reject Maureen Galindo and everything she stands for, completely and without qualification. Republicans should explain why they’re paying to keep her viable.” 

Galindo, whose endorsement from the extremist anti-Israel account Track AIPAC was rescinded on Tuesday, garnered nearly unanimous denunciations from across the political spectrum, including Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and others who expressed outrage over her remarks.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) called Galindo’s recent comments about imprisoning and castrating Zionists “straight out of the Nazi playbook,” while Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) urged Democratic leaders to speak out against rhetoric “suggesting concentration camps for American Jews.”

Galindo, who has gained prominence on social media promoting conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel, narrowly finished first in the crowded March primary with 29% of the vote, two points ahead of Garcia, who placed second. She did not respond to a request for comment.  

Galindo has attributed the surge of spending from Lead Left to “a billionaire zionist who made the pac to sabotage candidates,” according to a text message to The New York Times last week.

Marty O’Donnell, a Republican candidate in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District recently endorsed by President Donald Trump, hosted a Nazi supporter on his podcast last year, months after filing to run for Congress.

O’Donnell is an outsider candidate who also ran in the district in 2024, placing fourth in the GOP primary. He was best known before his political career as the music composer for the “Halo” video game series. 

But with Trump’s endorsement — as well as backing from the National Republican Congressional Committee’s MAGA Majority program — the unlikely political candidate has become the favorite for the nomination, despite facing a former U.S. ambassador to Iceland, among others.

In August 2025, O’Donnell hosted Charles Cornish-Dale, a popular far-right influencer better known by his online pseudonym “Raw Egg Nationalist,” on his podcast for a friendly discussion. Repeatedly, over the course of multiple years, Cornish-Dale has shared antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on his Raw Egg Nationalist X account.

Those posts include a quote from Mein Kampf alongside a meme featuring a man in a Nazi uniform in front of a swastika flag; a reference to the “zog” — a conspiracy theory claiming Zionist control of the U.S. government and society; the shorthand “HH” — which stands for Heil Hitler; an advertisement for “Blood, Soil and Grass-fed Beef” t-shirts — referencing a Nazi and white nationalist slogan; and various other Nazi-sympathetic posts.

In his introduction to the interview, O’Donnell acknowledged that Cornish-Dale has been “accused of many weird — fascist, nationalist, white nationalist, misogynist, you name it — he’s been accused of everything. And of course I’m being accused of those things too, so I had to talk to him to find out what’s true and what’s not true.” He called the interview “one of those sort of marriages made in heaven.”

“Charles Cornish Dale was booked by Marty’s production team. Marty was unfamiliar with Dale before the interview and was unaware of these posts shared by Jewish Insider until we received the inquiry,” Keith Schipper, a spokesperson for O’Donnell, said in a statement. “Marty’s support of Israel is unequivocal and, as seen in various interviews and online posts, he will not tolerate the rise of anti-semitism in our country. Marty will continue to fight bigotry, misinformation, and hate toward Israel because it is the right and moral thing to do.”

Later in the interview, O’Donnell again dismissed criticisms of Cornish-Dale, including accusations of white nationalism and misogyny, as not credible. Cornish-Dale responded, “Once upon a time you were a Nazi if you held specific political beliefs and worshiped Adolf Hitler and all that, and now you’re just a Nazi if you’re right wing” — glossing over his own past commentary.

O’Donnell’s personal Discord server — The Marty Army — which he has used and promoted for campaign purposes, also contains a number of users who have shared antisemitic, pro-Nazi and anti-Israel sentiments, even as O’Donnell himself has personally debated with and threatened to ban some of those users from the server — and appears to have banned at least one such user.

Some of those comments, including a series of comments deriding the Anti-Defamation League, have been shared in a channel dedicated to O’Donnell’s congressional campaign.

O’Donnell’s friendly interview with Cornish-Dale comes in spite of his own personal history of speaking out against antisemitism and in support of Israel on social media, in the Discord server and in other public forums.

In a recent podcast interview, O’Donnell leaned into the religious and historical connection between Jews and Christians, and emphasized the West’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage.

“These Christian weirdos who are heretics, who say, ‘Oh, well, the Jews killed Jesus.’ Like, no, Jesus said, ‘No one takes my life from me. Amen. I lay down willingly. I’m doing my Father’s will.’ This is the plan for saving humanity, and it’s a Judeo-Christian plan. That’s God’s plan. That’s the people He chose,” O’Donnell said.

He said he believes that politics now is a form of “spiritual warfare,” including against antisemitic figures on the far right.

“How else do you explain Candace Owens? How else do you explain Tucker Carlson? Some evil spirit has clouded their minds, whether they’re just grifting for money or something evil is happening, but it’s spiritual warfare,” he said.

“Antisemitism, or Jew Hatred, is NOT ‘woke right’. Groypers, [Nick] Fuentes, and his followers are as far from the right as any of the godless Marxist progressives are,” he said at another point on X last year.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) will enter Tuesday’s closely watched primary against Ed Gallrein, a Navy veteran and farmer backed by President Donald Trump, politically damaged — but it remains to be seen whether he’s taken enough hits to end his career in Congress.

Scott Jennings, a Kentucky-based GOP strategist and CNN political analyst, said that he’s spoken to operatives on both sides of the race who are very confident in victory. “Based on some of the polling I’ve personally seen and heard about, it feels like Massie’s image has been severely degraded by the sustained campaign that’s been run against him,” Jennings told Jewish Insider.

The question is whether Massie’s image has been tarnished enough to cause his defeat, or if he’ll emerge wounded but still standing. Jennings said that Massie has built a “popular brand” in the district during his seven terms in office, but also hasn’t before faced a full-frontal assault from Trump and the associated avalanche of spending.

Al Cross, a professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and a political columnist, said he’s “loath to make predictions about that race, but Gallrein clearly has the momentum.”

He explained that Gallrein has received significant positive coverage in pro-Trump media, has stronger support among older voters, who are more likely to turn out, has a significant advantage in outside spending and has Trump’s influential endorsement. 

A Quantus Insights poll conducted this week showed Gallrein with a lead outside the margin of error, tallying 48% support from GOP voters, with Massie at 43%. Eight percent of voters remained undecided. 

In another late-breaking boost for Gallrein, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced its endorsement of the veteran on Thursday, a sign it sees Massie as vulnerable. 

Ultimately, Jennings said the race will be a test of voters’ willingness to support a representative who has been at odds with Trump. He said the influx of anti-Massie advertising has made the break between the two men clear to voters in a way that it may not have been before.

“The most popular Republican in the district is Donald Trump. And the thing Republicans want more than anything else in this world is for Donald Trump to succeed and for his party to help him succeed,” Jennings said. “And if they come to believe that you are an impediment to that success, they will punish you.”

“Now that having been said, there are certainly libertarian/contrarian voters in that district,” Jennings added, noting that the state has a long “contrarian streak,” particularly in Massie’s district.

But, voters also tend to harbor suspicions of first-time candidates they aren’t familiar with, Cross said, and Massie and his supporters have been working aggressively to frame Gallrein as untrustworthy, deceitful and not committed to the president.

Cross noted the recent polling as another positive sign for Gallrein — though he cautioned against putting too much stock in the results in a district where turnout could vary significantly from county to county.

Various Jewish and pro-Israel groups have poured money into the race attacking Massie and boosting Gallrein. The Republican Jewish Coalition has spent nearly $4 million, the AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project has spent $3.2 million against Massie and Christians United for Israel allocated six figures to buy dozens of billboards across the district.

The pro-Massie campaign has also waded into antisemitic territory, most recently with a television ad by a Massie-allied group attacking conservative Jewish donor Paul Singer, superimposing his head alongside a large Star of David.

Meanwhile, William Paul, son of the state’s junior senator, Rand Paul (R-KY), went on an antisemitic tirade against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in a Washington bar this week claiming that Jews would be responsible if Massie lost the race. 

Massie on Thursday announced plans to introduce the “AIPAC Act,” which would require the pro-Israel group, whose members are American citizens and do not take instruction from the Israeli government, to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He said that the legislation would apply to interest groups supporting other countries as well.

The congressman has long described AIPAC and its members as vectors of malign foreign influence, accusations that critics say lean into antisemitic dual loyalty tropes.

Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) on Thursday introduced an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) in Iran that would limit the length and scope of U.S. military operations, dismissing assertions by the administration that the operation that began in February had already concluded.

The AUMF marks one of the most concrete actions by congressional Republicans thus far to limit U.S. operations against Iran, and may preview further action by Republicans wary of the undefined and unclear scope of and plans for U.S. action against Iran. Senate Republicans are working on a similar AUMF effort.

In a statement, Barrett’s office noted that the administration notified Congress on May 1 that the use of military force against Iran had concluded, meeting a 60-day deadline under the War Powers Act for executive use of military force without congressional approval.

But, Barrett’s office noted, U.S. operations “are ongoing” and described his AUMF as an effort “reclaiming Congress’s authority under Article 1 of the Constitution and giving President Trump clear legal authority to stop Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon with clear safeguards and limitations.”

The AUMF would authorize the administration to use U.S. military force against Iran’s nuclear program, against “imminent threats” to U.S. forces or facilities by Iran or its proxies, to blockade Iran’s ports and to protect safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz — but that authorization would terminate on July 30, which falls 90 days after the War Powers Act deadline, irrespective of the current tenuous ceasefire agreement.

Barrett’s AUMF provides a 30-day wind-down period “only as necessary to end the deployment or engagement of the Armed Forces.”

The resolution would ban “sustained ground combat operations” in Iran, seizing or holding any territory within Iran and “nation-building or stabilization operations or the establishment of long-term security governance within Iran.” This would prevent the U.S. from occupying Iran’s Kharg Island oil facilities, an option discussed earlier in the war.

It would permit rescue operations or intelligence collection or sharing.

Barrett’s legislation states that U.S. servicemembers and the American people “deserve to know the clear mission scope and objective for the use of any military force.”

“Two things have been clear from the very beginning: Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the United States of America cannot be dragged into another endless war,” Barrett, a veteran, said in a statement. “The Commander in Chief has the sole authority to lead our troops in wartime, but I’ve lost too many friends on the battlefield to allow that to happen without Congress exercising its constitutional role to clearly define the mission with safeguards and a deadline. If we don’t learn from our foreign policy failures of the past, we are bound to repeat them.”

Barrett hails from a swing district rated as a toss-up by the Cook Political Report. His decision to introduce an AUMF comes amid concerns that the war could be a political liability for Republicans in the midterm elections in November.

The AUMF also requires detailed reports to Congress every 30 days on the U.S. operations — addressing frustrations from both sides of the aisle about a lack of information from the administration — including an explanation of the legal authority and policy justifications for “each action and operation” undertaken, the “expected scope and duration” of these actions and an assessment of civilian and military casualties.

The House is likely to vote on a Democratic-led war powers resolution to halt operations in Iran when it returns next week, which could pass. Progressive House Democrats have teed up a series of additional war powers votes in the coming weeks, with plans to force votes as frequently as every day.

The combination of history and polling is pointing to the likelihood of a Democratic wave election in the 2026 midterms, which would give Democrats control of the House and a fighting chance to claw back a Senate majority.

Polls show Democrats holding a sizable edge on the generic ballot, their favored candidates are running competitively even in red states and congressional districts, all while President Donald Trump’s approval rating is sagging amid high gas prices, executive overreach and an uncertain outcome in the aftermath of the war in Iran. 

But the one X-factor keeping Republicans competitive is the Democratic Party’s lurch leftward in the last year, leading to the emergence of extreme, exotic and out-of-the-mainstream candidates in pivotal battleground races. 

Indeed, a new poll commissioned by The Argument magazine finds that the generic ballot shows Democrats have been stuck with a six-point lead for a while even as Trump’s job approval has declined precipitously in the last several months. They’re voting to put a check on the GOP’s dominance of Washington, without endorsing the direction of the Democratic party. 

“Democrats still have tangible policy misalignments with many voters who dislike Trump,” The Argument concluded in its polling analysis. 

All told, the question becomes: Will the anticipated Democratic wave closely resemble the Democrats’ version of the GOP Tea Party election of 2010? In that election, Republicans swept into power in the House but far-right and extreme Senate candidates in key races blew golden opportunities, costing Republicans the upper chamber. 

That dynamic repeated itself in 2022, when many experts anticipated a Republican wave election, but the party’s nomination of hard-line MAGA candidates in battleground contests led to a marked underperformance. 

The alternative outcome is that partisanship and tribalism now run so deeply that an individual candidate’s flaws — even seemingly disqualifying ones — don’t mean what they used to. Right now, Democratic primary voters look like they’re ignoring personal baggage in favor of candidates that are the most ideologically progressive, personally authentic and who are burning hot with rage against Trump and the leadership class. 

On the Senate side, Maine Democrat Graham Platner fits that profile to a tee, and is all but locking down a primary victory against longtime Gov. Janet Mills, the favorite of the party establishment. If he’s the nominee, he’d then face Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has a record of winning tough races even in dismal environments for her party.

In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed holds both a radical record and support from a dedicated progressive base of young voters and Arab Americans. That has put him in contention for the Democratic nomination, but many Democrats fear he’d lose the seat to former Rep. Mike Rogers, the expected Republican nominee. 

And in Minnesota, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan holds lots of left-wing baggage but that’s not hurting her insurgent primary campaign against Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a more traditional and moderate Democratic contender. Former sportscaster Michele Tafoya is the GOP favorite in this race.

There are even more House races where problematic candidates are in contention in swing districts — like Ammar Campa-Najjar in the race of retiring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Colorado state Rep. Manny Rutinel, running to unseat Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO). 

If 2010 offered any lessons, it’s that ideologically extreme, problematic candidates typically underperform expectations. That often makes the difference in a battleground state or district, where the margin of victory is typically close. It’s easy to get nostalgic for a time when a candidate like Christine O’Donnell (who notoriously proclaimed she was not a witch!) was as exotic as it got in politics. Now one of the Democrats’ leading Senate candidates is known for proclaiming he’s “not a secret Nazi.”

But given the tribalism of the current environment and the intense anti-Trump sentiment among Democrats and independents, do voters care about candidate quality anymore? Last November, Virginia voters elected an attorney general who survived revelations that he wished violence on a political opponent, only mildly underperforming the rest of the Democratic ticket. 

This year’s midterm elections will put that proposition to the test. With strong battle-tested moderate recruits — like former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola — in purple and red states, Democrats are expanding the Senate map and giving themselves a fighting chance for a clean sweep. 

But they risk jeopardizing those gains with some (potentially) not-ready-for-primetime players in the biggest battlegrounds of all: Maine and Michigan.

Amid the downbeat assessment of Israel’s political standing in the U.S., two new polls that came out last week suggest that the Jewish state still can rely on a sizable, if largely Republican, constituency of support.

The biggest takeaway from these two new polls — one commissioned by NBC News and one conducted by the respected GOP firm Echelon Insights — is that Israel has become a partisan issue, with Democrats turning decidedly against the Jewish state while Republicans have become strongly supportive.

All told, the polls show the public evenly divided over Israel, with the splits largely along party, ideological and generational lines. The results indicate President Donald Trump’s embrace of the Jewish state has caused Democrats to take an instinctively more negative view — in a continuation of how politics has generally operated in the Trump era.

