Republicans lawmakers continued to dismiss this week the idea that a nuclear deal with Iran is achievable, despite comments by President Donald Trump over the weekend. 

Trump said that the talks with Iran, held in Oman last Friday, had been “very good,” that Tehran “wants to make a deal very badly” and that he is in “no rush” to move ahead. He also said that the Iranian demand that the talks be only focused on nuclear weapons “would be acceptable” — an apparent softening of the U.S. position that any potential agreement should also address Iran’s ballistic missile stockpiles and its support for regional terror proxies. The talks did not appear to touch on the Islamic Republic’s recent violent crackdown on nationwide protests.

Asked about Trump’s comments about a nuclear-only deal, Republicans largely dismissed the idea that any deal would actually be forthcoming.

“Iran’s not going to make a deal with us. They’re going to stall and re-stall to buy time, but they’re not going to make a deal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider. “The ayatollah is [as] crazy as a bed bug. And he’s never going to give up any hope that he has of nuclear weapons. He’s never going to stop killing his people and drinking their blood out of a boot, and he’s never going to stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Kennedy predicted that military action is both necessary and forthcoming.

“You’re going to have to give them a curbstomping, but you don’t want to start a regional war doing it,” Kennedy continued. “My guess is that’s what the president is talking to [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and the military guys with a bunch of their flags in their office [about] right now.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) agreed that the Iranian regime is not genuinely interested in making an agreement with the United States. 

“There won’t be a deal,” Scott told JI. “They’re not going to do a deal.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he hadn’t seen Trump’s comments but he does not “trust the word of the regime, at all.”

“They have not proven trustworthy with their word in the past, and so you have to have a way to be able to verify everything,” Lankford continued.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), meanwhile, told JI on Monday that he would delay a vote on a war powers resolution he introduced with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blocking military action against Iran pending the ongoing talks with the regime. 

The resolution would theoretically be eligible for votes by the full Senate later this week, should Kaine and Paul wish to call it up.

The Virginia senator told JI that he and Paul are in discussions about timing for votes, and that he hasn’t yet made a decision on when to call the bill up.

“We have to check each day to see where [the talks] are. I don’t think calling it up in the middle of discussions that have some chance to it — that’s not the right time — but we’ll just see where we are,” Kaine said.

Ohio was once a perennial swing state but, as Democrats have lost ground with working-class voters, it has been a Republican stronghold over the last decade. But it could once again emerge as a political bellwether in 2026, as a test of whether Democrats can make inroads in rebuilding a coalition that can win back national power.

If Democrats want to have hope of regaining the confidence of the silent majority that propelled President Donald Trump to victory in 2024, they’ll need to be able to compete in the Buckeye State. And if Democrats hope to have any outside shot at retaking a Senate majority, the path runs through Ohio as well. 

The state is holding two major races: appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) is facing off against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who lost his reelection in 2024. Early polling shows the race is competitive. Of note: Brown significantly outraised Husted in fundraising over the last three months of the year, $7.3 million to $1.5 million, and already has more cash-on-hand than the sitting senator.

Brown had been the only statewide Democratic politician to maintain some support with the blue-collar voters that drifted away from the party in the Trump era. Husted, the state’s former lieutenant governor and secretary of state, is a traditional Republican politician with a party-line voting record but is facing the prospect of rough political headwinds this year for the GOP.

And in an open gubernatorial race to succeed the term-limited GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, Democrat Amy Acton is facing off against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, two candidates whose time spent in public service and politics have been quite polarizing.  

Acton, who was head of the state’s Department of Health during the COVID pandemic, ended up leaving the role early amid a chorus of conservative complaints about her heavy-handed approach to coronavirus regulations and safety protocols. Acton, who is Jewish, is hoping her medical background and role as a political outsider will matter more than the polarizing public health controversies. 

Ramaswamy, who made an unlikely jump to presidential politics in 2024 after a career as a biotech entrepreneur, alienated a number of Republicans for his anti-establishment and isolationist messaging during the campaign. But his gubernatorial campaign has tacked more to the center, as he has spoken out against white nationalists within the GOP during his campaign.  His newfound pragmatism helped him receive this month the endorsement of DeWine, who had been an occasional critic. 

In the Trump era, Ohio has become solidly Republican, giving Trump an 11-point margin of victory in 2024. But the state’s Senate races have been somewhat more competitive: Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) defeated Brown by just three points (50-47%) in the same year, while now-Vice President JD Vance prevailed by six points in his 2022 campaign. Both those elections took place in favorable GOP years, while 2026 is shaping up to be more hospitable for Democrats as the party that’s out of power. 

In the big picture, winning Ohio is a necessity if Democrats want to entertain any hopes of retaking the Senate. They need to net four GOP-held Senate seats to retake the majority, and only North Carolina and Maine are currently toss-up races. Among other GOP-held seats, Ohio is the next-closest opportunity and Brown is the strongest recruit they have in the red-state races. (Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola’s Alaska Senate candidacy is the other big red-state recruit worth watching.)

More importantly, the Ohio contests will test how partisan voters really are, at a time when Trump is testing the patience of some of his working-class supporters. Persuadable Ohio voters are still anxious about the state of the economy, haven’t seen a return of manufacturing jobs back in the state and are receptive to criticism that the administration is focusing more abroad at the expense of domestic concerns back home. 

If the Trump coalition is able to hold together, Republicans should be able to ride the partisan tide to victory in Ohio — even if the party faces a down year in 2026. But if there really is a schism taking place within the GOP, the blue-collar states where Democrats until recently experienced success could end up becoming battleground territory once again. 

Ohio is ground zero for testing that scenario.

Some Republican lawmakers said on Thursday that they’re hesitant about President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Russia and China to be part of the Board of Peace that is set to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.

The administration formally announced the board’s membership on Thursday, consisting largely of countries from the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, with several major European allies declining to participate. China and Russia have also not, to this point, accepted their invitations.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) told Jewish Insider of Russia and China,“I would not have included either of those countries. I wouldn’t have included Belarus either. Belarus is an illegitimate government. It was installed illegitimately by war criminal [Vladimir] Putin.”

Wilson said he views Russia and China as “part of the axis of evil.” He continued, “The axis of evil is easy: it’s Iran, which finances Hamas, and war criminal Putin and the Chinese Communist Party. I do not see them [Russia and China] as [capable of serving as] independent law enforcement, and so it needs to be looked at, in my view.”

Wilson went on to say that, “We are in a conflict we didn’t choose, and that is of dictatorships with rule of gun invading democracies with rule of law. It began on Feb. 24, 2022, with the invasion of Ukraine, and then Oct. 7, the invasion by — I won’t use the word proxies — Iranian puppets, to invade Israel. It’s very important that we show peace through strength to defend the people of Taiwan.”

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said of inviting China and Russia to join the board, “I don’t know what that brings.”

“I am concerned that they’re a malign influence no matter what they do. And the Middle East, Russia has always been trying to do more. I think their credibility is largely squandered with their invasion of Ukraine,” he continued.

He said the leaders of both China and Russia should face trial for crimes against humanity.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said that it made sense to invite the two U.S. adversaries but that they should not have much of a substantive role.

“To exclude them from participation would be inappropriate; to include them in any real positive influence — neither one of them contributes money, neither one of them contributes an expertise in democracy,” Issa said. “I don’t mind them being included, but I think we have to be realistic. They both lack either the generosity or the expertise necessary to create a different world for the Palestinians in their future government.”

He said that other non-democracies, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, are more valuable partners given their potential willingness to contribute financially to the reconstruction of Gaza.