Echelon Insights, which surveyed 1,022 respondents from March 12-16, found 44% of respondents held a favorable view of Israel, while 38% held an unfavorable view. While Israel’s plus-6 net favorability score is nothing to write home about, the results are noticeably better than a recent Pew Research Center poll that drew outsized attention for finding Israel’s net favorability rating at a dismal minus-23 (37/60%).

The Echelon poll found support was highest for Israel among the most conservative voters, with 72% of “very conservative” voters viewing the Jewish state favorably, while 61% of “somewhat conservative” respondents said the same. Moderates broke evenly, with 40% viewing Israel favorably and 39% unfavorably.

But among “somewhat liberal” respondents, support for Israel dropped noticeably, with just 31% viewing the Jewish state favorably and 55% unfavorably. And among the “very liberal” voters, only 14% viewed Israel favorably and 70% unfavorably — a worse favorability rating than Iran and China. 

The Echelon survey found the same general splits within both parties: Republicans under 50 were significantly less supportive of Israel than their older counterparts, with 44% viewing it favorably and 33% unfavorably. By contrast, 78% of Republicans over 50 gave Israel positive marks. 

Similarly, there was a sizable minority of Democrats over 50 (33%) who viewed Israel favorably, compared to the smaller share of under-50 Democrats (17%) who said the same. 

The NBC poll, conducted by SurveyMonkey between March 30-April 13, framed its question about Israel in a different way, asking respondents whether they were more sympathetic to Israelis or Palestinians. The poll found an even 50-50% split on the question.

The groups that were most sympathetic to Palestinians were Democrats (75% viewed Palestinians more favorably, 25% Israelis) and Gen Zers (74%/26%). 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a moderate Republican and co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, introduced a war powers resolution on Thursday that aims to enforce the deadlines for the war in Iran laid out in the 1973 War Powers Act.

Fitzpatrick is the first Republican — other than isolationist Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — to introduce legislation that would constrain the administration’s ability to act in Iran. The move is a signal that GOP support for the effort could begin to erode if the administration disregards legal limitations on the length of its operation in Iran.

The War Powers Act limits any military operation initiated unilaterally by the executive branch to 60 days, with an additional 30-day drawdown period, unless the operations are subsequently authorized by Congress. The 60-day period will expire at the end of April.

“The War Powers Act of 1973 is the law of the land,” Fitzpatrick said. “This consistent standard must be applied to all past, current, and future administrations when it comes to military hostilities abroad. … This is the law that has applied to past administrations, and it is the law that will apply to current and future administrations. This is the law and, until it is changed, it will be consistently applied and consistently enforced across all administrations and all conflicts.”

Other Republicans, including moderates, have also indicated that they would be uncomfortable with or unable to support any military operations in Iran past the 60-day deadline without additional congressional authorization — though some have said they would support such an authorization.

Yet, others have argued that the limitations in the War Powers Act are not legally binding and say Republicans on the Hill will disregard them.

Running in a highly competitive district, Fitzpatrick’s move could also be a sign of discomfort with the continued war effort among swing-district Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

The House narrowly voted to block a Democratic resolution to force an end to the war in Iran by a vote of 214-213-1, with all but one of the four Democrats who opposed a similar effort in March changing their votes to support it on Thursday.

Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had held off on calling a vote on the resolution in hopes that he would be able to win over enough Democratic holdouts and Republican defectors to pass the legislation.

Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Juan Vargas (D-CA) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who voted last month against a similar resolution, flipped their votes to support the war powers effort. But Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), who is retiring at the end of his term, voted no again.

On the Republican side, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), who voted for the war powers resolution last time, switched his vote to “present.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only Republican who voted for the resolution.

A small number of Republicans who have expressed skepticism about the war effort and could have been potential swing votes, including Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Nancy Mace (R-SC), did not vote.

Golden said in a statement that the war powers resolution would “weaken our hand” in negotiations with Iran.

“I believe we must maintain a strong negotiation position over Iran’s nuclear program, freedom of movement in the international waters at the Strait of Hormuz, and how to achieve a durable peace between our two nations,” Golden said in a statement.

Despite skepticism over the terms and reports of ongoing Iranian strikes, several prominent hawkish Republicans are voicing support for President Donald Trump’s fragile two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among the most prominent backers of the war in the Senate, said in a post on X that a “diplomatic solution to end the reign of terror in Iran is the preferred outcome” but said he has concerns about the supposed 10-point plan presented by Iran, which would require the lifting of all U.S. sanctions on Iran, among other steps. 

U.S. officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, said the U.S. did not agree to that version of the deal, but that at least three versions of the Iranian proposal have circulated. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the original 10-point plan proposed by Iran was “fundamentally unserious” and was “literally thrown into the garbage by President Trump and his team.”

“I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said.

He added that all of Iran’s enriched uranium must be turned over to the United States and that Iran cannot have any enrichment capacity.

“To those who say, Iran needs to save face by having a small enrichment program, I’m not remotely interested in providing face-saving cover to a regime that murders its own people, beats a 16-year-old girl to death for not wearing a headscarf appropriately, and is dripping in American blood,” Graham said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on his podcast that he believes Trump was prepared to follow through on his threats against Iran, but agreed to hold off in response to Pakistan’s mediation efforts and Iran’s agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as he had demanded.

“Many of the military objectives have been accomplished. The military has been degraded almost out of existence,” Cruz said, though he acknowledged that it doesn’t take much for Iran to disrupt trade in the Strait of Hormuz. “There’s virtually no military left. It’s like four guys with a slingshot sitting on the back of a camel.”

But Cruz said he would be skeptical that the ceasefire would hold if Iran’s attacks on its neighbors continued.

He said his definition of success in Iran would be taking away Iran’s ability to kill Americans and innocent people in the region and its ability to become a nuclear power. He said that full regime change is the responsibility of the Iranian people, not the United States.

Responding to a post by Trump about the agreement and the damage to Iran’s nuclear program, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) said, “President Trump has always been crystal clear: there must be no uranium enrichment for Iran. And he’s absolutely right. That was a central flaw in Obama’s disastrous deal. Because the only reason Iran would demand to enrich uranium is to build a nuclear weapon.”

He didn’t address the substance of the ceasefire deal itself.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) praised Trump’s execution of the war and the ceasefire, saying that the war had shown that the U.S. is the strongest nation and has the strongest military on the planet.

“He has made it clear – Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. And so, it’s really through his efforts that the U.S. not only secured a temporary ceasefire but more importantly, they obtained a commitment from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Cramer said in a statement. “That has been his short-term goal in recent days, and it’s an important goal that affects a lot of people, not just the United States but our Middle East friends and certainly Europe.”

He called on other allies to step up — and predicted they would following the ceasefire agreement. But he also urged continued caution.

“Now we have to keep our eyes wide open obviously, it’s not like the Iranian regime is good for keeping its word, but in my mind, this is a pretty good breakthrough,” Cramer continued. “I’m grateful for President Trump’s unwavering dedication to defending our country and holding our adversaries accountable, and frankly, holding some allies accountable as well. I certainly hope they learned from this lesson.”

Other senior Republicans haven’t commented on the ceasefire agreement yet.

Off Capitol Hill, some prominent right-wing voices who have had the president’s ear are taking a different view of the deal.

Conservative commentator Mark Levin emphasized that Iran violated the ceasefire deal shortly after it was signed. He accused Iran of trying to use the negotiations to “blackmail us and Israel” to allow Hezbollah to continue its attacks on Israel and divide the U.S. and its allies.

“The 2-week ceasefire is being violated right now by the Iranian-Nazi regime.  Missiles are being fired into Israel and perhaps other countries in the region.  Are they able to defend themselves?” he said on X. We have the right man as president, and I bet he’s furious about this.”

“But this will be the question throughout — that is, do we expect the Iranian regime to honor a deal, how will we monitor it, and how will we enforce it.  These will all be very difficult issues to resolve,” he continued.

Responding to the 10-point Iranian proposal, Levin said simply, “Uh oh.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer said on X the deal is “a negative for our country” and “we didn’t really get anything out of it.”

Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, passed in response to the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran in 2015, any agreement pertaining to Iran’s nuclear capabilities must be submitted to Congress for its review, and Congress has the ability to vote to block any such agreement.

In spite of the ceasefire, Democrats are continuing to agitate for Trump’s removal from office and plan to pursue war powers resolutions to force an end to the war.

In a Dear Colleague letter on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Democrats plan to attempt to pass a war powers resolution during a pro-forma session on Thursday by unanimous consent — an effort that is likely to fail. 

Jeffries also said that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and committee Democrats plan to hold a briefing on Friday on “Trump administration accountability and the 25th Amendment” — indicating that the doomed push to remove Trump from office has backing from the top echelons of the Democratic Party.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Democrats are planning to force a vote on a war powers resolution next week, the fourth since the war began on Feb. 28, when the Senate returns from its own recess.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doubled down on his calls for two of his primary challengers in his reelection campaign to fire senior officials over their record of antisemitic statements after both candidates refused to do so — vowing on Tuesday to fight the growing tolerance for Jew-hatred in the GOP and call out aspiring lawmakers in South Carolina who excuse or embrace it. 

The South Carolina senator convened Christian and Jewish leaders for a call with reporters to criticize Paul Dans and Mark Lynch, who are challenging Graham in the Republican primary for his Senate seat, over Dans’ refusal to fire Vish Burra as his campaign communications director and Lynch declining to part ways with Evan Mulch as his political director despite their respective records of making antisemitic statements. 

Graham told reporters that while he would not typically make an issue of the behavior of staffers from an opposing campaign, he felt compelled to speak out because of the outgrowth of antisemitism in the Republican Party.

“I’m speaking more today as just an American, a senator representing South Carolina, rather than just a candidate. I’ve never had to make a phone call like this, and it, quite frankly, is disturbing,” Graham said. “There are two opponents of mine that have staff members that are very out of touch with where I think South Carolina is, and spewing hate in the form of antisemitism.”

“I’ve never done this before, but this is a problem in America, a small problem in the Republican Party, that I don’t want to grow,” he continued. “I seldom do this, go after other people’s campaigns, because I feel confident that what I’ve got to offer wins the day politically, but this is not about politics. This is not about my primary. This is about stopping something before it gets stronger, calling it out and making it unacceptable.”

Graham highlighted both staffers’ records at a news conference last Thursday and on Tuesday’s call, condemning Burra for depicting Jews as cockroaches in a video he created on the right-wing One America News Network, which ultimately resulted in his firing as a producer. 

Mulch, meanwhile, posted a photo  on X last June of a boot stepping on the Talmud and calling it a “hate filled book.”

“I call this out because I think it’s a vile antisemitic action. It has no place in politics or, quite frankly, decent society, and he hasn’t been fired,” Graham said on Tuesday. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Dans, in responding to the call to deal with the staffers, said that my campaign was controlled by Israel and that I’m being blackmailed by Israel and other affiliated groups, which I think is one of the oldest stereotypes, that the Jews control politicians.”

“When you step on the Talmud with a boot, I don’t think that’s American,” he added of Mulch. “I don’t think it’s Christian, and I don’t think there’s any place in running for higher office for people who engage in that behavior, and I’ve called for him to be fired with no response.”

While Graham said he does not believe it is inherently antisemitic to voice objections to the policies of the Israeli government, he argued that tolerance of such criticisms did equate to tolerance of blatant antisemitism.

“I’m a strong supporter of Israel, and you can oppose Israeli policies and not be an antisemite,” Graham said. “But when you’re an antisemite, not only do you oppose Israel, I think you oppose human decency and what America stands for.”

Graham told Jewish Insider on the call that he was confident “that when the people of South Carolina — Republicans, Democrats and independents — hear what’s going on, and that’s why I’m doing it today, it will be soundly rejected.”

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition; Sandra Hagee Parker, who chairs the board of CUFI Action Fund, the political arm of Christians United for Israel; and Rabbi Yossi Refson of Chabad of Charleston spoke on the call in support of Graham’s efforts.

“We have witnessed, I believe, sadly, the institutionalization of antisemitism in the Democratic Party,” Brooks told attendees. “For us at the Republican Jewish Coalition, let me be very clear and unambiguous that this is a fight that we will take everywhere. We will ensure that antisemitism does not take hold in our party like it has taken hold in the Democratic Party. The fabric of America was woven together based on Judeo-Christian values, the values that we all cherish are built in partnership with our Christian allies and friends. Anybody who traffics in antisemitic rhetoric or antisemitic actions has no place in our party.”

Graham vowed at the end of the call to continue his push to ensure elected Republicans in and out of the state are individuals who repudiate antisemitism.

“The breadth of condemnation here and the quality of the thoughts expressed not only give me hope and prove that I’m doing the right thing. It inspires me. I am not going to let this go after what I heard today. I am never going to let this go until my last breath. I will make sure that any group, but particularly the long suffering Jewish people, have my unequivocal support.”

Dans and Lynch were unapologetic about their campaign staffers, instead releasing statements late last week and Tuesday directing their ire at Graham in deeply personal terms. 

“He’s given a member of my campaign staff more attention than he’s given South Carolinians for decades,” Dans said in a statement last Thursday. “The real headline that you should be covering is how many opioid deaths happened in South Carolina last year on Lindsey Graham’s watch. Israel picks Lindsey Graham’s staff, but they do not pick mine. I am not firing Vish Burra and I am calling on the people of South Carolina to fire Lindsey Graham.”

Lynch, meanwhile, told JI in a statement on Tuesday evening that Graham was “an existential threat to both the nation of Israel and the United States.”

“Lindsey Graham is responsible for the deaths of countless Jews in Israel by the fact that he has sent 10s of millions of dollars to Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Al-Nusra Front — funding the enemies of Israel,” Lynch said.

Today’s special election runoff in Georgia between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris to determine the successor to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) isn’t much in doubt. The northwestern Georgia district that Greene represented backed President Donald Trump by 37 points in 2024, one of the largest GOP margins in the country.

What makes the otherwise sleepy contest significant is the potential for the results to indicate if there are any fissures within the MAGA coalition, ones that may represent Republican discontent with Trump’s hawkish turn amid the Iran war. In this race, the margins will be as notable as the winner. 

Greene, since leaving Congress, has emerged a loud Republican voice against the Iran war and against Trump’s strong alliance with Israel. Fuller, a military veteran with a background in counterterrorism operations and district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, has been a stalwart supporter of Trump’s military operations in the Middle East, and Trump has endorsed him in the race.

Harris, the Democrat, holds foreign policy views closer to the isolationist Greene, attacking the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC and describing Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide” — views which place him on the left flank of the Democratic Party. This despite Harris’ time serving as defense attache in Israel during his years in the National Guard, work history that he has not publicized during the campaign.

It’s worth noting that Greene, since she was first elected to the seat in 2020, has underperformed Trump’s standing in the district, only winning 64% of the vote against Harris in 2024 — four points below Trump’s 68% showing at the top of the ticket. And since breaking with Trump in his second term, her political standing has taken an even bigger hit.

Greene has not endorsed either candidate in the race.

If Harris wins over 40% of the vote in this ruby-red district, it’s a sign that Democrats are making inroads into rock-ribbed conservative turf, potentially over frustrations with rising gas prices and the Iran war. But if he doesn’t perform much better than he did in 2024 — and he only won 37% of the vote in the first round of balloting, compared to the 36% he tallied two years ago — it’s a sign that the media hype over a MAGA fissure is greatly overstated. 

The election also carries some relevance for another big political showdown in Georgia later this year: Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) reelection campaign. Given a divided GOP primary field and an unfavorable national environment for Republicans, Ossoff starts with some advantages in what otherwise looks like a tough reelection.

If the GOP base turns out strongly for Fuller, it’s a sign that Republicans will still be able to rely on conservative voter enthusiasm and engagement in the run-up to the closely watched Senate battleground.

But if there are signs of GOP weakness in one of the reddest parts of the state, it would be evidence that Trump’s political problems aren’t just limited to swing voters, but could extend to even redder states and districts on the battleground map. 

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.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Wednesday that he still hopes to pass supplemental military funding to support the war in Iran through regular legislative procedures, rather than incorporating it into an anticipated party-line budget reconciliation bill.

Graham, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, which oversees reconciliation, announced on Wednesday that the committee would be pursuing a new reconciliation bill, to include funding for both the military and homeland security.

But asked by Jewish Insider whether he expects Iran war funding — the Pentagon has proposed an ask of more than $200 billion for the war — to be included in the reconciliation bill, as some Republicans have been discussing, Graham said he would still like to pass it through normal procedures.

“That might be difficult — hopefully we can do it through normal order,” Graham said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, also previously expressed a preference for approving the funding through regular order, rather than reconciliation.

Both paths come with significant hurdles: With nearly all Senate Democrats opposed to the war and many opposed to additional funding, trying to pass the Iran war supplemental through normal procedures may run up against a Democratic filibuster.

But the reconciliation process, which only needs a 50-vote majority, would require near-unanimous support from House Republicans, something that may be difficult to rally on any reconciliation bill — regardless of the policy issues — but especially so when a handful of House Republicans have expressed opposition to or skepticism of the war effort.

Graham said Wednesday morning on X that the Budget Committee would “expeditiously move toward creating a second budget reconciliation bill.”

“The purpose of the second reconciliation bill is to make sure there is adequate funding to secure our homeland and to support our men and women in the military who are fighting so bravely,” Graham said. “President Trump and Leader [John] Thune [R-SD] are right to push for a second reconciliation bill to address the threats we face and keep our elections secure and fair.”

Even outside of the war-related funding, President Donald Trump is seeking a $1.5 trillion budget for the Pentagon for 2027, an increase of more than 50%. Some reporting around the ongoing talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security has suggested that funding for immigration enforcement could be separated from the current funding debate and passed through reconciliation.

Following a Republican convening this week focused on combating right-wing antisemitism, a prominent moderate Democratic group urged fellow Democrats to follow the lead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in calling out antisemitism within their own party. 

“We certainly believe that Cruz was right and our side has a real antisemitism problem too that too many Democrats are failing to face squarely,” Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the center-left think tank Third Way, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

His comments came after Lily Cohen, a press advisor at the organization, shared a post highlighting Cruz’s comments at the Republican Jewish Coalition confab and said she “would love to see more Dems calling out antisemitism on their own side with the same fervor.” 

Cohen specifically mentioned Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the far-left, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. 

“We do believe that Platner has not remotely done enough to explain why he had a Nazi tattoo for 20 years,” said Bennett.

Cohen’s comments inadvertently spotlighted — and even ignited — the growing feud within the Democratic Party over Israel and antisemitism. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a progressive lawmaker who has been a frequent critic of Israel and pro-Israel activists in the U.S., responded to Cohen’s post by saying he stands with Platner, Mamdani and even Piker.

“The problem is with the neocons in our party who blundered into Iraq, 20 years in Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, & now support the Iran war. Out with the old guard. We need a new moral direction,” Khanna wrote — prompting Bennett to call on Khanna directly to do more to oppose antisemitism. 

“We do not support the Iran War — we have publicly and strenuously opposed it. But we do stand against antisemitism. It would be good if you did, too,” Bennett wrote. 

When Khanna posted a message on X condemning Thursday’s active shooter attack at a suburban Detroit synagogue, Jim Kessler, another senior Third Way official, offered a verbal eye-roll. 

“Yadda, yadda, yadda…” Kessler wrote.

In a low-profile electoral upset that defied the difficult national political environment facing the GOP, a Republican candidate declared victory this week in a down-ballot race for a seat on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in Virginia — for the first time in nearly 40 years.

But while Republicans are now rejoicing over their narrow win, it otherwise largely demonstrated how Democratic leaders effectively sacrificed the seat to the GOP rather than elevate an extremist member of their own party who had claimed the nomination.

The result underscored the extent to which local Democrats had swiftly mobilized to oppose their own nominee, Muhammed Casim, who faced backlash over a series of recently uncovered past social media comments in which he used racist, misogynistic and antisemitic language. The posts, written more than a decade ago, used the n-word as well as demeaning rhetoric targeting women. He also accused Israel of genocide and promoted a conspiratorial post about U.S. financial assistance to the Jewish state, among other extreme comments.

More broadly, the outcome is an atypical example of how the Democratic Party worked to meaningfully confront extremism within its own ranks, even if its efforts came at the expense of an easily winnable local seat that instead flipped to Republicans for the first time in decades. 

Casim apologized for his comments but refused bipartisan calls to drop out of the race, which had motivated a Democratic challenger to launch a write-in campaign that ultimately helped siphon votes away from his embattled bid. He lost to Republican Jeannie LaCroix by a margin of 258 votes. Write-in candidates pulled in 744 votes — a relatively sizable total that appeared to have made a difference in the closely contested race.

“Opposing antisemitism, racism or misogyny isn’t a partisan position,” Marc Broklawski, a Jewish vice chair of the Virginia Democratic Party, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “It’s a floor, not a ceiling, and the least we should expect from any party, official candidate or voter. When Democrats hold that floor even when it’s costly, that’s something to be proud of. When we don’t, voters notice that too.”

Casim’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Though some prominent Democrats have sought to reject radicalism in their party, many Jewish party activists have begun to express a growing sense of unease about whether their longtime political home will remain welcoming, amid rising hostility toward Israel that has frequently crossed into antisemitism while producing alliances with controversial figures.

This week, for instance, leading Jewish groups spoke out against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision to host Mahmoud Khalil, the campus anti-Israel activist facing deportation who had justified Hamas’ terror attacks, for dinner at his official residence, while Democratic officials largely stayed silent. 

Likewise, a mounting number of Senate Democrats have endorsed Graham Platner in his insurgent bid for Senate in Maine, brushing aside concerns about a recently covered Nazi tattoo whose provenance he has struggled to explain as well as associations with antisemitic conspiracy theorists that have continued to raise alarms among many Jewish party members.

And in Virginia, Jewish Democrats have denounced an anti-Israel state legislator, Sam Rasoul, who has called Zionism “evil” and a “supremacist ideology,” even as high-ranking state party officials have been reluctant to weigh in on his incendiary commentary.

By contrast, several Jewish activists and party strategists said they were encouraged that most Democratic leaders had enforced red lines in the Virginia supervisor election. Even if the party had been forced to endure a short-term hit in losing the seat, they suggested, it was healthy to set standards — particularly in a time of rising extremism on both sides of the aisle.

“Virginia Democratic leaders were clearly repulsed by Muhammed Casim’s racist, misogynistic and antisemitic social media posts,” Sara Forman, a Jewish party strategist who previously worked in the state, told JI. “Their actions, including calling Casim out publicly, should send a strong signal nationally that the entirety of the Democratic Party has not capitulated to the leftist narrative entirely.”

Such opposition was not unanimous, however, as the local party accepted Casim’s apology and said it would stand behind his campaign. “There’s a lesson in there about the integrity of voters and the lack of integrity — and therefore weakened legacy — among some Dem leaders,” Shannon Watts, a gun control activist who has also criticized Platner, wrote in an X post on Wednesday.

“Leadership means speaking out clearly and consistently against antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and not only when it is easy, but especially when it is not — and from whomever,” Eileen Filler-Corn, a Jewish Democrat and former speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates, told JI. “These values should unite us. We can disagree on policy and politics, but standing against hate and discrimination in all forms should never be up for debate. Our credibility with voters depends on our willingness to apply that standard fairly and without hesitation.”

Still, with most Democratic elected officials in the county refusing to support Casim after his posts had surfaced near the end of the race, nonpartisan Jewish leaders and members of both parties voiced satisfaction regarding the strong show of resistance.

“We think it is imperative that both parties call out the fringe and hateful elements in their own parties, so we’re certainly glad to see the Democratic Party do it in this instance — especially when it was hard and cost them a seat,” Vicki Fishman, the director of Virginia government and community relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told JI. “It’s an important lesson for everybody that hate is hate, and when you see the ugly rhetoric in your own house for what it is, it’s important to call it out.”

Gary Katz, a Jewish Republican activist in nearby Loudoun County, said he was “encouraged by the outcome” of Tuesday’s race, “where principled voices within the Democratic Party chose to reject a nominee whose past comments reflected racism, misogyny and antisemitism — even at the risk of losing the seat to a Republican.”

He said the dynamic “mirrors efforts we’ve seen in the GOP, such as in Fairfax County, to keep hateful elements from gaining leadership roles,” referring to a recent election where Republicans beat back an extreme candidate for county chair who had spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. 

“It’s a reminder that combating the rising scourge of antisemitism requires people of good conscience in both parties to prioritize our shared values over partisan wins,” Katz told JI on Wednesday. “We need more of this vigilance to ensure that extreme fringes on either side never hold power, and that we support responsible leadership, even when we disagree politically, rather than those who align with us but betray our core principles.”

Voters are casting ballots today in the special election for the ruby-red House seat previously held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), but the final outcome will likely remain uncertain for another month. 

With 17 candidates on the all-party ballot, the race is expected to go to a runoff — unless any candidate receives 50% or more of the vote, making today’s race effectively a competition over which two candidates are likely to finish with the most support. 

On the GOP side, the race is dominated by two candidates. The first is Clay Fuller, a local district attorney, veteran and former White House fellow who is backed by President Donald Trump. 

The second, former state Sen. Colton Moore, a hard-line conservative rabble-rouser often at odds with his own party’s leadership, is running as the anti-establishment populist — a profile that more closely matches Greene’s. 

The district is one of the most Republican in the country: Trump carried the district by 37 percentage points in 2024, and paid a visit to the district in late February to throw his support behind Fuller.

A third Republican candidate, Brian Stover, a local businessman, has raised a significant amount of campaign cash and is a wild card. 

On the Democratic side, the likely leader is Army veteran Shawn Harris, who lost to Greene in 2024 by nearly 30 points. He’s pulled in $4.2 million from Democrats outraged by Greene and who’ve been attracted by a far-fetched pitch that he can flip the seat. But he’s likely to secure a runoff spot, given how many Republican candidates are on the ballot.

Fuller’s campaign has been touting Trump’s endorsement, and his own military service. Fuller’s Air Force career included work on counterterrorism operations, and he was deployed in 2024 to the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar supporting U.S. Central Command operations. He also has the support of the conservative Club for Growth.

He has backed the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran, and expressed support for Israel. “President Trump tried the peace route with Iran not once, not twice, but THREE separate times—and they refused. He’s the peace President, but you can’t negotiate with a death cult,” Fuller said, emphasizing he had supported operations against Iran and that the regime and its proxies had killed many Americans.

Despite not receiving Trump’s support, Moore is also trying to tie himself closely to the president, describing himself on his campaign website as “Trump’s #1 Defender” and “a Proven Warrior for President Trump” — pointing to his vocal efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election and opposition to subsequent investigations of Trump and his allies — and using the campaign slogan, “God. Guns. Trump.”

Moore has repeatedly found himself at odds with Georgia’s GOP establishment, having been expelled from the Republican caucus, banned from the Statehouse floor and arrested when he tried to enter the 2025 State of the State address.

Moore doesn’t appear to have addressed the war in Iran, but said, days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, “The Jewish people are the indigenous people of Israel.” And according to a candidate questionnaire from 2022, he is a longtime supporter of Israel, having attended AIPAC conferences and, as a college student, having served as co-chair of the University of Georgia AIPAC chapter. “There is no Palestinian land, it is all the land of Israel,” he said in the questionnaire.

So despite his MAGA bona fides, his record appears decidedly more supportive of Israel than Greene, who has advanced antisemitic conspiracy theories and became one of the few anti-Israel Republicans in Congress.

However, Moore was also the only Republican member of the state Senate to vote against a bill in 2024 codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism — echoing Greene’s stance on the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the same year.

As of Feb. 18, Stover had raised $940,000 (around two-thirds of that was in the form of a personal loan to his campaign), Fuller $787,000 and Moore $342,000.

The normally voluble Greene has stayed on the sidelines in the race to replace her, not endorsing or rallying for any of the candidates, as she continues to air her disappointment with Trump and the GOP leadership.

Brandon Herrera, the presumptive Republican nominee in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, spoke on a podcast in 2024 — after his first run for the House — about owning a copy of Mein Kampf, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, earning him a fresh rebuke from the Republican Jewish Coalition.

The GOP candidate and social media influencer, whose path to the nomination was cleared Thursday when Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said he would not run for reelection amid his own growing scandal, has faced ongoing scrutiny over a video he posted to his YouTube channel including imagery, music and jokes connected to the Nazis and the Holocaust, his interactions with neo-Nazis online and his membership in a neo-Confederate group.

During a 2024 appearance on the “Unsubscribe” podcast, another guest joked that he had been deeply involved in communism until he had read another book, producing a copy of Mein Kampf. Herrera, who appeared to immediately recognize the book when others on the podcast did not, promptly turned to his phone to produce a picture of his own copy of the Nazi manifesto.

“That’s my copy at my house next to a bunch of the German stick grenades,” Herrera said. “I got the 1939 edition printed in English just because I thought it was wild that you couldn’t buy it on Amazon but you could buy The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital,” he added, making a confused face.

Herrera and the others on the podcast went on to make fun of the Nazi book, describing it as poorly written, also laughing at a dramatic reading an antisemitic passage of the book by one of the hosts.

Herrera’s comments during the segment indicate that he has reviewed this version of Mein Kampf — annotated in English prior to World War II with criticism of Hitler’s writing and ideas — in at least some degree of detail.

“It’s nice that it’s not a modern annotation … this is historical context, before Germany is ‘the enemy,’ this is what the sentiment was at the time,” Herrera continued. “I never thought I’d have an intellectual conversation about the validity of reading Mein Kampf in 2024 on a podcast.”

“Poland gives this one star,” Herrera quipped.

Herrera told the San Antonio Express News that attacks on him for owning a copy of Mein Kampf are “hilarious.”

“I bought a copy for my historic book collection, and I keep it right next to my copy of the Communist manifesto. I uh, don’t agree with either book,” Herrera said.

He also denied being antisemitic, dismissing the controversial episodes as jokes.