“And if I want others, I want them because they’re willing to demand that there be real representation and real recognition of the international rules that most of our nations live under, Russia and China not being among them,” Issa continued.

Though originally conceived to address the situation in Gaza, Trump has floated the idea that the Board of Peace will pursue a broader agenda, as a potential alternative or replacement for the United Nations, to address other global conflicts, an issue that has prevented some European allies from joining. 

Republicans indicated that they’re open to that idea, citing the U.N.’s long-standing anti-Israel bias.

“I think the people of Israel would welcome an alternative to the United Nations that represented free people and democracy in a way that the United Nation skirts,” Issa said. “Israel has been the whipping boy and the piñata of the U.N. for a very long time. And so, you know, finding a group of [countries] willing and more independent and more willing to work for the greater good” could have value.

But, he added, countries like Russia and China do not need to be involved “unless they’re going to have an active and positive role,” of which he has seen no indication.

Smith, a longtime critic of anti-Israel bias at the U.N., said the body “has no credibility. The U.N. Human Rights Council doesn’t, the U.N. itself. Just like UNRWA has no credibility, ever, I feel the same way about this.”

“I think our leadership, as a country, hopefully, can make the difference,” he continued.

Wilson said he believes the board’s mission will remain focused on Gaza.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on Tuesday pushing for additional information about Nonprofit Security Grant Program allocations, as well as criticizing the funding allocation proposed last week by Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“As I travel around Connecticut and hear from community leaders here and around the country, I am struck by the severely heightened anxiety and apprehension about physical threats to places of worship and community centers involving hate-based violence,” Blumenthal said. “One of the most important tools at our disposal to combat such hate and protect religious institutions and minority communities is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP).”

Blumenthal said it is “critical for Congress to have fulsome data” about the program as it works to finalize 2026 government funding, and requested data on grant applications and acceptances, the reasons why FEMA has provided less funding than requested to some institutions and the resources FEMA provided to unsuccessful applicants for each year from 2023 to 2025.

He asked Noem to submit the data by Jan. 6, 2026.

Blumenthal also said he’s “disappointed” by the proposed funding level of $330 million for the program in 2026 offered by Senate Republicans, which falls “far short of my request and the program’s clear need, with reports indicating recipients requested approximately $1 billion from FEMA in 2024 alone.”

A source familiar with the legislation noted to Jewish Insider the Senate bill includes a 20 percent increase over its 2025 funding level, a greater increase than provided for other grant programs in the bill that generally saw increases of 11 percent to 15 percent. 

The explanatory report accompanying the Senate GOP bill also includes language requesting more specific data from FEMA about past grant applications and acceptances.

Senate Appropriations Committee Republicans, in a long-delayed Homeland Security funding bill released on Friday, proposed a modest increase in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $330 million.

The program was funded at $274.5 million in 2025 — not counting supplemental funds included in the 2024 national security supplemental bill. The Senate’s proposed increase comes in far below the $500 million to $1 billion that Jewish community advocates and supporters of the program on Capitol Hill have called for.

The proposal is also slightly below the $335 million approved by the House in its version of the bill earlier this year. The Senate proposal sets off a sprint to finalize 2026 government funding when Congress returns in January, ahead of an end-of-month deadline.

With $305 million available in 2024, the program funded less than half of applications, with nearly $1 billion in total funding requested. The Department of Homeland Security has not yet closed or finalized grant applications for 2025, and has not released data on application or acceptance rates for supplemental funding rounds earlier this year.

The explanatory report accompanying the bill — likely reflecting congressional concerns around a lack of transparency about the program — directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide within 180 days a report on 2023, 2024 and 2025 funding grants, the number of applications, and “any quantitative or qualitative results or other outcomes related to such.”

“FEMA is also encouraged to utilize NSGP grants to help nonprofits detect and respond to threats,” the report continues. “The Committee further notes that eligible uses of NSGP grant funding include the acquisition of technology providing immediate notification to emergency 911 services; real-time, actionable intelligence directly to law enforcement and first responders; and other DHS-certified technology designed to prevent and respond to terrorism and other threats.”

It had been unclear just days ago if the Senate Appropriations Committee would release a Homeland Security bill at all, with the top Democrat on the subcommittee, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), saying he was unsure where the process stood and a Republican member telling Jewish Insider that a full-year continuing resolution — which would continue 2025 funding levels through 2026 — was a possibility.

A spokesperson for Murphy told JI the bill was a GOP product, not, as has been standard, a negotiated draft among both parties.

Lauren Wolman, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior director of government relations and strategy, said that the allocation “is a major step forward and reflects the gravity of the threats facing Jewish communities today.”

“Demand for this program continues to far outpace available funding, and we urge Congress to ensure every at-risk nonprofit can access the security resources it needs,” Wolman continued.

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said that the Senate proposal is “a useful start to the process.”

“Obviously, in light of recent events, we will be working with our partners to increase that funding level in the final bill,” Diament said. “We appreciate that the Senate bill is on par with what the House reported out earlier this year.”

Michael Masters, the CEO of the Secure Community Network, emphasized that the NSGP funding is critical.

“SCN is deeply appreciative of the Committee’s continued commitment to protecting faith-based communities in today’s unprecedented threat environment. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program has proven time and again to save lives by helping institutions targeted by terror and hate to deter, prevent, and respond to attacks,” Masters said. “At a time when the faith-based community has continued to find itself under attack, this funding is essential to safeguarding communities and preserving our ability to gather and worship — a fundamental right we must fight to preserve, as Americans.”

Rachel Dembo, director of policy and government relations for the Jewish Federations of North America, thanked the committee for the proposal. 

“This is a meaningful step forward as threats to faith communities remain high, particularly for the Jewish community,” Dembo said in a statement. “While more work remains to be done, we urge lawmakers to conference and pass this annual funding bill and keep building toward funding levels that reflect today’s threat environment.”

Weeks after the Coast Guard commandant personally called lawmakers to reassure them that swastikas and nooses would remain banned hate symbols within the service, the Guard quietly broke its pledge and diminished the severity of such displays as “potentially divisive” instead — the very language that had prompted outrage from lawmakers and the Jewish community.

Leading Democrats erupted in outrage on the news of the Coast Guard’s policy shift, while Republicans have thus far largely been silent.

The Washington Post first broke the news about the Coast Guard’s changed policy on hate symbols.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, under whose jurisdiction the Coast Guard falls, to demand the policy be reversed immediately.

“It is now clear that the Coast Guard had no intention of backing down, and today they quietly allowed this abhorrent policy to go into effect,” Blumenthal said. “This edict besmirches the Coast Guard’s honor, and DHS should be ashamed.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said in a statement that the policy “must be reversed immediately.”

“Allowing racism and antisemitism to fester in our armed forces is wrong, harmful to our military readiness, and makes all of us less safe. Americans across the country were disgusted when news about this proposed change broke last month. I had hoped the Trump Administration was sufficiently shamed into backtracking when it called that reporting an ‘absolute ludicrous lie and unequivocally false,’” Kaine said. “By moving forward with this absurdly dangerous policy, it’s clear this Administration will stop at nothing to reach a new low.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) called the policy “indefensible” and “a stain on our country” at a time of rising antisemitism.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said the administration should be “ashamed for downplaying the meaning of these symbols.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, said on Wednesday that the policy “shows complete tone-deafness on the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security.”