“If my opponents continue to purposely pretend to not know the difference between humor and jokes clipped out of context and my actual beliefs, it’s going to be an annoying few months,” Herrera continued.

Herrera has also been a critic of AIPAC since its super PAC ran ads against him in 2024.

“Look, I have as much of a reason as anyone to despise AIPAC. They spent over $1 million to slander me and cost my race,” Herrera said in 2024. “But as much as I despise their ‘Israel first’ bullshit: 1. It’s far from a top issue for me. 2. The majority of Congress on both sides have ties to them (also a [red flag]).”

He also said “AIPAC is an enemy of US Elections” and claimed that the group “forces” lawmakers to sponsor legislation.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, which ran an ad campaign against Herrera in 2024 over his past controversies and his opposition to aid to Israel, again disavowed him on Friday.

“The RJC has a longstanding policy of speaking out against those who traffic in Nazi ideology, and this is another case,” spokesperson Sam Markstein told Jewish Insider. “The RJC opposed Mr. Herrera in 2024, and he will not get our support now.”

Democrats have quickly seized on Herrera’s ascension, highlighting his past baggage.

“Mike Johnson tried to quietly push sexual harasser Tony Gonzales through his primary out of fear of defending a Neo-Nazi,” DCCC spokesperson Justin Chermol said in a statement. “Now Gonzales is gone and House Republicans have added another casualty to their massive retirement list. Good riddance.” (Members of Congress who decide not to run for reelection are referred to in Washington as “casualties.”)

The House Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with Democratic House leadership, has also been highlighting Herrera’s past controversies, and shared a post suggesting the district could be winnable for Democrats.

“Brandon Herrera’s nomination is a gift to Democrats … Herrera is an antisemitic YouTuber,” House Majority PAC spokesperson Katarina Flicker said in a statement. “Now the NRCC and Speaker Mike Johnson are aligning themselves with his extremism, and it could cost them TX-23 in November.”

Johnson’s political team did not provide comment on Herrera.

Long-shot Democratic nominee Katy Padilla Stout raised just $45,000 and ended 2025 with just $8,500 on hand, leaving her ill-positioned to a contest district that strongly favors Republicans without significant help.

President Donald Trump won the district by 16 points and Gonzales won by 24 points in 2024, though there have been indications that Hispanic voters who swung toward Republicans in 2024 may be trending away from the party. By a narrow margin, more people voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary in the district this week.

While the group has not endorsed Herrera, and typically does not make formal endorsements in safe seats, the National Republican Congressional Committee said in response to questions about Herrera that it expects Republicans will hold the seat.

“Texas’ 23rd District is deep red, and Democrats know it. While they talk a big game in Washington, they don’t even have a credible recruit and are too busy defending their own vulnerable members across Texas to compete here,” NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez said. “In November, voters will once again elect a Republican who will secure the border, lower costs, and stand up for Texas families.”

A day after Republican senators blocked a vote to end the U.S.-Israeli operations in Iran, the House voted 219-212 to defeat a similar war powers resolution, with four Democrats breaking with their party to oppose an immediate end to the war, and two Republicans voting with other Democrats to oppose military action.

Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Jared Golden (D-ME), Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) were ultimately the only Democrats to vote against the resolution, which was led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY). Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who said they would oppose the resolution before the war began, ultimately voted in favor.

On the Republican side, Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), both of whom have isolationist leanings, were the only members of the GOP to support the resolution.

Moskowitz had argued before the war that voting preemptively on the resolution would remove U.S. leverage in negotiations, but argued that the situation has since changed and that the U.S. is now in a full-scale war.

“I didn’t flip at all,” Moskowitz told Jewish Insider. “Circumstances have changed since my first statement two weeks ago.”

In a statement, he condemned Iran and its regime, saying he is “happy that [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is no longer able to reign terror on his country,” but added, “Regardless of how one feels about this war, or this President, Congress’s constitutional role in any declaration of war is a completely separate issue,” expressing concern at the erosion of congressional war powers over the past year. 

“We must reestablish our Article I authority which grants Congress all legislative powers,” Moskowitz said, adding that he did not believe the resolution would prevent continued efforts to protect U.S. bases and personnel nor intelligence sharing with allies.

Gottheimer emphasized in a statement that the U.S. “simply can’t afford to get this wrong — we must win and crush” the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, emphasizing that he is not, in principle, opposed to military action against Iran and that the regime “deserves the punishment they’re receiving.

“With the defeat of the War Powers Resolution in the Senate, the vote in the House today shifted from an unacceptable call that could put our troops in harm’s way to a clear call for this Administration to articulate the goals for the mission, the end game, and their plan to avoid a protracted conflict,” Gottheimer continued — suggesting that he voted for the resolution because it was, in essence, symbolic given that it did not pass the Senate.

“Unlike some of my colleagues who are opposed to combatting the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, I’m supporting this resolution to send a clear message to the Administration: the American people deserve a coherent explanation of what precipitated this war, what success looks like, and how we will know when the mission has been achieved,” he continued, criticizing “shifting justifications and objectives” from the administration. “I’m not opposed to taking action against Iran. I believe that steps to address the persistent threats are merited and necessary to protect our broader national security interests.”

He pledged to make sure the military has sufficient resources, signaling that he may support supplemental funding for the mission if and when requested.

The beginning of combat operations, the loss of some American soldiers and the administration’s inconsistent messaging and strategy — as well as an aggressive push from Democratic leadership — likely helped Democrats close ranks on the war powers resolution.

After the vote, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he would call up another war powers resolution 60 days from the start of the war, the limit under which an administration can conduct military operations without congressional authorization under the War Powers Act.

“Members who voted against today’s WPR on the assumption that Trump’s war will be swift or limited will not have that excuse once we’ve entered the third month of open-ended hostilities,” Meeks said.

Like Moskowitz and Gottheimer, a handful of other Democrats who have offered a degree of support for the U.S. operations in Iran ultimately voted for the resolution. Some have pointed to concerns about constitutional process and the administration’s failure to seek congressional approval for the war, rather than opposition to the war in general.

“I will vote for the war powers resolution because I cannot support unchecked authority for the administration to engage, indefinitely, in an already deadly war with unknown size and scope, especially considering Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s suggestion that he is willing to” use ground troops in the operation, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), a moderate House Democrat, said.

At the same time, Suozzi said that “Iran is weaker and the regime’s leadership has been decimated — those are good things. If these operations make the region more secure and America safer, those would also be good things.” He added that the war powers resolution would not prevent Congress from authorizing the use of force in Iran “if necessary and properly presented to Congress.”

Davidson, one of the two Republicans who voted for the resolution. said on the House floor on Wednesday that operations against Iran were just, and potentially necessary, but unconstitutional.

“For some this debate will be about whether we should even be fighting in Iran. For me, the debate is more fundamental: is the president of the United States, regardless of the person holding the office, empowered to do whatever he wants?” Davidson said. “That’s not what our Constitution says. … I rise in support of this war powers resolution today because the moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat.”

Davidson argued that his Republican colleagues were ignoring the clear definition of what constitutes a war, and repudiating Trump’s campaign promises.

The House resolution, unlike the Senate version, included no specific protections to allow for continued U.S. intelligence sharing with Israel and other allies, and defensive operations to protect allies like Israel and U.S. forces.

Earlier this week, Gottheimer, Landsman, Suozzi, Cuellar, Golden and Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Adam Gray (D-CA) had introduced an alternative resolution that would give the administration 30 days from the start of the war to wind down operations in Iran, rather than demanding an immediate halt, while banning any ground operations.

Gottheimer said in his statement he plans to call up his resolution during the week of March 23, but he hopes that, “Between now and then, I hope either the conflict has reached its objectives or the Administration has made a strong case to Congress and the American people for why this mission must continue.”

But most ultimately voted for the Massie-Khanna resolution.

Suozzi said that the Gottheimer resolution “would prevent a reckless and potentially unsafe removal of our forces and allow us to continue to protect American troops and our allies in the region during this perilous time,” a seeming indictment of the war powers resolution he nevertheless supported.

Top lawmakers supporting the war powers resolution have largely failed to articulate what the implications of immediately ending operations would be, with some claiming, in spite of the resolution’s language, that U.S. forces would be allowed to finish their mission and wind down.

Some former Democratic officials argued that Gottheimer’s alternative effort would be a more prudent path, with U.S. forces and embassies under fire from Iran, and that any realistic and safe withdrawal would take time. One also argued that the resolution, if brought to a vote, might pick up enough Republican support to pass.

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.

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 “requires [a] very strange outcome” that would be “dangerous for our troops” and that it was not “credible” because it lacked any buffer period.

Brandon Herrera, a social media influencer and far-right Republican congressional candidate, moved significantly closer to Congress on Thursday as his Republican opponent, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), dropped out of the race, making Herrera the presumptive GOP nominee in a deeply conservative district.

Herrera has called for the U.S. to end aid to Israel and faced criticism for videos in which he included imagery, music and jokes related to the Holocaust.

Gonzales has been under scrutiny amid growing allegations that he pressured an aide, who later died by suicide, into a sexual relationship with him, a violation of House ethics rules. Both were married with children at the time.

The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into Gonzales this week, and Gonzales admitted to the relationship for the first time on Wednesday, after previously denying it, though he claimed it had played no role in her death.

Amid mounting pressure, the embattled congressman said in a statement Thursday night that he would leave the race “after deep reflection and with the support of my loving family,” though he said he would serve out the remainder of his term.

Gonzales’ withdrawal came after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) said in a joint statement on Thursday afternoon that they had asked him to withdraw from the race, which had been to a runoff in May.

National Republican Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) echoed the call for Gonzales to drop out.

“I would like to thank Speaker Johnson and House leadership for holding Congressman Tony Gonzales accountable for actions that have tarnished the office,” Herrera said in response to Gonzalez’s announcement. “I’m looking forward to representing the district the way the people of West Texas have always deserved.”

Gonzales finished second in Tuesday’s four-way Republican primary in Texas’ 23rd Congressional district, advancing to a head-to-head runoff against Herrera. Herrera, who lost by just a few hundred votes to Gonzales in 2024, picked up 43% of the primary vote to Gonzales’ 42%.

Herrera faced a barrage of attacks and criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel groups in the 2024 race over his stance on Israel and social media videos, but those groups — including the Republican Jewish Coalition and AIPAC’s United Democracy Project — have not intervened against him in this election.

Herrera was also a member of a neoconfederate group.

The Cook Political Report rates the district as “Solid Republican,” but Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas Republican strategist, said in mid-February as the Gonzales scandal gained more attention that Democrats could see the race as winnable with Herrera as the GOP nominee in a potential Democratic wave cycle.

The House Majority PAC, a super PAC tied to House Democratic leadership, has already seized on Herrera’s anticipated nomination highlighting some of his controversial past videos.

Democrats nominated attorney and educator Katy Padilla Stout in their primary this week.

This article was updated to reflect Gonzales’ withdrawal from the race.

Republican and Democratic senators urged senior UBS executives in a hearing on Tuesday to reconsider the Swiss banking giant’s continued refusal to hand over more than 150 documents to an investigator probing Credit Suisse’s support for Nazi Germany during and after World War II.

At the heart of the dispute is UBS’s decision to withhold key documents from the investigation into Credit Suisse’s wartime actions, citing potential legal risks stemming from a 1998 settlement. Lawmakers are pressing the bank to release the files, arguing that withholding them is an attempt to avoid accountability for its historical role in aiding Nazi operations. The documents in question are believed to contain critical information that could further illuminate Credit Suisse’s involvement with Nazi officials, and senators are pushing UBS to cooperate fully in order to ensure transparency and justice for Holocaust survivors and their families.

Senators pressed Robert Karofsky, president of UBS Americas, and Barbara Levi, UBS Group’s general counsel, to reverse course on the bank’s opposition to sharing with attorney Neil Barofsky and Congress the remaining files on the yearslong investigation into the ways that Credit Suisse, which UBS acquired in 2023, aided Adolf Hitler’s war efforts. 

Karofsky and Levi testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that UBS could not provide the documents until the New York judge that approved a $1.25 billion settlement in 1998 between multiple Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, and Holocaust survivors issued an order affirming that the deal would cover any future claims. 

Among those testifying was Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who accused UBS of “actively blocking important aspects of Mr. Barofsky’s work” and alleged that the bank was seeking to silence the Jewish organization.

In his opening statement, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee’s chairman, accused UBS of taking “legal action against a Jewish human rights organization” to “block” the Simon Wiesenthal Center “from fully speaking on all Holocaust issues,” after SWC accused Credit Suisse in 2020 of not fully disclosing its Nazi ties. Grassley also said the bank has been attempting “to limit” the ability of Neil Barofsky, the independent ombudsman the bank hired to oversee the probe, to testify before the committee.

“These efforts, if successful, would have frustrated this committee’s public hearing. UBS’ conduct is absurd and a historic shame that’ll outlive today’s hearing. Before UBS’ recent obstructive efforts, the investigation yielded new information,” Grassley said. 

The UBS executives told the committee that threats of litigation from SWC and other Jewish organizations for additional compensation beyond the $1.25 billion settlement had prompted them to request an updated order from the judge, which senators rejected as an attempt to skirt accountability. 

“That’s what this is all about, you don’t want to pay any more money,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Karofsky.

“Yes,” Karofsky replied.

“If you owe more money, then by God, pay it,” the Louisiana senator said in response. 

The bank’s request that the judge bar SWC and other Jewish groups from commenting publicly on any new revelations from the 150 documents or the bank’s financial obligations was also poorly received by senators.

“UBS, the successor to Credit Suisse, has gone to court not to disclose what was concealed, but to seek an order that would silence discussion of these crimes by Jewish organizations demanding accountability,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said. “That is not closure. It is the continuation of the wrongdoing this time through the courts.”

After Levi told Cruz that UBS has “no intention to sue” SWC, the Texas senator responded, “Yet as you sit here today, UBS has a motion pending before a federal court in New York seeking to enjoin the Simon Wiesenthal Center and over a dozen other Jewish organizations in America from ever researching, speaking or publishing any content related to ‘The Holocaust, World War II and its prelude and aftermath, victims or targets of Nazi persecution and transactions with or actions of the Nazi regime.’”

Cruz then mused that it was “bizarre that UBS has expressed its commitment to pursuing the truth but is actively seeking court orders to silence it.”

“Jewish families sought refuge in Swiss banks, believing in the promise of neutrality. That refuge proved illusory. That promise proved hollow. Accounts vanished, records dissolved. Then came the cattle cars bound for camps with no return. Economic annihilation was the prerequisite. Mass extermination was the goal,” Cruz continued.

Levi repeatedly defended the request UBS had made to the judge in New York, asking senators in response to a question from Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA): “Where is the incentive for financial institutions to investigate or cooperate when they’re certain to face litigation and possible legal liability?”

Levi said that should the judge issue the requested order, the bank would hand over the final files to Barofsky. UBS fired Barofsky in 2022 but rehired him to continue his work in 2023 after Grassley, who was then the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who chaired the Budget Committee during that time, launched an investigation into his dismissal. 

Barofsky, who also appeared before the committee on Tuesday, testified that UBS had been cooperative with his investigation from the time of his rehiring until November of last year, as both sides reached a stalemate on the 150 documents. The files, Barofsky said, appear to go to “the heart of our investigation,” which has seen UBS turn over more than 16 million documents. 