“In light of the horrific events at Bondi Beach and as a Chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, I will continue to stand against antisemitism in all forms. Admiral Lunday will have to clarify his Nov 20 memo condemning this policy in light of the now-enacted policy from the Commandant at his upcoming confirmation hearing,” Bacon continued.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who introduced a House bill that aimed to codify the existing Coast Guard policy on the issue, expressed outrage at the reversal.

“The shocking news from the Coast Guard exposes a crisis of conscience enabled by the Trump administration’s stunning lack of moral clarity,” Torres told Jewish Insider. “Their move to downgrade swastikas and nooses to merely ‘potentially divisive’ was an absurd and disgraceful betrayal of every servicemember. We must pass my legislation immediately to codify a zero-tolerance ban and permanently crush this institutional bigotry.”

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force who signed a joint statement with fellow co-chairs in response to the initial change, told JI that the administration had lied when it said it would be correcting the policy.

“Antisemitism in all forms is unacceptable. The Trump Administration lied right to the American people’s faces when they indicated last month that they weren’t going through with this policy change,” Stevens said. “Downgrading the seriousness of hate symbols like swastikas and nooses — whether in the Coast Guard or any other arm of the U.S. government — is despicable and unacceptable. I will always stand with the Jewish community and fight back against attempts to delegitimize the evil of antisemitism and hate in our country.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), also a task force co-chair, told JI that the Coast Guard itself acknowledged that the swastika should not be accepted.

“As the Coast Guard previously acknowledged in initially reversing this terrible decision, these are quintessential symbols of hate, not ‘divisive symbols’ or abstract icons,” Goldman said. “The Coast Guard’s policy change is either blatant discriminatory or pure incompetence. It must be reversed.”

Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), another task force co-chair, also highlighted that the Coast Guard had broken its word to lawmakers.

“Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Coast Guard told lawmakers it would reverse this policy. Now, they are doubling down on it,” Meng told JI. “Swastikas and nooses are not just ‘potentially divisive.’ They are symbols of hate, and their harassment policy should reflect that. There is no question that this decision should be reversed immediately.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), upon being told about the reversal, said that the change is “outrageous” and noted that — given the recent publicity — the issue is now known to the “highest levels” of the administration.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, emphasized that Coast Guard officials had come to the Hill last month to reassure lawmakers that the policy would not be implemented.

“It is abundantly clear an antisemite and racist in the Trump Administration is forcing this policy to be in place,” Nadler said. “This reprehensible decision must be reversed.”

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) said in a statement the latest policy change contradicted the “explicit message” of the Coast Guard just weeks ago.

“The confusion and contradiction that surrounds this debacle needs to be fixed completely and comprehensively, without any legalese,” Courtney continued. “The sacred reputation of the Coast Guard is at stake with this fiasco, and for the sake of its reputation and future standing, I join my other House colleagues in imploring Coast Guard leadership to act swiftly.”

The Anti-Defamation League said that the policy is “unacceptable” and that “the Coast Guard should immediately fix this policy and make clear that hate has no place in our military.”

Democrats and Republicans gathered for a rare moment of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill on Wednesday at the pre-Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony hosted by congressional leadership. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hosted the gathering alongside Chabad Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), who led the prayer portions of the program and helped light the menorah candles. 

Over a dozen lawmakers from across the political spectrum mingled with rabbis and Jewish political operatives while noshing on sufganiyot and Star of David-shaped sugar cookies and sipping coffee and soft drinks at the annual gathering, which the three congressional leaders organized for the first time two months after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Johnson was forced to miss the beginning of the event to oversee a dispute unfolding between several of his members on the House floor over the National Defense Authorization Act, but arrived in time to participate in the end of the menorah lighting.

Among the lawmakers in attendance were Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Craig Goldman (R-TX), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), David Taylor (R-OH), Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Melanie Stansbury (D-NM).

Also present were Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s nominee to be the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; Paul Teller, executive director of Advancing American Freedom; and Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America.

Absent from the ceremony was Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict, according to a source familiar with the matter.

All three congressional leaders noted in their respective speeches the bipartisanship that the event had engendered, and all used their remarks to reiterate their commitment to fighting antisemitism and standing with the American Jewish community. 

“We do share this in common, that we support Israel, obviously, and the Jewish people,” Johnson said of Jeffries, whom the House speaker called “my good friend and my colleague.”

Johnson said he was glad to see “all of our many colleagues and friends who have joined us here for this meaningful occasion” and specifically pointed out Craig Goldman and Fine as “two of my favorite colleagues down here who have joined us and proudly represent Jewish people in Congress.”

“It’s a special time of year, and we like to do this,” Johnson remarked. 

Jeffries complimented Shemtov for “always committing to bringing us together, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans.”

Shemtov said that his “message for today” was how the branches of the menorah diverge in different directions but originate “from the base facing towards that middle, which is moderation.” 

“I think that there are two ways to look at people who go out from the base into different directions,” Shemtov said. “We can focus on the differences and worry about conflict, or we can focus on the variety that brings unity.”

Shemtov praised Johnson and Jeffries specifically for their leadership on Jewish issues, prompting the room to applaud for both men.

“I don’t get involved in their opinions on political issues. That’s not my role. But one thing I will say is the two gentlemen on my left are strong and perhaps the best friends of Israel and the Jewish people either side of the aisle has ever seen,” Shemtov said of the House leaders. “I go to sleep easier at night knowing that at the helm of our nation and this institution of Congress are people who recognize the value we give this nation.”

The neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes has drawn a sizable online following that has fueled debate over his influence in the Republican Party as it grapples with how to address mounting antisemitism within its ranks, particularly among younger conservatives.

But a new report suggests that his rise may in part be artificially driven by a cluster of anonymous social media accounts largely based in foreign countries, and raises questions about the organic popularity of Fuentes’ movement in the United States as he seeks to grow his political reach to shape the coming midterm elections. 

The report, published on Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit watchdog group affiliated with Rutgers University, analyzed a recent sample of Fuentes’ posts on X and found that engagement within the first 30 minutes not only far exceeded his “legitimate reach” but also “routinely” outperformed accounts commanding significantly larger followings, including Elon Musk, who owns the platform.

For the 20 Fuentes posts examined by NCRI in that opening time window, just over 60% of initial amplification came from the same repeat accounts, pointing to a pattern of “behavior highly suggestive of coordination or automation,” the report states.

Nearly all those users were “fully anonymous,” with no real name, location or other identifying markers, according to NCRI, and a majority were “openly” or “functionally single-purpose” accounts dedicated to promoting Fuentes’ extremist positions, which have included Holocaust denial and admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Meanwhile, the report also found, roughly half of the accounts that promoted three of Fuentes’ most viral posts before the assassination of Charlie Kirk — whose death in September left a major vacuum in the conservative youth movement that Fuentes has been seeking to fill — originated from foreign users that were “heavily concentrated” in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia and Indonesia, the sites of known content-engagement farms. 

“There is no organic explanation for this pattern,” the report notes, calling such activity “consistent with outsourced engagement infrastructure. These geographies describe the same low-cost amplification clusters and engagement farms that foreign actors often use to manufacture virality, distort platform metrics and manipulate recommendation systems.” 

The report argues that such alleged “manufactured engagement” artificially helped elevate Fuentes as a subject of heightened mainstream media interest in the wake of Kirk’s assassination, in addition to a friendly interview with Tucker Carlson weeks later, allowing “him to appear active, relevant and in position when a replacement narrative became available inside the broader MAGA ecosystem.”

Fuentes’ “manipulated reach is not accidental,” the report states, citing hundreds of instances from his show in which he has issued “real-time commands” to share his posts on social media — directives that the NCRI says run afoul of X’s content moderation policies prohibiting “orchestrated amplification.”