Several revelations were made during the hearing, a pronouncement from Grassley that his probe had uncovered 890 previously undisclosed Credit Suisse accounts with potential Nazi links and that Argentine President Javier Milei had provided investigators with archival records of the “ratlines” used by prominent Nazis who escaped justice by fleeing to Argentina. Barofsky shared as part of a 73-page update on his investigation that Credit Suisse helped to finance the “ratlines” and was a landlord for an office in Bern, Germany, that oversaw the process by which Nazi officials bribed their way onto flights out of the country. 

“A lengthy saga it has been, but it is also a saga that has demonstrated what good bipartisan congressional oversight can achieve,” Whitehouse said in his opening statement. “Chairman Grassley has long been a dogged champion of congressional oversight, and for that, I admire him. That is one of the reasons we partnered on this investigation. Elected officials working across the aisle to expose wrongdoing, malfeasance and misconduct is essential to advancing transparency, promoting accountability, guaranteeing public trust in private institutions, and I would add in public institutions as well, and pursuing justice.”

In a statement following the hearing, SWC CEO Jim Berk said, “Transparency is not about rewriting history; it is about completing it. We are proud of our role in initiating this independent investigative process with our own initial findings and then zealously pursuing complete accountability. Ensuring access to the full historical record is a core part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s mission and essential for survivors and their families, for public trust, and for preserving the integrity of Holocaust memory.”

The organization said that it “applauds” the committee “for its continued oversight and commitment to ensuring that the historical record of the Holocaust and its aftermath are examined thoroughly and responsibly, including by demanding answers from those who would prefer the truth to remain hidden.”

“Today’s hearing is an important moment in ensuring that remaining questions about Holocaust-era assets continue to be examined, and that the investigation into Credit Suisse initiated by the Simon Wiesenthal Center is allowed to proceed without interference.”

A new candidate for Republican county chair in Virginia’s largest jurisdiction is facing scrutiny over a range of antisemitic social media posts in which she has told Jews to “move to Israel,” spread conspiracy theories about Jewish control of U.S. politics and expressed admiration for prominent neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, among other extremist comments.

Shelly Arnoldi, who recently launched her bid to lead the Fairfax County Republican Committee, is stoking concerns among Jewish community leaders now seeking to raise awareness about her extensive public record of promoting antisemitic tropes while demonizing Israel.

While Arnoldi is not seen as a particularly viable candidate in the upcoming Feb. 28 election, local political observers say, her campaign has still given some pause to both Jewish and Republican activists who worry her radical views underscore a creeping embrace of antisemitic sentiment in the GOP fueled by leading far-right commentators including Tucker Carlson, whose interviews she has eagerly endorsed.

“She does not appear to be a serious person,” one Jewish community activist told Jewish Insider on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive topic. “But just because someone is a hateful antisemitic looney-tune doesn’t mean they can’t win office. She strikes me as someone who would continue to run, and in that regard I consider her to be a real threat.”

In recent months, Arnoldi has instructed Jewish social media critics to “move to Israel,” where she has said they “belong,” while promoting antisemitic materials alleging Zionist plots to subvert American governance and to weaken Christian representation. She has also suggested that Jews “appear to control the world,” said that “nobody cares about Jews” and claimed that “Israel owns us,” among multiple other derogatory and conspiratorial remarks posted to X.

Meanwhile, Arnoldi has frequently voiced her enthusiastic support for antisemitic influencers and conspiracy theorists on the far right, such as Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and Ian Carroll, the latter of whom she has called a “brave man.”

Several posts were flagged by antisemitism watchdogs on social media this week. Arnoldi, who has accused her critics of attempting to smear her, did not return a request for comment from JI.

A new letter circulated on social media by Jewish community activists on Monday called attention to what it described as Arnoldi’s “sustained pattern of antisemitic rhetoric,” saying it is “incompatible with party leadership.”

“If elevated to chair,” the letter warned, “this record will not remain local or contained.”

Arnoldi, who in November ran an unsuccessful campaign for state delegate as an independent, is challenging the incumbent GOP chair, Katie Gorka, who declined to comment on the race when reached by JI on Tuesday.

Even if Republicans face long odds of winning elected office in Fairfax County — increasingly a Democratic stronghold — Arnoldi’s insurgent campaign still carries implications for the future direction of GOP politics in one of the largest jurisdictions in the D.C. area, some party observers cautioned.

Gary Aiken, a former Republican candidate for Fairfax supervisor, expressed alarm at Arnoldi’s campaign on Tuesday. “If these are the kinds of people running for chairman, I may have to get more involved again,” he told JI.

Still, Mike Ginsberg, a member of the Fairfax County Republican Party who also serves as its general counsel, downplayed such concerns — even as he acknowledged that Arnoldi’s messaging would likely resonate with a minority faction of committee members whom he noted are “perpetually disaffected and constantly complaining.”

“People of a certain age would analogize her to Statler and Waldorf in ‘The Muppet Show’ from the 1970s — criticizing from the peanut gallery without making any constructive contributions,” Ginsberg, who is Jewish, told JI. “Statler and Waldorf at least had the benefit of being entertaining — Shelly does not.”  

“Put bluntly, Shelly Arnoldi is a crank,” he added. “Every party has them. She is ours.”

As Boca Raton, Fla., Mayor Scott Singer aims to unseat pro-Israel stalwart Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), the Republican is hoping that the region’s conservative shifts will help propel him to victory.

Singer told Jewish Insider last week he’s running for Congress because he “love[s] public service” and he sees the country at a “critical point … where we can go back to the failed policies of four years ago or continue to advance the gains that President Trump has made,” and he wants to help push Trump’s agenda forward. That includes Trump’s Middle East policy, which Singer lauded.

Singer, who is running in a traditionally Democratic district, emphasized his three-decade history of public service in the region, and said that he’s “seen a renewed enthusiasm and resurgence in terms of conservative, common sense policies,” particularly among Jewish voters, “as the Democratic Party has grown more and more left.”

“We’re seeing the Republican Party under President Trump becoming the party that really represents more of the issues that a lot of Jewish voters tend to care about,” Singer argued.

He also noted that the district, Florida’s 23rd, has seen a growth in conservative voters coming from out of state, many from states or cities led by Democrats. Trump came within two points of carrying the district in 2024, losing to former Vice President Kamala Harris, 50-48%. That was one of the bigger political shifts in the country, given that in 2020, Trump lost the district to Joe Biden by 13 points.Meanwhile, Moskowitz won his reelection bid 52%-48%.”

Whether Moskowitz and Singer actually end up facing each other in November remains somewhat of an open question, however, pending the outcome of Florida’s upcoming redistricting process.

Singer told JI that his alignment with the GOP has been shaped by his Jewish faith.

“Judaism places a value on individual rights and opportunity, responsibilities, education and freedom,” Singer said. “For hundreds of years, Jewish people were often excluded from Western society and had to make their way — often, as entrepreneurs or self employed, as generations of my family have been — finding ways for them to advance through society.”

“The promise of America is so great because anyone can come here and achieve great things,” he continued. “I’ve always leaned toward the right, because I found that this was a party that valued people’s individual opportunities, merits and contributions, and a natural home that’s consistent with the values that inform my faith.”

Singer argued that Trump has been the strongest advocate and champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship of any U.S. president and a “strong voice against antisemitism, and people are realizing this,” leading to shifts among Jewish voters toward the GOP.

He said that he “personally and spiritually [has] deep connections to the State of Israel and our ancestral home.” And he said that a continued strong U.S.-Israel relationship serves both countries’ interests.

“Israel has been taking a leading edge, fighting terror and fighting enemies who want to see the destruction of Western culture, Western values and the United States,” Singer said.

“What concerns me is in the Democratic Party — and I think it’s concerning a lot of voters, including historic Democratic voters and mainstream voters — is the outrageous and moral failings of Democratic leadership to to confront or contradict claims of genocide when Israel was brutally attacked by terrible terrorists who created committed horrific crimes against women and children — murdering, raping, strangling, kidnapping and torturing,” Singer continued, referencing the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

He downplayed anti-Israel trends among some on the right as “a few fringe commentators who seem to have lost semblance of what it means to be a conservative and do not represent the conservative movement.”

Singer emphasized that those voices are out of step with Trump.

“What concerns me is in the Democratic Party — and I think it’s concerning a lot of voters, including historic Democratic voters and mainstream voters — is the outrageous and moral failings of Democratic leadership to to confront or contradict claims of genocide when Israel was brutally attacked by terrible terrorists who created committed horrific crimes against women and children — murdering, raping, strangling, kidnapping and torturing,” Singer continued, referencing the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

Asked how he’d describe Moskowitz’s own record on these issues — the two-term Democratic lawmaker has been vocally supportive of Israel and has broken with many in his party on the issue — Singer offered little direct criticism for Moskowitz, instead arguing that he has limited power against what Singer described as a dominant anti-Israel current in the Democratic Party.

“You have to go back to the party and where you are,” Singer said. “When you’re a junior congressman and beholden to some of the increasingly hostile attitude of the Democratic Party and Democratic leadership, including statements by leaders in the House of Representatives that call Israel’s self defense a genocide. When they’re running the party, it’s very hard for any junior member to really stand out and make an effective difference in policy.”

Moskowitz responded in a statement to JI, “I guess the people who are trying to assassinate me over my support for Israel — they obviously think I’m pretty effective,” adding, “By [Singer’s] own logic, I guess there’s no reason for him to run for Congress because he won’t be able to help the district, because he’ll be a freshman.”

Moskowitz has stood apart from most Democrats on various issues relating to Israel, including voting for a controversial bill providing aid to Israel while cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, voting to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, voting to override President Joe Biden’s holds on certain arms sales to Israel and calling for stronger action by the Biden administration on a range of areas related to Israel policy, Iran and antisemitism.

The Democratic congressman has regularly crossed party lines to cosponsor legislation to support Israel and combat Iran with Republican colleagues.

Moskowitz is also facing a progressive primary challenger who has focused significantly on attacking his support for Israel.

Singer said that the U.S.’ current focus, when it comes to Israel, should be disarming and removing Hamas from Gaza. He expressed support for the Trump administration-led ceasefire plan, and said it’s “too hard to speculate” what might come after that, including whether the U.S. should support a two-state solution.

Singer said that, as a member of Congress, he would be vocal against antisemitism, and said that “Congress needs to codify gains that are coming from the Trump executive orders and reevaluate its approach to universities and other institutions at all levels of education” due to what he said was their failure to protect Jewish students’ civil rights.

“There’s still a constant and present danger to people who love freedom, the Israeli people, and also the people who’ve been oppressed by 20 years of a brutal regime,” Singer said.

He praised Trump’s “bold and necessary action” to strike Iran’s nuclear program last June, and said that the U.S. needs to “stand strong” against the Iranian regime amid its violent crackdown on protesters.

“What we’ve seen over the last few weeks with the terrible slaughter — the extent of which we don’t quite fully know because of blackouts — of people longing for peace may hopefully send a signal of an end to this harmful regime,” Singer continued. “We need to continue to work through our diplomatic, economic and military channels to ensure the safety of our nation, the safety of allies, and hopefully bring relief to people in various lands who’ve been threatened by this rogue regime.”

Singer said that, as a member of Congress, he would be vocal against antisemitism, and said that “Congress needs to codify gains that are coming from the Trump executive orders and reevaluate its approach to universities and other institutions at all levels of education” due to what he said was their failure to protect Jewish students’ civil rights.

He said he would be open to bills to “increase standards” for schools receiving federal funding and to revoke funds to ensure that students’ rights are protected.

He said that Congress also “needs to continue to work in terms of fighting antisemitism, in terms of definitions, training, support for institutions — at the state level, we have strong support for religious schools — and ensuring religious freedom for all people.”

Singer said Congress should consider enhancing protections, such as the FACE Act, for religious institutions to allow people to worship freely and without fear, if necessary.

Singer argued that voices in the GOP that have been attempting to mainstream antisemitic ideology are confined to the “fringe,” emphasizing that he sees the issues as more within the mainstream in the Democratic Party.

“There are fringe voices who seem to have lost the thread of the conservative movement and even in some cases, the pro-America movement, by their unfounded criticisms,” Singer said. “And these loud voices should [continue] to be disregarded. Good speech drives out bad speech, and we need to continue to stand strong on all sides of the political spectrum.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), facing a serious primary challenge from his right, released a new campaign ad on Thursday calling “radical Islam” a “bloodthirsty ideology” that has influenced recent terror attacks targeting Jews.

“It fueled the unspeakable crimes on Oct. 7,” Cornyn says in the 30-second ad, called “Evil Face,” before citing the mass shooting last month during a Hanukkah gathering in Australia that was allegedly motivated by the terrorist group ISIS. “It showed its evil face again at Bondi Beach.”

Speaking directly to the camera, Cornyn touted his recent efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group whose executive director has drawn scrutiny for celebrating the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

“Let me be clear: No organization that supports terrorists should receive taxpayer benefits,” Cornyn concludes in the ad. “And Sharia law has no place in American courts or communities.”

The seven-figure ad buy is now running statewide on broadcast, cable and digital platforms, according to the campaign.

The ad comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued a declaration last November designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist group as well as a “successor” to the Muslim Brotherhood effectively posing as a front for Hamas, prohibiting the organization from purchasing land in the state. 

The declaration allows the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, the right-wing Republican mounting a competitive challenge to Cornyn in the March primary, to sue to shut down the group and impose fines on its leaders.

CAIR, which called the proclamation defamatory and unconstitutional, has filed suit to challenge the designation, which Paxton has vowed to vigorously defend.

Following Abbott’s announcement, Cornyn, for his part, introduced legislation in the Senate in December that seeks to strip CAIR of its nonprofit status over its alleged support for terrorism. In a statement about the bill, Cornyn, who is seeking reelection to a fifth term, described the organization as “a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values,” while endorsing the governor’s designation.

Both Cornyn and Paxton have otherwise boasted of their records supporting Israel and fighting the rise of antisemitism.

Amy Acton is running for governor of Ohio this November as an outsider: a Democrat challenging 15 years of Republican gubernatorial rule, a medical doctor with no political experience, a “scrappy kid” from Youngstown who experienced homelessness as a child. 

But over a three-month period in the spring of 2020, she became a household name across the state. Every night, Ohioans watched Acton, then the statewide health director, in a white lab coat, describing the state’s COVID-19 precautions and trying to calm the anxiety people felt at the start of a new pandemic. The New York Times called her “the leader we wish we all had.” CNN called her “the Buckeye state’s version of the straight-talking Dr. Anthony Fauci” — before Fauci became a polarizing figure.

Now Acton is mounting her first political campaign — a bid for governor in a former swing state that has trended redder and redder in recent elections. Acton, perhaps cognizant of the angst that followed pandemic shutdowns and mask mandates, is not making her COVID-era fame the focal point of her campaign. 

In a statement to Jewish Insider, Acton said her campaign will focus on one of the most animating issues for voters and politicians alike right now: affordability.

“I’m running for governor because people in my state are struggling with rising costs. There’s no breathing room,” Acton, who would be Ohio’s first Jewish governor if elected, said. “I refuse to look the other way while special interests and bad actors try to take our state backwards on nearly every measure. Everywhere I go, Ohioans are ready for change.”

But before she can get to that, Acton has to thread a difficult needle in reminding voters who she is. In the spring of 2020, during the peak of the pandemic, it felt like she was in everyone’s living rooms. Acton told the state about her family’s virtual Seder that year as she urged religious communities to celebrate the holiday without congregating. (“My matzah ball soup is the best, just saying,” Acton said, noting she didn’t have time to make it that year.) 

“The magic of Amy Acton on those press conferences was her authenticity and her compassion,” said Richard Stoff, the founder of Ohio Business Roundtable. 

Acton worked with DeWine to make Ohio one of the first states to shut down mid-March 2020. The move earned widespread praise at the time but now puts her in a precarious position politically, as the public health measures that were implemented early in the pandemic have turned into partisan cudgels in the ensuing years.

“Right now, that’s not the lead thing in her bio,” said Stephen Mockabee, director of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati. “I think that the message that Acton will present is, ‘I’m a native Ohioan, and I love the state, that’s why I’m running, because I care about the state, and, you know, I have these experiences coming up from humble beginnings, through medical school in Ohio, working on behalf of the public in the public health capacity.’ I think that’s the story, not just referring specifically to COVID.”

“We saw the backlash to COVID, and how that could be a vulnerability for her. But what I’ve seen is it’s a strength. It is a foundation of trust that people have in her,” Ohio state Sen. Casey Weinstein told JI. “And if the worst attack against her from the other side is going to be that she fought for our health and fought to keep people out of the hospital and fought to keep us safe and was working hard to bring science and the absolute best she could to keep us and our families healthy, then okay, like, let’s have it.”

Indeed, Acton doesn’t lean into her turn as a pandemic celebrity in her messaging. Her campaign website describes her tough childhood in Youngstown, where she survived an abusive parent and homelessness, even living in a tent for a period. Her official biography tells of how she worked her way through college and medical school, kicking off a career in public health and advocacy. The only reference to COVID is carefully weighed: “When the pandemic hit, her steady leadership and voice for common sense not only saved countless lives but also helped Ohio’s economy and schools open earlier than other states,” Acton’s website declares. 

Acton’s experience as Ohio health director showed her the personal cost of public life. Protesters regularly picketed her home in the Columbus suburb of Bexley. It was mostly people unhappy with pandemic-related restrictions, although the demonstrations also included a Proud Boys activist and a handful of antisemitic signs. 

Ohio state Sen. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat whose district includes Akron, was also facing protesters in front of his family’s home as he spoke out against book bans. Acton reached out, and the two developed a friendship. A couple years ago, they reconnected at a Passover Seder hosted at the Ohio statehouse, and Weinstein has helped her campaign in the Cleveland area. (The two were also “celebrity bartenders” at a fundraiser for the Akron JCC last year.) 

“We saw the backlash to COVID, and how that could be a vulnerability for her. But what I’ve seen is it’s a strength. It is a foundation of trust that people have in her,” Weinstein told JI. “And if the worst attack against her from the other side is going to be that she fought for our health and fought to keep people out of the hospital and fought to keep us safe and was working hard to bring science and the absolute best she could to keep us and our families healthy, then okay, like, let’s have it.”

Acton stepped down from the role in June 2020, three months into the pandemic. But it wasn’t due to the protests, she asserts. It was, as she told an interviewer last month, because she refused to go along with Republican lawmakers who wanted her to give permission to reopen some venues that had been shuttered due to pandemic restrictions.

“That she’s running I think takes a lot of guts on her part, because she was a face during COVID that people knew and recognized, and got a lot of negativity, I think unwarranted negativity, but about her role in trying to manage that crisis,” said Dan Birdsong, a political scientist at the University of Dayton.

“I could not put my name on orders that, frankly, would have killed people. I have a Hippocratic Oath as a doctor to do no harm,” she said. The campaign pitch is in the pivot that comes next — that she is still proud of leading the shutdown charge because it allowed the state to reopen schools and other spaces sooner.

“In Ohio, we flattened the curve. We saved a lot of lives, and we actually got back to work and life sooner because we took swift, decisive action,” she said. The key question — aside from whether any Democrat can, in 2026, be a viable statewide candidate in Ohio — is how the public will respond to the pandemic flashbacks that her campaign will inevitably spark.

“That she’s running I think takes a lot of guts on her part, because she was a face during COVID that people knew and recognized, and got a lot of negativity, I think unwarranted negativity, but about her role in trying to manage that crisis,” said Dan Birdsong, a political scientist at the University of Dayton.

The primary hasn’t taken place yet, but Acton and her general election opponent — Republican entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran for president in 2024 — have each cleared the field in their respective parties. A December poll showed Acton leading Ramaswamy by one point, but experts cautioned that it is too soon to draw any conclusions. 

Acton has not made her Jewish faith central to her campaign in the same way that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro did during his 2022 campaign. But she has long been steeped in the Jewish community, serving on boards like the Columbus JCC, Columbus Jewish Day School and Congregation Beth Tikvah outside Columbus. “My Jewish roots in tikkun olam have been a guiding force throughout my career as a public servant and instilled in me the belief that everyone deserves the same chance to get ahead that I had,” Acton told JI.  

Antisemitism has taken an unusual place in the race, aside from the anti-Jewish hate that Acton faced as health director six years ago. Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, published an op-ed in The New York Times last month calling out the racist, antisemitic “Groyper” movement — conservatives who consider themselves followers of the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

“Conservative leaders should condemn — without hedging — Groyper transgressions,” Ramaswamy wrote. “We must practice what we preach: My current Democrat opponent in Ohio is a Jewish woman, and while I criticize her policy record unsparingly, I will be her most vocal defender against antisemitic attacks from left or right.” 

Ramaswamy struck up a dialogue with Jewish communal leaders in Ohio after the Republican presidential primary ended. 

“He’s staked out a really powerful position opposing some of the antisemitism and the bigotry on the right wing of the Republican Party. He’s gotten hate because of that,” said Howie Beigelman, president and CEO of Ohio Jewish Communities, a statewide advocacy group. “I think that both of them have a personal connection to our community, in that sense, understanding what we’re going through and the fears we have.”

Acton is not running as an uber-progressive Democrat; she did, after all, get her start in politics working for a Republican governor. That moderate sensibility is likely to help her in Ohio. 

She is also hoping to ride the coattails of former Sen. Sherrod Brown, the last Democrat to win statewide in Ohio, as he challenges Sen. John Husted (R-OH), who was appointed to the Senate last year. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this week that if Democrats hope to regain the Senate majority, they’ll need to win in Ohio — and Democrats will spend heavily to boost Brown. 

“There are coattails there, and so making sure that she’s as strong as can be is really important,” said Jeff Rusnak, a Democratic strategist in Cleveland. 

And whether COVID ultimately proves to be positive or negative for Acton, there’s no question her actions during that pandemic earned her some hardcore fans who will be trying to get her across the finish line. Acton’s neighbors in Bexley put signs in their yards that read, “DR. AMY ACTON FAN CLUB,” some of which remained well after the pandemic emergency ended. A local apparel company designed shirts in support of Acton that said “Not all heroes wear capes.” 

“She had this following, and she still has this. I’ve been with her in public and witnessed this firsthand,” Rusnak said. “You could just be sitting at a coffee shop with her, having coffee, and people who she does not know will just walk up to her in tears and thank her, and want to hug her. It’s this very strange phenomenon.” 

Former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran Ryan Crosswell is hoping his military and professional background — as well as his past registration as a Republican — will provide a road map to winning the Democratic nomination and ultimately flipping a critical swing district in Pennsylvania.

The 7th Congressional District centered around Allentown and Easton and rated by the Cook Political Report as a toss-up is held by Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), who himself flipped the seat in 2024. It was previously held by former Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA). 

Crosswell, in an interview with Jewish Insider, characterized himself as a lifelong public servant and patriot, both as a Marine and as a federal prosecutor, who “always put my country first, even when it came at personal costs, as when I resigned from the Department of Justice because I felt I was being asked to do something that was inconsistent with my oath.”

Crosswell left the DOJ last February in protest of the Trump administration’s decision to drop corruption charges against former New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

He’s running for Congress because “this administration is dangerous,” and he wants to fight for affordability and safety for his constituents. He said his experience as an anti-corruption prosecutor makes him “uniquely suited to rebuild some of the guardrails that have been torn down.” He said that restoring those guardrails, including the public corruption section at the DOJ, is critical to having a “functioning democracy.”

Though he’s running in the Democratic primary, Crosswell was a registered Republican until after the 2024 election. But he said he’s voted consistently for Democratic presidential candidates since 2016. 

“[We’re] at a point right now, there is one party that’s clearly on the right side of history, and one party is clearly on the wrong side of history,” Crosswell said.

Crosswell argued that he’s the best-placed candidate to flip Republican voters in November: He said a key takeaway from last year’s New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections is that Democratic veterans are attractive candidates. He added that his background as a former Republican will help him connect with independent and GOP voters to “explain that the Republican Party is not what it once was.”

He also said that his experience as a veteran and federal prosecutor addressing a series of sensitive and high-profile issues makes him best prepared to address a range of subjects as a member of Congress in what he predicted “will be the most challenged Congress in American history.”

Croswell said that he’s “uncomfortable with cutting off aid” to Israel, as some in the Democratic Party are advocating for, “because Israel is surrounded by historical enemies and I don’t want to put the Israeli people in danger by cutting off aid.”

Crosswell is facing off against a series of other more liberal candidates in the primary, most notably Bob Brooks, the leader of the firefighters’ union who was endorsed by Gov. Josh Shapiro last month. Though Crosswell led among Democrats in fundraising as of the end of September, Shapiro’s endorsement and a fundraiser the popular governor held for Brooks last month are expected to help Brooks close the gap.

Crosswell described Israel as “an important ally to the United States” and the “only true democracy in the Middle East.” He visited Israel and the West Bank shortly before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. He said that he was “just so impressed by the Israeli people, their innovation and technology,” and their resilience in the face of both inhospitable environmental conditions and the enmity of surrounding nations.”

He said that he’s “uncomfortable with cutting off aid” to Israel, as some in the Democratic Party are advocating for, “because Israel is surrounded by historical enemies and I don’t want to put the Israeli people in danger by cutting off aid.”

He added that “no country is ever entitled to unconditional military aid from the United States under any circumstances, but I’m not willing to cut off aid now.”

Crosswell emphasized the need for the ceasefire in Gaza to continue, adding that those responsible for the Oct. 7 attack should be held accountable “through surgical special forces operations with a ceasefire in place.”

Asked about the U.S. strikes on Iran last summer, Crosswell said he’s “uncomfortable with direct military engagement in Iran at this time,” while adding that Israel must make its own decisions about “what the Israelis believe is necessary in their own interest.” Crosswell spoke to JI prior to the wave of public protests in Iran, which have led the Trump administration to contemplate renewed U.S. attacks.

“I would prefer to avoid U.S. engagement until it’s absolutely necessary,” he continued.

He said that, from his conversations in Israel and the West Bank during his visit, he believes both sides want peace, and emphasized the importance of continuing to pursue a two-state solution.

“It’s been frustratingly hard getting there, but it is the only solution and we can’t give up on it,” Crosswell said. “We need to demonstrate that we are advocates for peace, and that we’re advocating for both sides. We need to demonstrate that through our actions, that we’re committed to this, that we’re willing to have both sides at the table and to work through this, and we need to engage the other Arab nations.”

“I was a Justice Department prosecutor, and we have laws on the books to prosecute those who engage in hate crimes, and we should do that,” Crosswell said. “But I think also members of Congress — we need to be outspoken voices, and we need to speak out against it. And so I’d be in favor of any law that or any efforts to expand education on Jewish history, on the Holocaust, antisemitism, certainly any measures that can be taken to ensure the security of Jewish institutions and synagogues.”

He said that the U.S. should not, however, preempt direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and recognize a Palestinian state. And he said that removing Hamas from leadership in Gaza is also a critical step to facilitate peace.

At home, Crosswell called the rise in domestic antisemitism “sickening” and said that it was “heartbreaking” to see armed guards outside a synagogue that he visited recently for an event.

“I was a Justice Department prosecutor, and we have laws on the books to prosecute those who engage in hate crimes, and we should do that,” Crosswell said. “But I think also members of Congress — we need to be outspoken voices, and we need to speak out against it. And so I’d be in favor of any law that or any efforts to expand education on Jewish history, on the Holocaust, antisemitism, certainly any measures that can be taken to ensure the security of Jewish institutions and synagogues.”

He added that, “more than anything else, it’s just being voices of moral clarity against hate against anybody, and in particular now, the antisemitic rhetoric and behavior that in some cases we’re seeing from both sides.”

Ed Gallrein, the Republican primary challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) backed by President Donald Trump, said Friday that he had raised $1.2 million in the final quarter of 2025, a sizable sum that puts him in strong financial shape in preparation for a grueling race against Massie.

Gallrein’s fundraising haul signals that he’s a more viable candidate than Massie’s previous challengers, and highlights the power of Trump’s endorsement.

Trump and his allies have also committed significant resources to the effort to defeat Massie, an isolationist Republican who has frequently opposed legislation to combat antisemitism and has broken with Trump on many key elements of his agenda, including on issues related to Israel and Iran.

Gallrein’s campaign has also attracted interest from pro-Israel Republicans. 

“This fundraising number reflects the overwhelming support Ed’s campaign has received right out of the gate,” Gallrein spokesperson Lance Trover said in a statement. “President Trump endorsed Ed because he knows Ed is fighting to put America First and will partner with him to unleash our economy, lower taxes, and stop the woke agenda.”

Massie, however, has also proven to be a strong fundraiser as he gears up for a reelection fight: he reported raising $1.8 million and having more than $2 million on hand as of the end of September.

Gallrein is a Kentucky native and former Navy SEAL.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) announced on Friday that she was ending her campaign for governor of New York, an abrupt and unexpected move that comes just over a month after the Republican congresswoman launched her bid to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul.

In addition to not running for governor, Stefanik said in a statement posted to social media that she also would not seek reelection to her House seat, making her future plans unclear. Stefanik said the decision to end her short-lived gubernatorial bid was based on her desire to spend more time with family and the uphill battle she would face in the general election after what would likely be a bruising Republican primary battle.

“While spending precious time with my family this Christmas season, I have made the decision to suspend my campaign for Governor and will not seek re-election to Congress. I did not come to this decision lightly for our family,” Stefanik wrote on social media.

Stefanik added, “As we have seen in past elections, while we would have overwhelmingly won this primary, it is not an effective use of our time or your generous resources to spend the first half of next year in an unnecessary and protracted Republican primary, especially in a challenging state like New York.”

“And while many know me as Congresswoman, my most important title is Mom. I believe that being a parent is life’s greatest gift and greatest responsibility,” she continued. “I have thought deeply about this and I know that as a mother, I will feel profound regret if I don’t further focus on my young son’s safety, growth, and happiness — particularly at his tender age.”