“Taken together,” the report concludes, “the evidence points to a deliberate, foreign-influenced campaign — relying on anonymous and possibly automated accounts — to artificially inflate Nick Fuentes’s reach, gaming the platform’s algorithm in a systematic effort to elevate his influence far beyond what genuine grassroots support could achieve.”

As an ideological battle plays out in the Republican Party over whether America should adopt an engaged approach to global affairs or take a more restrained one, a new National Security Strategy authored by the Trump administration offers a clear-cut answer — presenting America as deeply engaged, so long as the policies adopted by Washington are deemed to put “America First” by President Donald Trump. 

Trump has no qualms about using unusual strategies to achieve his national security aims (what the 29-page document refers to as his “unconventional diplomacy”), but the strategy paints a picture of a president who is intently focused on his global legacy and on shoring up his image as “the president of peace.” 

“For a country whose interests are as numerous and diverse as ours, rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible,” the strategy states. “Yet this predisposition should set a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention.”

The document takes aim at prior American commanders-in-chief, saying such documents authored by past administrations became “bloated and unfocused” by focusing on the entire world. “Not every country, region, issue, or cause — however worthy — can be the focus of American strategy. The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy,” the document asserts.

The president abhors the use of traditional foreign policy language to try to categorize his approach, the strategy makes clear: “President Trump’s foreign policy is pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist,’ realistic without being ‘realist,’ principled without being ‘idealistic,’ muscular without being ‘hawkish’ and restrained without being ‘dovish.’ It is not grounded in traditional, political ideology. It is motivated above all by what works for America — or, in two words, ‘America First,’” according to the document. 

Yet what is clear from the strategy is that Trump remains captivated by the world’s challenges and believes he can help remedy them. In a letter introducing the strategy, Trump writes that he has achieved a historically “dramatic … turnaround” on matters of foreign affairs. 

Border security is a key focus — he touts his restoration of “the sovereign borders of the United States” and the deployment of the military “to stop the invasion of our country” — alongside culture war issues, with Trump saying the U.S. has rid the military of “radical gender ideology and woke lunacy.” He names the global conflicts he has played a role in helping to resolve, including “ending the war in Gaza with all living hostages returned to their family” and “obliterat[ing] Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity” when America bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in June.

Trump’s key goal in the Middle East appears to be to keep Iran in check, though Iran is only mentioned three times in the report. In the first national security strategy of Trump’s first term, in 2017, Iran was mentioned 17 times. 

“We want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the ‘forever wars’ that bogged us down in that region at great cost,” the strategy states, without naming a particular adversarial power. 

America historically prioritized the Middle East because of its dominant role in supplying energy, its position as “a prime theater of superpower competition” and seemingly needless conflict, the strategy states. The Trump administration argues the energy question takes less priority, with America now a net energy exporter; and that superpower competition has faded, with America in “the most enviable position, reinforced by President Trump’s successful revitalization of our alliances in the Gulf, with other Arab partners and with Israel.”

Conflict, the strategy asserts, “remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic.” But it argues that Iran, “the region’s chief destabilizing force,” was “greatly weakened” by Israel’s actions after the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago and by U.S. involvement in the June war. 

Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May, the first major international trip of his second term, and he recently welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington. Both of these meetings were focused on investment and building economic ties between the U.S. and Gulf nations. The national security strategy makes clear that this is a core goal for Trump.

“The region will increasingly become a source and destination of international investment, and in industries well beyond oil and gas,” the strategy states. “We can also work with Middle East partners to advance other economic interests, from securing supply chains to bolstering opportunities to develop friendly and open markets in other parts of the world such as Africa.” 

The Trump administration praised partners in the Middle East for combating radicalism, but also said the U.S. will no longer try to goad Gulf nations into democracy.

Continuing to fight radicalism in the region “will require dropping America’s misguided experiment with hectoring these nations — especially the Gulf monarchies — into abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government,” the strategy states. That pledge marks a significant shift from the Biden administration’s approach, which called for strengthening democracy around the world. The word “democracy” appears just three times in Trump’s national security strategy, and not as a goal of American foreign policy. 

The White House said expanding the Abraham Accords will remain a policy priority. Other “core interests” include maintaining the security of Gulf energy supplies, ensuring that terrorism cannot be allowed to grow and reach the U.S. and “that Israel must remain secure.”

“But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over,” the strategy asserts, “not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was. It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment — a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged.”

Today’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District — covering parts of Nashville, its conservative suburbs and rural counties in middle Tennessee — was expected to be a sleepy affair, given that the district backed President Donald Trump with 60% of the vote in 2024. The state’s aggressively partisan redistricting in 2021 was intended to guarantee GOP dominance of the state’s congressional delegation, leaving just one Democratic district in Memphis.

But in a sign that Trump’s growing unpopularity is creating unforeseen problems for Republicans in conservative constituencies, the race between Republican military veteran Matt Van Epps, a former state Cabinet secretary, and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn is highly competitive. 

The fact that polls show the race tightening — with one Emerson College poll showing Van Epps in a statistical tie with Behn — is a sign of just how treacherous the political landscape has become for Republicans. Gallup’s latest survey found Trump with a 36% job approval, close to an all-time low throughout his two terms in office.  

If Republicans are nervous about holding a seat that Trump won by 22 points, there’s a growing likelihood of a blue wave that would give Democrats comfortable control of the House and an outside shot at a Senate majority. (One useful benchmark: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) carried the 7th District by just two points in her 2018 Senate race, the last election year when Democrats rode a wave to win back the House.)

The fact that Republicans are struggling to make the case that the unapologetically progressive Behn holds views out of step with the conservative district on everything from anti-police rhetoric to antipathy towards her home city of Nashville to a record of hostility against Israel is also a sign of how nationalized our politics have become. In today’s tribal world, candidate quality and specific policy views mean a lot less than the overall political mood (vibes) and the popularity of the president.

Once someone wins their party’s nomination, the penalty for holding ideologically extreme views isn’t as costly as it once was. Just look at incoming Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s showings in the November elections. Despite their substantial baggage, both candidates received a level of political legitimacy after winning their primaries.

Getting Trump voters to show up when the president isn’t on the ballot is also looking like an immense challenge that the closer-than-expected Tennessee race is showing — a dynamic that will continue past next year’s midterms. Part of it is the nature of off-year special elections, which less-engaged Republican voters aren’t likely to participate in. But some of the slippage in this race is also a sign of declining enthusiasm for the Republican Party even with more reliably GOP voters. 

The district is anchored by the affluent Nashville suburb of Williamson County, which stuck with Trump even as most other suburban areas swung towards Democrats over the last decade. 

Gallup found Trump dropping to 84% support among Republican voters, a decline of about 10 points in the last couple of months. If Republicans are slipping with their own voters, amid signs of cracks within the MAGA coalition, it would truly be a warning sign that the party’s vaunted unity under Trump could be dissipating as his final term progresses.

Odds still favor Van Epps in tonight’s special election, given the district’s solidly conservative bent. But if a progressive like Behn can make this race close — within single digits — it will serve as a flashing red light about where the political winds are heading for the White House, at least without a course correction. 

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are cheering the implementation of X’s new location feature this week — allowing users to see what countries accounts are operating from — with some expressing hope that the move will expose the level of foreign involvement in domestic online political discourse.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle touted the new feature as a useful way to identify if an account commenting on U.S. political matters could potentially be a foreign actor. 