Stefanik’s withdrawal from the race came weeks after Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, another close ally of President Donald Trump, jumped into the GOP primary, setting up a competitive fight ahead of what would be a difficult general election contest for Republicans in the blue state. 

Stefanik was briefly Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, though she withdrew her nomination as it became clear that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could not afford another vacancy in the House without risking Republicans’ already slim majority. 

Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform after Stefanik announced her decision, “Elise is a tremendous talent, regardless of what she does. … She will have GREAT success, and I am with her all the way!”

Johnson, meanwhile, wrote on X, “I know this was a tough decision for my friend and colleague @EliseStefanik, but her resolve to put family first is one that everyone will respect. Elise is an exceptional talent who has served the people of New York valiantly in Congress.”

“She will continue to be [a] leading force for our party and its principles no matter what the next chapter brings,” he added. “We are grateful for her service and wish her well in her next endeavors.”

The upstate New York lawmaker, a pro-Israel stalwart in Congress, had said during her confirmation process earlier this year that anti-Israel and antisemitic bias at the U.N. was a major factor that drove her interest in the Turtle Bay role. As she began considering entering the governor’s race this fall, Stefanik became a vocal critic of Hochul, frequently tying her to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his policies.

Stefanik has gained attention in the Jewish community in the two years since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, most notably due to her aggressive questioning of university presidents about campus antisemitism.

In recent weeks, James Fishback, a 30-year-old Republican investor who last month launched a long-shot campaign for governor of Florida, has drawn online attention for a series of incendiary social media posts attacking Israel and invoking antisemitic tropes.

In addition to praising followers of the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, comments for which he has refused to apologize, Fishback has promoted a range of extreme anti-Israel positions, including in a recent campaign ad vowing to defend those who accuse the Jewish state of genocide. He has taken repeated aim at the pro-Israel organization AIPAC, which he calls a “foreign lobbying group,” saying its supporters are “slaves” and that his own “allegiance is to America.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that I fell for the ‘Israel is our greatest ally’ scam and the lie that criticizing Israel is ‘antisemitic,’” he wrote in a social media post this week. “It wasn’t until I was offered a paid trip to Israel this summer (which I never took) that I realized how cringe and pathetic the propaganda was.”

In using such inflammatory rhetoric, Fishback, a political newcomer, is likely seeking to capitalize on the views of a younger audience of far-right voters increasingly fueling anti-Israel as well as antisemitic sentiment in the GOP, which has recently forced the party to confront a growing schism within its ranks over its ideological direction.

But while Fishback has sought to cast next year’s Republican primary as “very clearly a two-person race” between him and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) — the pro-Israel GOP front-runner now dominating the polls while reporting a $40 million fundraising advantage — political operatives in both parties are skeptical his insurgent bid will ultimately amount to any sort of meaningful on-the-ground traction even as he continues to provoke controversy from behind the screen.

“Social media is the only reason anyone has heard of Fishback, and 20 years ago no one would even be talking about him,” Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida, told Jewish Insider. “Unless he stumbles into a pile of cash, it’s hard for me to see this being more than just an effort to get clicks.”

Fishback, the CEO of an anti-DEI investment firm called Azoria, is hardly the first candidate hoping to translate social media clout into votes or fame. A growing cohort of young influencers seeking office has emerged in recent years, so far with no success. 

Deja Foxx, a progressive TikTok activist who ran for Congress in Arizona this summer, had raised a lot of money and appeared to be gaining momentum near the end of the campaign. But despite the hype, Foxx fell short by nearly 40 points — losing out to a more established local lawmaker.

In the race to succeed outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Donalds, a three-term congressman who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, is heavily favored to clinch the nomination over a handful of lesser-known primary rivals. Multiple surveys have shown him leading by double digits — with support from a range of state elected officials. Fishback, for his part, claimed just 2% of the vote in a recent poll.

“Although we’re still in the early stages of this race, it’s almost game, set, match,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist in Florida. “Byron Donalds is dominating the field, approaching 50% in the polls. Once voters realize he has Trump’s endorsement, he becomes the clear favorite. In GOP primary politics, Trump’s endorsement is the platinum standard.”

“If you look at any legitimate polling I would say Mr. Fishback has a very tall mountain to climb,” Will McKinley, a GOP lobbyist and government consultant in the state, echoed to JI.

Jim Cherry, a Republican pollster in Florida, said his “firm does political polling and as of this point, no client has requested that we include Fishback in any gubernatorial head-to-head questions.”

A college dropout and former hedge fund analyst, Fishback attracted some attention in conservative circles after he pitched DOGE “dividend checks” to a receptive Elon Musk, though the plan never took off. He later launched a super PAC to oppose Musk when the billionaire mogul fell out with Trump. He announced his gubernatorial bid in mid-November, pledging to “build on” DeSantis’ “historic record.”

Fishback has portrayed himself as a strong ally of DeSantis, who has so far declined to publicly back anyone in the race, while dismissing Donalds’ bid. But Fishback’s hostility to Israel puts him at odds with the governor, who has long touted his support for the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Fishback’s recent comments on Israel are almost certain to alienate a sizable population of Jewish voters who live in Florida and can help tip the scales in close elections.

“In my opinion, he’s not a serious candidate and is simply trying to be incendiary to get attention,” said Gabriel Groisman, a Jewish Republican donor and a former mayor of Bal Harbour, Fla. 

He declined to comment further, saying that doing so would be “counterproductive.”

In a statement to JI Thursday, Sam Markstein, spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition, dismissed Fishback as “a radical fringe candidate who has decided that the way to run his campaign is to attack the Jewish community and our ally Israel.” 

“It won’t work — and Republican Floridians will resoundingly reject him in the GOP primary,” he said.

Fishback, in response, said the “only poll that matters is on Election Day: August 18, 2026,” adding: “Until then, I am committed to earning Floridians’ votes by visiting all 67 counties to meet folks where they are, hear their concerns and share my vision for a more affordable Florida.”

“If elected, I’ll be a governor for all Floridians,” he continued in a statement to JI. “As a Christian, I have never ‘attacked’ anyone for their faith. I will protect religious freedom and ensure the safety of all Floridians.”

Republican lawmakers are criticizing U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack over his recent comments questioning whether Israel is a democracy while voicing support for Turkey joining the proposed U.S.-led International Stabilization Force to operate in Gaza.

Barrack raised eyebrows with his comments on Sunday at the Doha Forum in Qatar — where the Syria envoy appeared to cast doubt on Israel’s status as a democracy while suggesting that “benevolent” monarchies were typically more successful in the region. Earlier last week, the ambassador drew attention for endorsing Turkey’s inclusion in the ISF because their “criticized relationship” with Hamas would “soften whatever has to be done” to disarm them.

Barrack’s comments in Doha were made in the context of criticizing previous efforts by the U.S. and others to impose democratic governing models in the Middle East. “Almost every decision that the West has imposed on the region, rather than allowing it to evolve on its own, has been a mistake,” Barrack said.

“The first thing that has to happen is that we have to allow them, Syria, to define it themselves without going in with Western expectations and saying, ‘We want a democracy in 12 nights,’” Barrack said on Sunday. “We’ve never had a democracy [in the Middle East]. I don’t see a democracy anywhere. Israel can claim that it’s a democracy, but in this region, really what has worked the best, whether you like it or don’t like it, is a benevolent monarchy.”

At the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Friday, Barrack said, “If you think about it, having Turkey, who has a relationship and an Islamic foothold, will soften whatever has to be done in this, disarming Hamas. … How are you going to disarm them? Are you really going to militarily disarm them? Are we going to be in the soup again? Do you have caches and say, show up at public storage, and we’ll give you a ticket, and this is going to go into the IDF?”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told JI that Barrack was “very incorrect” with his musing about Israel’s standing as a democracy. “I think Israel is a democracy, and Israel is our only true friend in the Middle East,” Kennedy said.

Asked for his reaction to Barrack’s public support for Turkey joining the ISF, the Louisiana senator replied: “I don’t trust Turkey.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said about Barrack’s comments, “If I had to give you an example of a robust democracy, it would be Israel. If you don’t like the government, stick around a month, they’ll get a new one.”

Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East for a year and a half of the Biden administration, told JI that Barrack’s comments about Israel’s democratic bona fides were “a bit chilling.”  

“There’s no cause for calling into question Israel’s status as a democracy,” Shapiro said. “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that that was simply a misstatement that he probably will think better of.”

“I know it’s better when ambassador’s statements are fully aligned with the policies of their administration,” he continued. “This administration generally may be less coordinated in that regard than others because our president speaks so frequently and extemporaneously, but that actually raises the importance of ambassadors ensuring that they are fully aligned with whatever the president’s policy is.”

The remarks also prompted criticism from foreign policy analysts and experts, who suggested the ambassador to Ankara was acting more in the interests of Turkey than the United States. 

“There’s no question that he often reflects the Turkish view on a number of things,” Michael Makovsky, president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JI. “That might be his view, or in my opinion, he doesn’t really understand the Middle East or proper U.S. interests in the Middle East. Generally, he often reflects Turkish views of the region.”

“That happens sometimes with ambassadors, they sometimes strongly reflect the views of the countries to which they’re posted, but he’s really been out there on this,” he continued. “Personally, that is concerning to me.”

Makovsky questioned Barrack’s broader approach to the media while criticizing his remarks about whether Israel is a democracy as “a bit incomprehensible.”

“I find that Barrack speaks a lot in public or to journalists, to the media. Frankly, a number of the statements he makes are kind of hard to understand, and certainly this is one of them,” he explained, describing Barrack’s previous statements to the media as “word salads.”

Sinan Ciddi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, similarly voiced concerns about Barrack’s warm stance toward the Turkish government.

“He’s made it no secret that he is essentially very pro-Turkey, and that he sympathizes [with the view that] the key to stability or [achieving] U.S. interests goes through projecting Turkish interests in the region,” Ciddi told JI. “For a long time [he has been] suggesting that if there is going to be lasting peace and essentially a cessation of hostilities inside of Gaza, then Turkey has to play a role, which means putting Turkish troops inside of Gaza as part of the stabilization force.”

“Obviously, Israel has a problem with that,” he added. “Not only Israel, but also significant parts of the U.S. government and a handful of Arab states, because they feel that a Turkish presence there would unsettle the balance there because of Turkey’s ties to Hamas.”

Ciddi noted that the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all voiced concerns about what type of involvement Ankara would have in the ISF. He added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees the ISF “as a momentous opportunity to step into Gaza and undermine Israel and really project Turkey’s power.”

The Arab states are “deeply worried that Turkey’s military presence there would be to basically prop up Hamas. They’re not going to be there to essentially disarm and dissolve Hamas, that Turkey is basically going to stand shoulder to shoulder [with Hamas],” Ciddi told JI. “That’s going to just basically heighten tensions between Turkey and Israel and could lead to the potential of an arms conflict between them. Nobody wants that. Nobody understands why Barrack is pushing for that.”

“Either Tom Barrack is ignorant of the facts pertaining to Turkey’s deep enmeshment and involvement with Hamas over the years, particularly since Oct. 7 in terms of the material support it has provided Hamas … or he is choosing to ignore that,” he continued. “I think he’s either coming at it from a perspective of ignorance, or he’s choosing to ignore it. But neither bodes well, and that is the unfortunate circumstance.”

Ciddi also accused Barrack of “essentially running a portfolio where he feels very emboldened as ambassador to Ankara, as well as special envoy to Syria,” citing that he “doesn’t come from a traditional diplomacy or foreign service background. He knows he has the ear of [President Donald] Trump. He knows he’s one of the few people that Trump listens to.”

Barrack faced backlash from Israel on Tuesday for his recent comments, with Walla News reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team view Barrack as too closely aligned with Turkey.

“Barrack is acting like a Turkish ambassador and undermining regional stability,” a senior Israeli official told the outlet, adding that Barrack is “overly influenced by Turkish interests in Syria” and is operating “to a significant extent in line with Syrian interests.”

An Israeli diplomatic source confirmed the Walla report, adding that they were “stunned by [Barrack’s] statements praising benevolent monarchies and belittling Israeli democracy,” and saying that the remarks were unprecedented.

The White House did not respond to JI’s request for comment.

Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) criticized Tucker Carlson’s platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, adding his voice to the growing list of Republicans who have publicly admonished the former Fox host for mainstreaming the avowed antisemite. 

The House speaker made the comments on Tuesday when asked in the Capitol if Carlson should still have a place in the conservative movement given his embrace of antisemitic figures like Fuentes. Johnson criticized what he described as Fuentes’ “anti-Christian” and “antisemitic” views and said conservatives have an obligation to call out antisemitism “wherever it is.”

“Look, I heard a compilation of some of the worst things that Nick Fuentes has said. It’s absolutely outrageous,” Johnson told National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg. “Some of the things he’s said are just blatantly antisemitic, racist and anti-American. Anti-Christian, for that matter. I think we have to call out antisemitism wherever it is.” 

“Whether it’s Tucker or anybody else, I don’t think we should be giving a platform to that kind of speech. He has a First Amendment right, but we shouldn’t ever amplify it. That’s my view,” Johnson added.

Asked later Tuesday if Carlson’s views and voice belong in the conservative movement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) did not directly reject Carlson but said that the party should have no space for antisemitism.

“Well, there are lots of voices, obviously, out there, but I don’t think there ought to be any — there just should be no room at all whatsoever for antisemitism or other forms of discrimination. That’s certainly not what our party is about,” Thune said. 

“Our party is a party that welcomes all comers,” he added. “We want to stand up for and on behalf of the American people who work hard every day to make a living and just want a government that works for them, hopefully at the lowest possible cost and in a way that enables them to go about their lives and provide for them and their families.”

Sens. David Perdue (R-GA) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), the two Republican incumbents running to defend their seats in the Georgia special election runoff in January, appeared to publicly acknowledge President Donald Trump’s defeat in an off-the-record Zoom call hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition on Wednesday — as they emphasized the need for the GOP to maintain control of the Senate as a buffer to Biden’s domestic and foreign policy. 

“We know what this change of command at the top will mean with our foreign relations, and it gives us great pause about [the] U.S.-Israeli relationship — the progress we’ve made in the last couple of years,” Perdue said in his opening remarks, in audio obtained by Jewish Insider, referencing the recent peace accord between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain and the withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran. “This is historic and we don’t want to give that up. And so one of the things that is so much in play here is, if we can keep the majority in the Senate, we can at least be a buffer on some of the things that the Biden camp has been talking about in terms of their foreign policy.” 

“We really need to protect what we’ve done under President Trump these last four years, both in foreign policy, economic policy and so forth — and the only way to do that is to hold these two seats,” Perdue added. “And by the way, we can have a tempering impact on foreign policy. You’ve heard Biden talk about he wants to reinstate the JCPOA. Well, there are things that we can do in the Senate that can slow that down and actually have a tempering effect.”

The Republicans currently hold 52-48 majority in the Senate. If the two senators lose to their Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, in the January 5 special Senate election, the Democrats will hold a working majority with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.  