The new feature has exposed a variety of far-left and far-right accounts engaging in U.S. political discourse and spreading antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments as they operate from various foreign countries.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said the information gleaned from the platform’s new feature crystalized the degree to which “foreign interests are trying to spread” antisemitic ideas in the United States. “The evidence is insightful,” Bacon, who is leading a bill with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) aimed at addressing antisemitism on social media, told Jewish Insider.

“On one hand I’m glad much of the antisemitism poison is not coming from the U.S., but it is alarming that so many foreign interests are trying to spread that poison by pushing it in the U.S. and masquerading as Americans,” the Nebraska Republican continued. “We need to keep informing Americans that much of the antisemitism is coming from abroad.”

Several lawmakers argued that the feature would help with the broader effort to prevent worsening domestic partisan divides, especially those fueled by U.S. adversaries.

“Foreign adversaries have spent years flooding social media with hate-filled and antisemitic propaganda to divide Americans,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the GOP co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, told JI. “Americans deserve to know which accounts are run from abroad so we know the true source of these narratives.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who represents a Trump district and has been critical of X owner Elon Musk, said in a statement, “I have always suspected that many anti-Israel, antisemitic, Jew hate accounts are promoted by our adversaries.”

“Beijing, Moscow and Tehran know they cannot defeat us economically or militarily, so they exploit controversial issues, like Israel and antisemitism, and try to divide,” Suozzi told JI. “We must defend America by pushing back on external adversaries seeking to divide us internally.”

Others noted in statements to JI that ensuring transparency from major social media platforms was a necessary step in combating the rise in online antisemitism. 

“Transparency on social media is crucial to fighting misinformation and antisemitism online. We’ve seen cases of foreign actors like Russia, China and Iran attempting to use these platforms to sow division and spread hate,” Gottheimer told JI. “I am glad they implemented this change and hope they will work with Congress to take steps to fight antisemitism and prevent malicious foreign influence.”

Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA), who led a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in July about X’s AI program Grok expressing antisemitic and pro-Nazi ideas, told JI in a statement, “This transparency is an important step. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, bad actors spreading antisemitic narratives to divide Americans is a real threat. There’s much more tech companies should do to expose and stop this manipulation.”

Other Republicans also commented on the new feature this week. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has become a leading voice targeting right-wing antisemitism, posted on X on Tuesday that “America-hating foreign bots are at it again,” in response to a tweet from an account that is based in South Asia, according to the new location feature.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley tweeted her support for the new service, writing on Tuesday, “I have long said foreign actors are using social media to poison our politics and divide Americans. The location feature on X is a huge win for transparency and American security. Other social media platforms should do the same.”

In Texas, two Republicans who have faced condemnations from the Jewish community could be making comebacks in this year’s Republican congressional primaries.

Social media influencer and gun activist Brandon Herrera is making a second attempt to take down Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), after losing to the congressman by less than 400 votes in 2024 in the 23rd Congressional District, which runs along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Herrera attracted controversy and criticism for videos he posted on YouTube featuring imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, and was active for years in a Sons of Confederate Veterans group in North Carolina. He also pledged to support ending U.S. foreign aid, including to Israel.

The AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition launched substantial ad campaigns against Herrera in 2024, highlighting his Nazi-related videos.

Gonzales is currently under scrutiny after a former staffer died by suicide after setting herself on fire. The staffer and Gonzales had allegedly engaged in an extramarital affair, something both Gonzales and the woman’s family deny.

Gonzales has a sizable lead in fundraising with $1.5 million raised and $2.5 million on hand, to Herrera’s $307,000.

Another candidate, rancher Susan Storey Rubio, also announced plans to challenge Gonzales from his right. But it’s unclear if she is still running for the seat — her campaign’s social media pages are unavailable and she refunded campaign donations she had received, as well as repaid much of a loan she made to her campaign. Her campaign account had no money remaining and $163,000 in debt listed as of last month.

Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas Republican strategist, said that the race is difficult to predict, but that it’s likely “going to be a good tough close race.” Both candidates, he said, have likely spent the time since their last faceoff building up their local bases of support to prepare for this rematch.

For insurgents like Herrera, Steinhauser said, a first race can give them time to build up a local base of support and to show that they have a real shot at winning. He said that Gonzales, too, has also likely been working to address some of the issues that drove voters’ opposition in the past race.

Former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) is rumored to be planning a second attempt at a political comeback; he served one term from 1995 to 1997, narrowly beating a Democratic incumbent, before losing reelection. He ran and was elected again in 2013 in a newly created district. In 2015, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in a primary against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

After leaving Congress, he was indicted and convicted on felony charges of financial misconduct, money laundering and fraud, using $1.25 million from political donors to pay for personal expenses. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but his sentence was commuted after just two years by President Donald Trump at the tail end of his first term in office.

During his first term in Congress, Stockman faced condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League for appearing on a radio show run by a Holocaust-denying conspiracy group, the Liberty Lobby. In an interview, Stockman denied that the show was antisemitic.

“They said that because they talk against ‘international bankers’ that means they’re against Jewish folks,” he said at the time. “The largest banks today are not American. I know that most of them are Japanese now.” 

He also defended himself by saying that he had “a Christian Jewish person” working in his office. Stockman asked staff in his congressional office to participate in a daily Christian prayer service.

Stockman, who at the time was known as a generally bizarre and fringe figure, also pushed conspiracy theories about the 1993 Waco siege and maintained ties to militia groups.

Stockman did cast himself as a supporter of Israel during his time in Congress — at one point memorably vanishing for weeks on what was later revealed to be a delegation trip to Israel and Egypt — sponsoring legislation cutting off support for organizations that exclude Israeli organizations in the West Bank and speaking at pro-Israel events in support of the Jewish state. He also condemned antisemitic activity in Armenia.

Stockman has yet to declare his candidacy, but was reportedly interested in pursuing the Houston-area 9th Congressional District that was revamped as a result of the GOP’s partisan redistricting push to become a solidly conservative seat.

But after a federal court ruled this month that Texas cannot use its new maps, ordering the state to stick with the congressional lines it has had since 2021, Stockman’s fate is uncertain. The redistricting ruling was appealed, with the Supreme Court temporarily ordering the state to use its 2025 map for now. adding uncertainty to what the Texas map will look like for the 2026 midterms. 

Stockman could not be reached for comment.

Steinhauser said he hasn’t heard any particular chatter about Stockman’s plans.

“Given the district [was] going to be … a very conservative area, it certainly would look attractive to him or anyone else looking to run,” Steinhauser said. He said Stockman could point to the prosecution and Trump’s pardon to frame himself as a victim of a weaponized political prosecution, as Trump has done, telling voters, “they came after me just like they came after the president.”

But Steinhauser also said it’s still a relatively open race and that various others could still join.

Vice President JD Vance dismissed the suggestion that traditional conservative Republicans would “wrest control” of the GOP from supporters of the MAGA movement after President Donald Trump leaves office and “go back to the Republican Party of 20 years ago.”

Vance made the comments during a conversation with Breitbart News’ Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle on Thursday, in which the two broadly discussed the divisions within the MAGA movement on foreign and economic policy. Both argued that the U.S. was experiencing a “political realignment,” with the Republican Party becoming the party of the working class and Democrats now more aligned with wealthier voters. 

“Part of what you see as division in the Republican Party is a consequence of this realignment. We have a new governing coalition. We have a new political coalition. We have people who didn’t used to vote Republican,” Vance said. “Frankly, they have different preferences, sometimes on certain issues, than maybe the Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush Republican Party did. I think the Donald Trump party is a fundamentally new phenomenon in American politics.”