During the call, first reported by The Washington Post, Loeffler echoed her colleague’s sentiment by stressing the importance of a split government. “David and I are the firewall to stopping socialism in America, to stopping their bad policies,” she stressed. “If we don’t hold the line right now, we will never get another chance to change the country back — because they will abolish the filibuster, they’ll add D.C. statehood, pack the court, and on and on.” 

Trump is expected to hold a campaign rally in support of Perdue and Loeffler in Valdosta, Georgia, on Saturday. The president has refused to concede and continues to claim that the election was illegitimate.

Loeffler also suggested that Republicans will seek to stop some of Biden’s cabinet appointments during the confirmation hearings, and challenge them on their record during the Obama administration. “The work that has happened over the last four years, we have to preserve that — a strengthened Israel, a weakened Iran — we have to make sure that that continues,” she said. “And if they put up officials that have a track record of not standing with Israel, of doing the wrong thing with Iran, then we’re going to hold them accountable,” Loeffler continued. “We are going to see a lot of folks from the Obama administration come back, which is a great chance for us to review their records and hold them accountable for their track records which, in many cases, failed the U.S.-Israel relationship.” 

The pair did not discuss the possibility of a second Trump term, which would invalidate their narrative about serving as a buffer to a Biden administration. “This is our last chance. We won’t give it a second chance,” Perdue stressed on the call. 

Perdue also compared Trump to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was defeated in 1945 towards the end of World War II. “[Churchill] held the world together for a few years during World War II… [and] just before the end of the war, as the outcome was visible, his party was removed. And guess what he did for the next four years? He fought off communism in Great Britain,” Perdue explained. “And here we are in very similar circumstances. Kelly and I are up for this fight. We know this is a fight to the death about socialism. If we stop and hold the line right now, I believe we put a stop to this to radicalism that has somehow taken over for the Democratic Party.” 

RJC Executive Director told the Post, “A lot of the focus was on the risks associated with a Senate majority led by Chuck Schumer. Any inference that either of these two are not supportive of the president just isn’t true, and in fact they’re all going to be campaigning together in Georgia. Both Senator Perdue and Senator Loeffler strongly supports President Trump and President Trump supports them.”

Controversial congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to be headed for Washington following her victory on Tuesday in the Republican runoff in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Her win raises concerns among Jewish organizations who have sounded the alarm over her candidacy for months. The district’s overwhelmingly Republican make-up all but ensures that Greene will win the general election in November.

Greene has been a vocal promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory — which alleges that President Donald Trump is working to take down a network of Democratic politicians and celebrities who practice satanism, pedophilia and cannibalism — and has posted Facebook videos expressing antisemitic, racist and Islamophobic views.

Even after launching her campaign, Greene continued to unapologetically propagate antisemitic conspiracy theories, including falsely accusing Democratic megadonor and Holocaust survivor George Soros of “turning people over to Nazis where they were burned in offices” in a recent television interview. She also dismissed questions about a photo she took with a former Ku Klux Klan leader who described her as a “friend.”

“Ms. Greene has a history of propagating antisemitic disinformation,” Allison Padilla-Goodman, Southern division vice president of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “ADL previously called on Ms. Greene to disavow her relationship with a prominent white supremacist leader and retract past antisemitic statements. ADL said that ‘failure to do so is a moral failure and unbecoming of someone seeking elected office.’ Ms. Greene’s continued insistence on propagating such antisemitism shows she has decided to double down on hate, which, to say the least, is deeply problematic.”

Republican leaders spoke out against Greene after her Facebook videos surfaced, but only House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) actively worked to boost her opponent, physician John Cowan, frustrating some House Republicans, according to Politico. Scalise, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the National Republican Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

The Republican Jewish Coalition opposed Greene during the runoff and endorsed Cowan.

“We are really proud to have endorsed John Cowan. We do not endorse Greene and we think she is the antithesis of what our party stands for,” RJC communications director Neil Strauss said in a statement to JI. “We can hold our heads up high tonight for standing up to Greene, just like we did when we stood up to [Rep.] Steve King by supporting Randy Feenstra.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he was hopeful that Republican leaders would continue to distance themselves from Greene.

“During the primary campaign, top national Republican leaders in Congress, led by the House Minority Leader, denounced her bigotry with good reason. Some even endorsed her opponent. Yet she will likely be elected to Congress this fall,” Cooper said in a statement to JI.

Cooper called on Republican leaders to marginalize Greene within the Republican caucus as they did with King after he questioned why white supremacy was considered offensive.

“If Ms. Green[e] doesn’t change course,” Cooper said, GOP leaders “may have to apply [the] same standards to her.” 

In Georgia’s deep red 9th district, State Rep. Matt Gurtler, who also refused to apologize for taking a photo with the same former KKK leader, lost his runoff race against gun store owner and Navy veteran Andrew Clyde.

Joe Walsh wants to turn the Republican presidential primary into “a referendum on Trump the man.”

The one-term former Illinois congressman spoke with Jewish Insider on Tuesday about his seemingly quixotic quest to run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Walsh, who declared his candidacy earlier this week, is the second significant primary challenger to Trump, joining former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, who announced his campaign in April. 

The Illinois conservative has long been prone to “Trumpian” rhetoric, both on his radio talk show and his Twitter account. As a result of Walsh’s comments — which have included repeatedly calling former President Barack Obama a Muslim — he has spent much of the first several days of his campaign apologizing for past statements. In a Monday interview on MSNBC, Walsh said, “I wouldn’t call myself a racist, but… I’ve said racist things on Twitter. There’s no doubt about it. And an apology is not enough.”

Walsh, who became a radio talk show host months after his single term on Capitol Hill ended in 2013, said he wouldn’t run “if I just had a problem with a policy or two of this president.” Rather, he thinks, the incumbent is “completely unfit to be president.”

He doesn’t believe, however, that the administration is devoid of accomplishments. Walsh praised Trump’s judicial picks as well as “some good deregulation” and “pro-Israel stuff [like] moving the embassy to Jerusalem” as well as “his firm stance against Iran.” 

But the radio show host balanced this against other concerns about Trump’s policies. “[Trump] doesn’t give a damn about the debt,” said the Republican hopeful, who also condemned the incumbent for “screwing things up at the border and not building a foot of a new wall.”

Speaking to JI, Walsh indicated he has shifted to a more moderate approach on the issue of climate change. Although he had been skeptical in the past, calling climate change “the media’s religion” in a 2017 tweet, the presidential hopeful said Tuesday: “It’s an issue that the Republican Party needs to more actively embrace, be open to and have dialogue on.”

However, Walsh insisted, “I’m still a Tea Party guy. I believe in limited government, free trade and free markets.” The former congressman argued that the Republican Party “has abandoned all those issues. [It] no longer stands for limited government, no longer stands for the rule of law and no longer stands for free trade.”

Walsh’s bet is not an ideological one, but simply that “most Republicans privately believe what I say about Trump publicly… they just don’t want to say those things publicly. What I’m trying to do is to get Republicans to say these things publicly.”

The former congressman believes that if Republican voters are presented with a conservative alternative where “you don’t get all the bull****, all the drama and all the insulting tweets,” they will eventually opt for him. His strategy is simply to “call Trump out everyday” and hope that eventually Republican voters will see how — under Trump — the economy slows and “he tweets us into a recession.”

Walsh expressed disappointment with Republican leaders who have not stepped up to challenge the president. “I like me,” Walsh said, but he acknowledged that there are “bigger, better [potential] candidates out there.” He mourned the Republican governors he knew who “have just determined that they will keep their mouths shut and then the Republican Party will go back to normal” after Trump leaves office.

Walsh will be campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire in the coming weeks. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Walsh first attended Grinnell College, the elite liberal arts college located in the Hawkeye State.

Although the former congressman acknowledged that he won’t have the funding Trump does, he’s “optimistic about financial resources,” both in terms of what his campaign can raise and what outside groups can do on his behalf. “There is quiet support out there, people seem to be more willing to contribute financially than be public.”

In the meantime, Walsh will launch a campaign podcast and be “on TV as much as possible” to promote his bid for the White House. “My hope is that everybody will see my mug.”

Thirty-four members of the 116th Congress previously served as mayors, 161 hold law degrees and 78 have served in the military. Only two are former NFL players. And one of those is Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, a 34-year-old freshman Republican lawmaker from Ohio. 

Gonzalez, who visited Israel last week on a trip coordinated by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, sat down in Jerusalem with Jewish Insider to discuss his time in the Jewish state, his unorthodox path to Congress, his efforts to reach across the political aisle and his thoughts on the political future of his former teammate, Peyton Manning. 

“When I left the NFL I was never sure exactly what would translate to the rest of my life,” Gonzalez told JI last week in the lobby of the King David Hotel. “When you leave something like the NFL, the concern is always that you didn’t develop any skills that translate into the traditional business world, or the non-NFL world.” But in fact, he said, “there are unbelievable parallels, both from a campaign standpoint, but more importantly from [the standpoint of] how to work with people who you may not agree with.”

Gonzalez, the son of a Cuban immigrant father, grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He played college football at The Ohio State University, and was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in 2007. In 2012 he signed with the New England Patriots, but was released several months later and opted to retire from the sport, going on to earn an MBA degree from Stanford. In 2018, when a congressional seat opened up in Ohio’s 16th district, Gonzalez beat out two Republicans in the primary and trounced Democrat Susan Moran Palmer in November. Since taking office in January, the congressman has regularly pursued bipartisan initiatives and worked closely with several Democrat lawmakers. 

“One flaw of American politics is that we simply do not sit together and talk through issues in a bipartisan way,” he said. “We do that in our silos, and then we come to the House floor and we argue like cats and dogs — it doesn’t make a bit of sense to me, but that’s what we do.” Gonzalez said that more conversations and discussions that reach across the aisle “will ultimately lead to better legislation and better lawmaking.”

Reps. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) and Steve Cohen, (D-TN) are seen in Rayburn Building in January 2019.

One issue in particular that Gonzalez has been working on with a Democratic colleague is foreign election interference. He and fellow freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) have spearheaded a task force to address the role of foreign agents in spreading propaganda in the United States. 

“What we wanted to do was come together as a bipartisan group and push legislation that will hopefully protect our infrastructure and also force disclosure on certain entities who are broadcasting propaganda into our country,” he said, pointing in particular to Russian networks including Sputnik and Russia Today. “These are two entities that are sponsored and controlled by the Russian government,” he said. “And if they’re going to be broadcasting into the country on stories that are pure propaganda, I think they need to disclose who they are.”

Gonzalez said he is confident if and when legislation from the task force comes to the House floor, it will receive widespread support. 

“My belief is that this is one of those things that — when you read it and you understand the situation — you ask yourself, how is this not already a law?” he said. “I’m hopeful.”  

The freshman Republican spoke to JI just a week after the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio — a few hours from where he grew up. Gonzalez said he hopes that when Congress reconvenes in September, real action can be taken on the issue. 

“We need to have these debates,” he said. “Let’s put everything on the table and let’s work on things that are actually going to solve the problem. There are a lot of bills that we can talk about that will make us feel good, but probably won’t do much.”

Gonzalez added that “the one thing that I can guarantee is: If we do nothing, if we don’t work on our mental health issues, if we don’t have the debate about what sensible laws look like, nothing will change… If we don’t enact solutions, we’re going to be talking about this again in the not-too-distant future, and that’s horrifying.” 

The Ohio Republican would like to see progress made on red flag laws, where guns can be removed from people deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves and others. 

“To me it just makes sense that if there is an individual who is threatening, has deep mental illness, is showing all kinds of signs that they are going to commit one of these mass murders, then I think we need to have the system where you are able to take the weapons away from that person and potentially commit them to an asylum of some sort,” he said. “We need a mechanism to step in and make sure that nothing horrible happens.”

And Gonzalez is aware that the issue of gun safety is a critical one to many American Jews, particularly in the wake of two fatal synagogue shootings in the past year. He said he has asked Jewish friends in his district: “‘Do you feel safe going to synagogue? Do you feel secure in the community?’ And the reality is a lot of them don’t right now, and security costs and insurance costs are going through the roof for a lot of our synagogues because of these attacks.”

Gonzalez said it is “shocking that we’re dealing with this in our country in 2019, but at the same time, I believe that we have a cultural sickness that is manifesting itself in a whole host of places. And unfortunately, antisemitism is one of those places.” He posited that there is no “quick fix” to the issue, but “there are things we can do from a funding standpoint to help provide security to make sure that… our Jewish brothers and sisters can worship in peace.”

While Gonzalez has criticized President Donald Trump — calling his attack on “the Squad” last month “wildly inappropriate” — he mostly tries to steer clear of the constant partisan squabbling. 

“This job is about making law. That’s fundamentally what my job is,” he said. “My job is to advocate for policies that are going to benefit my district. And so that is what I focus all of my time and energy on. I’m somebody who doesn’t find… the tweeting and the 24-hour cable news cycle to be one that is particularly productive for lawmaking. I actually think it’s a complete disaster.” Gonzalez said he deleted his personal Twitter account from his phone “about a month ago. And I am so much happier. Twitter is a complete cesspool.” 

Wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez #11 of the Indianapolis Colts runs a pass pattern against the Cleveland Browns at Cleveland Browns Stadium on November 30, 2008.

Gonzalez’s visit to Israel this month was his first to the country, and an opportunity he immediately jumped to take.  

“The Middle East is a complicated place, and I think it’s incumbent on all members of Congress to understand the issues in the Middle East, understand who our friends are, who our allies are, what the state of play is and how we can partner forward,” he said. “Not to mention that I’ve always wanted to come here for its historical significance, religious significance and geopolitical significance.”

The freshman congressman pointed to the group’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, discussing ways Israel can partner with the U.S. on tech innovation and cyber security, as a highlight of the trip. 

“We had a great discussion about where the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship can go,” Gonzalez said of the meeting. “He spoke eloquently about our ability to partner on cyber security, on big data and machine-learning initiatives specific to the intelligence community, but also the armed forces. And that makes perfect sense because Israel is so unbelievably innovative as a country and is so far ahead of the curve… when it comes to innovating on our technological future.”

One area that wasn’t much discussed in the sit down with Netanyahu? Peace or Palestinians. 

“We didn’t get into that as much,” Gonzalez said. “We focused primarily on the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The Ohio lawmaker chose to skip the delegation’s visit to Ramallah after learning that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas opted not to meet with the Republicans, despite meeting a similar Democratic delegation a week earlier. 

But Gonzalez said he and his wife, Elizabeth, took time to explore the city of Jerusalem and meet average citizens. 

“I’ve done that a handful of times throughout this trip,” he told JI. “I went for dinner one night with my wife and then we walked into the shopping areas and just talked to people. And I felt like I got a pretty well-rounded perspective on Israel.”

Gonzalez and Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) — who was also on the recent AIPAC trip — are the only former NFL players currently in Congress, but could more be joining the ranks soon? Peyton Manning, Gonzalez’s former Colts teammate, contributed to the Republican’s congressional campaign in 2018. And rumors that the legendary quarterback could enter politics himself continue to abound.

“He’s too smart for that,” Gonzalez said with a laugh. “He won’t. He’s not gonna run… he would win unquestionably, without a doubt… he’s an incredible competitor and he’s very smart. So I think he would do very well if he wanted to. But I would put the odds of him jumping into politics at zero.”