“Some of those divisions you talk about are just the natural outgrowth of the fact that we’ve got a lot of working-class voters who, frankly, don’t care what was Republican orthodoxy 25 years ago, and so they’re pushing the party in a different direction,” the vice president continued. 

Boyle pointed out Vance’s mention of former President George W. Bush, and noted that the funeral of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served under Bush, was taking place that morning. 

The vice president replied by offering his condolences to the Cheney family and praised his service to the country, but predicted that such an effort to return the Republican Party to the Bush-Cheney era would fail.

“Whether intentional or not, that was the legacy of the Republican Party that came before Donald J. Trump. I’m glad the president got us away from that Republican Party. It lost. It was also a disaster for the United States of America,” Vance said. 

Asked for his thoughts on “how to reunify” the conservative movement amid “some divisions” on domestic and foreign policy matters, Vance said he welcomed the ongoing debates while urging Republicans to not lose sight of the fact that their true opponent is the Democratic Party. 

“I think these debates should happen. They should happen on podcasts. They should happen in the media. They should happen on the op-ed pages. It’s totally reasonable for the people who make up this coalition to argue about what our foreign policy should be, what our specific tax policy should be, what our housing policy should be,” Vance explained, adding that the “disagreements that animated” the GOP were “important.”

Still, Vance encouraged conservatives “to remember that we have a lot more in common than we do not in common.” 

“My attitude is: Let these debates play out, but don’t let the debates that we’re having internally blind us to the fact that we are up against a radical leftist movement that murdered my friend [Charlie Kirk] a couple of months ago, and that would throw many people in the Trump administration in prison, not for doing anything illegal, but for not following the far-left’s agenda,” Vance said.

“That is the real opponent here: a political movement in this country that has no enemy in principle, that has no agenda for the American people. Their sole obsession is to take down Donald Trump and anybody who’d help Donald Trump govern,” he added. “Focus on the enemy. Have our debates, but focus on the enemy so that we can win in victories that matter to the American people.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) would need to reject antisemitism and other forms of bigotry if she wanted to join the Democratic coalition, tempering his recent comment that the Democratic Party should be enough of a “big tent” to accommodate Greene.

Greene, who has recently earned friendly treatment from some Democrats and liberal-leaning media programs such as “The View” over her break with President Donald Trump, has continued to invoke antisemitic tropes, most recently suggesting over the weekend that Israel had pressured Trump to denounce her, and has promoted a variety of other conspiracy theories.

But that rhetoric, for which many liberals previously condemned Greene, has gone increasingly overlooked.

“We are a big tent. We must be a huge, vast tent. I say this is a party that’s got room for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she wants to come over. We’ve got room for anybody who wants to stand up for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights today,” Raskin said in remarks to Florida Democrats shared on social media last weekend.

Asked about Greene’s ongoing promotion of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, Raskin told JI in a statement, “Before I would welcome Rep. Greene or any other leaders who might flee from Trump’s autocratic personality cult, I would of course want to see them repudiate all the forms of authoritarianism, antisemitism, racism, transphobia and bigotry that they have promoted as Republicans and that have become so intertwined with the MAGA Republican brand under Trump.”

He said he believes that some of his colleagues may end up switching parties.

“I have real hope that a whole lot of my Colleagues will continue to evolve away from the dangerous and divisive swamps of MAGA politics,” Raskin said. “I meet Independents and Republicans every day joining the Democratic Party, and I am delighted to work with them and anyone else who will stand up against antisemitism, racism and corruption and for democracy, equality, freedom and progress for all.”

Jewish Democratic groups urged Democrats to keep Greene at a distance.

“She has a track record of antisemitism and opposition to Israel that goes back before she was even in Congress and continued as recently as a few days ago,” Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick told Jewish Insider. “The House is a legislative body and you need to get 218 [votes]. You should get 218 [with] whoever you can get to 218, but just because someone votes with you today doesn’t make them a good person or your friend.”

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said that Greene’s rift with Trump “doesn’t change her many years of espousing extremist views, including dangerous lies about Jewish Americans, whether it be the infamous ‘space laser’ accusation or other antisemitic conspiracy theories. So if she really wants to distinguish herself from the toxic politics of Donald Trump, she needs to do more than simply call for the release of the Epstein files.”

Soifer also argued that Greene’s views of Israel — she has accused the country of genocide in Gaza and sought to cut off military aid — “are not aligned with those of Jewish Dems either.”

“If she’s going to provide an additional vote for passage of critically important measures for the American people, including reducing their otherwise skyrocketing prices of health care, then the Democrats should gladly take that support,” Soifer said. “However, that doesn’t mean aligning with her and her extremist views. It doesn’t change the fact that she has continued to perpetuate antisemitic conspiracy theories and espouse extremist and even antisemitic views.”

As 2,000 Jewish philanthropists, activists and professionals prepared to leave Washington on Tuesday as the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly wrapped up, they heard a stern warning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Americans must confront antisemitism on both sides, including the right; if they don’t, the nation will face an “existential crisis.” 

“I do not want to wake up in five years and find that both major parties in America have embraced hatred of Israel and have tolerated, if not embraced, antisemitism,” Cruz said.

Cruz has become the most prominent Republican elected official speaking out against a rising tide of right-wing antisemitism. But the weeks following podcaster Tucker Carlson’s interview with neo-Nazi provocateur Nick Fuentes have sparked a reckoning for Republicans, including some who until recently considered antisemitism to be primarily a left-wing phenomenon.

That internal tension was on full display at a Tuesday afternoon conference hosted by the conservative National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. The group was until recently affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, until the conservative think tank’s president came to Carlson’s defense. Earlier this month the task force members voted to cut ties with Heritage.  

The NTFCA gathering, arranged in less than two weeks after the group’s split from Heritage, took place in a basement ballroom at The Line Hotel in Washington. About 100 people were in attendance, among them representatives from Jewish advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America and Combat Antisemitism Movement.

The event’s organizers — NTFCA co-chairs Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy antisemitism special envoy in the first Trump administration; Mario Bramnick, a Florida pastor and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel; and Luke Moon, a pastor and executive director of the Philos Project — took the opportunity to forcefully reject Carlson and other far-right media figures who are gaining clout among conservatives by attacking Israel and its backers, and to issue a call for conservatives to join them in calling out growing animosity toward Jews. They don’t think enough people are doing so. 

“I remember Luke, early on, said, ‘Mario, keep your eye on the right.’ I said, ‘Well, look, that’s a fringe. It’s not really important,’” Bramnick said. “But now we’re seeing a very troubling development during President Trump’s second administration within the MAGA movement: antisemitic acts coming from MAGA movement leaders.” The Project Esther report that the task force developed with Heritage last year was focused solely on left-wing antisemitism. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee delivered remarks via video. “There is so much antisemitism around the world today. But what perhaps is most troubling to me is that it is not just rising up on the far left,” Huckabee said. 

Two other Trump administration officials also spoke: Justice Department senior counsel Leo Terrell, who said combating antisemitism “is the American thing to do,” and former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), Trump’s nominee for international religious freedom ambassador. 

Trump, meanwhile, defended Carlson this week when he was asked about the right-wing podcaster’s interview with Fuentes. 

The convening was a launchpad for a new movement of conservative activists willing to take on antisemitism within their own party. It saw staunch partisans stake out surprising positions, like when Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein said he was “disappointed” that Trump claimed not to know much about Fuentes.

“The fight on the left is still happening. That is not done. That is a work that still has to go on. But we now have an emergent threat on the right,” Moon said. “It’s the early days of this war. I don’t feel like we did win the last battle, but we didn’t lose yet either.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) upped the ante on his recent rhetoric targeting right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson, telling a gathering of Jewish leaders in Washington that calling out antisemitism from Carlson and his Republican allies is necessary to defend American values. He said America faces an “existential crisis” if the rising antisemitism on the American right is not addressed.

“I do not want to wake up in five years and find that the Republican Party has become like the Democrat Party,” Cruz said on Tuesday at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly, which brought together 2,000 philanthropists, activists and Jewish communal professionals. “I do not want to wake up in five years and find that both major parties in America have embraced hatred of Israel and have tolerated, if not embraced, antisemitism.”

The conservative movement has faced internal division and tensions since Carlson hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his podcast last month. 

By digging in on his campaign against Carlson, Cruz further separated himself from President Donald Trump, who on Sunday night offered praise for the former Fox News host when he was asked about Carlson’s decision to do a friendly interview with Fuentes. 

“He said good things about me over the years. I think he’s good,” Trump said. “You can’t tell him who to interview.” 

Cruz, meanwhile, has gone after Carlson in increasingly sharp messages, after having his own heated interview with the podcaster in June — including at the recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas, then at a Federalist Society conference in Washington and now at the GA. 

In his latest speech, he did more than calling out Carlson and his Republican enablers. He made the case that countering Carlson’s influence is necessary for the future of America.

“That is a poison that not only does damage to Israel. That is a poison that does damage to America,” Cruz said. “And if we’re going to stop it, we’re going to stop it because we stand up and say, ‘No, this is not who we are. This is not what we believe. This is not what the Constitution and the Declaration [of Independence] were all about. This is not what America was all about.’”

At the GA, Cruz was addressing a friendly audience who had spent two days immersed in programming about antisemitism in America. But he warned that many people are not fully grasping the scope of the problem. He described a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this year where, he said, Netanyahu tried to push back on the idea that right-wing antisemitism was a threat. 

“I’ll tell you, he actually was a little dismissive of that. He said, ‘No, no, no, that’s Qatar, that’s Iran, that’s bots,’” Cruz said. “My response: ‘Mr. Prime Minister, yes, but no. Yes, that’s happening. Yes, there are millions of dollars being spent to spread this poison. Yes, that’s happening online. But it is real and organic.’”

The misunderstanding, Cruz said, also exists in the Christian world.

“My message to the Christians is, this poison is spreading. There are pastors who love Israel, who think all is fine,” Cruz said. “My message to them is, ‘Go and talk to the teenagers in your congregation. Go and talk to the 20-somethings in your congregation, because they’re picking up their phone and they’re watching Tiktok and they’re watching Instagram, and they’re hearing this message being driven, and it is resonating.’”

The answer, Cruz said, is for other public officials — Republicans in particular — to speak out. But what’s at stake, he argued, is more than just their party or the Jewish community. He made the case that they must do so for the good of America. 

“My hope is that we see other Republicans willing to stand up, willing to stand up and to be clear, willing to draw a line,” he said. “This is a fight worth fighting. Saving America is worth fighting. Bringing us back to our founding principles — that is worth fighting.” 

President Donald Trump on Friday night publicly disavowed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), once one of the president’s closest and most committed allies on Capitol Hill, saying he was withdrawing his endorsement of Greene and is prepared to support a primary challenger to the far-right Georgia congresswoman.

Greene, long dogged by controversy for her record of promoting antisemitic and otherwise fringe conspiracy theories, has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of Israel on the right, accusing the country of genocide and leading efforts attempting to cut off U.S. aid to the Jewish state.

She has also repeatedly publicly criticized Trump’s policies and Republican leadership on Capitol Hill since the start of the government shutdown, earning Trump’s ire. Her breaks with the GOP have made her into a budding star in liberal media circles, where her ongoing promotion of conspiracy theories has increasingly been overlooked.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he has heard that “wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie” and that “if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,” accusing her of having “gone Far Left.”

Greene’s district is among the most heavily Republican in the country, and losing Trump’s support could prove a significant blow to the congresswoman.

“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote, adding that Greene’s criticism began after he showed her statewide polling that placed her at just 12% support and discouraged her from running for Senate or governor, both positions Greene had been eyeing.

According to NOTUS, Greene is discussing a presidential run in 2028, though she denied that to the publication.

“[Greene] has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore, but with 219 Congressmen/women, 53 U.S. Senators, 24 Cabinet Members, almost 200 Counties, and an otherwise normal life to lead, I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day,” Trump continued in his post.

He later called Greene a “Traitor” and a “disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!”

Greene responded on X, saying Trump had lied to her and claiming that two recent text messages about files related to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had “sent him over the edge,” saying it is “astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out.”

Greene is one of a small number of Republicans cosponsoring a measure to force a vote, over Republicans’ objections on files related to Epstein. Trump, an associate of Epstein, has sought to prevent the full release of those files, calling the push for further disclosure “the Epstein hoax.”

“Most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America who are fed up with foreign wars and foreign causes, are going broke trying to feed their families, and are losing hope of ever achieving the American dream,” Greene said. “I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him. But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”

In a subsequent post, Greene shared a graphic showing she has not received support from pro-Israel groups alongside another graphic comparing her “Liberty Score” to that of Trump-backed pro-Israel Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). In the post, she wrote: “This and the Epstein files is why I’m being attacked by President Trump. It really makes you wonder what is in those files and who and what country is putting so much pressure on him?”

She also claimed that Trump’s posts are driving a wave of security threats against her.

Trump has also worked to defeat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), another of the most vocal anti-Israel Republicans The president has endorsed retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who is challenging Massie in the GOP primary. 

On Friday, Trump called Massie a “LOSER!” in a separate Truth Social post, claiming that “the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election” and mocked his recent remarriage.

Given the GOP’s sturdy 53-seat majority in the Senate, combined with the increasing rarity of split-ticket voters, the Republican Party’s hold on the upper chamber looked nearly guaranteed, with a map featuring very few true swing-state pickup opportunities for the Democrats.

Indeed, the unlikely pathway for Democrats to win back control of the Senate in 2026 runs through states that have been reliably Republican in recent years — Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Florida and Alaska. To win back a majority, the party would need to win at least two of these red-state races, reversing the yearslong Democratic drought in many of these states — along with winning GOP-held seats in battleground Maine and North Carolina, which is far from assured.

But given the dominant Democratic outcomes from the off-year elections, there’s been renewed attention to the possibility of some red-state upsets in 2026. Already, political strategists from both parties are mulling over which seats are the most likely to get competitive, in preparation for an unpredictable midterm election.

On paper, Ohio looks like it’s the best opportunity for Democrats to play offense. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a populist, battle-tested Democrat won three statewide elections in Ohio even as the state trended in a more conservative direction. He eventually lost in 2024 to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) by five points, but ran well ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ double-digit defeat in the state.

With the national environment tilting back in the Democrats’ favor, Brown is seeking a comeback against appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), Ohio’s former lieutenant governor. A recently released September poll of the race conducted by the respected Democratic firm Hart Research found Brown narrowly ahead over Husted, 48-45%. Among independents, Brown held a substantial 25-point lead (56-31%).

Of all the five “reach” states for Democrats, Ohio was the closest in the presidential race, with President Donald Trump winning by 11 points. That should make it the best opportunity for Democrats to win a third seat — even as it underscores how many Trump voters Democrats will need to convert in order to win.

Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) sudden retirement is turning Iowa into a possible opportunity for Democrats. The state was once reliably competitive, but has been a solidly Republican state in the age of Trump. But the state’s farming economy has taken a hit, in part because of the aftereffects from the president’s tariffs. That’s given Democrats a narrow opportunity to capitalize on growing voter dissatisfaction, especially with an open Senate seat in play.

Republicans have coalesced behind Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), a well-liked lawmaker and former TV anchor from the northeastern corner of the state. Democrats, meanwhile, are dealing with a crowded primary, with Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek appearing to be the party favorite. The contested primary could push the eventual nominee to the left, which would be a major handicap in a state that’s now reliably conservative.

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, making the Lone Star State an unlikely pickup opportunity. Democrats’ hopes center on scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton winning the GOP nomination over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), and that Democrats nominate a moderate candidate who can win back the Hispanic voters who swung towards the Republicans in the last election. 

Complicating the Democrats’ path: They’re dealing with a competitive primary themselves between former Rep. Colin Allred, who lost his Senate race in 2024, and state Rep. James Talarico, who has won attention for speaking to conservative audiences about his Christian faith.

If there’s a true sleeper race on the board, it’s in Alaska, a state whose Republican voting record belies its independent nature. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) doesn’t have any obvious vulnerabilities, but respected Alaska pollster Ivan Moore found former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola leading Sullivan, 48-46%, in his October survey. But Peltola, who held the state’s at-large House seat from 2022-2024, is probably the only Democrat with the political standing who could put the Senate seat in play.

Finally, Florida used to be a perennial swing state but it’s gotten so Republican in recent years that Democrats don’t even look to be seriously challenging appointed Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL). In a sign of how times have changed: Moody’s leading Democratic challenger appears to be a former Brevard County School Board member without much statewide name recognition.

Beware the law of unintended consequences: President Donald Trump’s zeal to aggressively redraw maps in GOP-friendly states is looking like it will bring less of a political advantage to Republicans than originally expected.  

Indeed, if the overall political environment remains in the Democrats’ favor — which would be consistent with the historical precedent of the opposition party gaining seats in the first midterm election of a new president — the House is likely to flip back to the Democrats’ control in 2027.

Here’s the lowdown: California’s referendum on redistricting, which passed overwhelmingly on Election Day, will allow Democrats to gain as many as five seats with a new, more-partisan map — with three Republican-held seats (of GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley and Ken Calvert) all but guaranteed to flip.

That should offset the expected GOP gains in Texas, which started the whole redistricting gamesmanship off with a partisan redraw that guarantees Republicans to pick up at least three Democratic-held seats, with the hope that Republicans can win two additional seats that became more favorable to them.

But there’s a catch with the Texas map. Two of the redrawn districts — the seats of Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar — are in predominantly Hispanic areas along the U.S.-Mexico border that swung dramatically to Trump in 2024, but had a long tradition of voting Democratic before then. If Democrats rebound with Hispanic voters — as happened in New Jersey and Virginia on Election Day — and the national environment remains rough for Republicans, it’s not hard to see the two Democratic incumbents hanging on.

Adding another wrinkle to the GOP’s redistricting plans: A Utah judge rejected the preferred map drawn by Republican state lawmakers, and selected a new map that would guarantee a Democratic district in Salt Lake City. That would automatically flip one seat to the Democrats, given that the state’s current delegation is made up of four Republicans, all in solidly Republican districts. 

Republicans managed to secure an additional seat for their party in Missouri — eliminating the solidly Democratic Kansas City-area seat of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), but that’s about it when it comes to automatic pickups.

The GOP’s partisan redraw in North Carolina means they will be favored to win Rep. Don Davis’ (D-NC) seat, but it’s not a fait accompli. And new lines in Ohio give Republicans a better shot to unseat Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Greg Landsman (D-OH) but those Democratic lawmakers will still have a good chance to win reelection.

As the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman put it, Republicans would only gain between 0-1 seats as the maps stand now, with Florida, Indiana and Virginia the remaining wild cards. 

In theory, Republicans could squeeze several additional seats in Florida, but like in Texas, would risk making some Republicans more vulnerable in an overly aggressive gerrymander. Meanwhile, if partisans overcome logistical hurdles in GOP-controlled Indiana and Democratic-controlled Virginia to gain seats, they would balance each other out.

All told, Republicans look like they won’t gain more than several seats in a realistic redistricting scenario — which is far from the insurance they’d need to sustain a tough midterm election performance. 

Right now, Democrats only need to flip three seats to win back the House majority. Redistricting won’t be enough for Republicans to hold the line if there’s even a mild headwind at the Democrats’ back next year. 

Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), who was an outspoken voice in support of Israel and against antisemitism during her time in the House, announced a bid on Wednesday to reclaim the congressional seat she lost in 2022. 

In her announcement, Luria said that she “cannot sit back and watch as Republicans in Congress create chaos while failing to address the rising cost of living and the issues that matter to Coastal Virginians,” highlighting a focus on affordability, economic growth, lowering healthcare costs and supporting the military.

“Service to our country means putting the interests of the people above all else–including political parties,” Luria added, accusing Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), her GOP opponent, of placing loyalty to Trump and the Republican Party over her constituents.

Luria, a military veteran, represented a swing seat in the Tidewater region of Virginia with a large military population from 2018 to 2022, when she lost her seat to Kiggans. Kiggans, like Luria, served in the Navy.  

Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger carried the perennial swing district in her election last week and possible Democratic redistricting efforts in the state would make the district more favorable to Democrats, giving them a stronger chance of flipping it in next year’s midterms.

Luria, who is Jewish, was a leading moderate voice in the House in support of Israel and against antisemitism, at times criticizing members of her own party and breaking with the Biden administration on its Israel policy.

She was one of the relatively few House Democrats who consistently opposed efforts by the Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, arguing that any deal must permanently prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. She repeatedly led groups of House Democrats to speak out in opposition to deals that were reportedly in formation.

During Israel’s 2021 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Luria organized and led a group of pro-Israel House Democrats to speak on the House floor in support of Israel and its military operations, responding to a competing effort by far-left Democrats in opposition.

Luria’s first speech on the House floor after her election in 2019 was responding to antisemitic comments by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Throughout her term, she continued to call out Democratic colleagues who engaged in antisemitism, as well as Democratic leadership and members of her party for not taking a stronger and clearer stance on the issue.

She also accused some Democratic colleagues of believing that Israel does not have a right to exist, and she helped lead efforts pushing back on the United Nations’ targeting of Israel.

Luria, during her time in Congress, expressed a willingness to support actions by the first Trump administration that she agreed with, including attending the signing ceremonies for President Donald Trump’s executive order on campus antisemitism and the Abraham Accords.

Luria, the former vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee, also served on the select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, acknowledging at the time she joined that it might cost her her seat in the House.

Several other Democrats candidates have already declared campaigns against Kiggans, including James Osyf, a Lockheed Martin employee and Navy reservist, and Mike Williamson, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. As of the end of September, Osyf had raised $383,000 and Williamson had raised $229,000.

Osyf said in a statement that he does not plan to drop out, saying, “this moment demands new leaders who know democracy is at a breaking point and are ready to fight for it. … I’m in this race because we need a new generation of patriotic leaders who are tired of the corruption, tired of incrementalism, and not afraid to be bold.”

The final lines in the district remain uncertain, but Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said that Democrats will likely aim to make the district “significantly more Democratic,” though the district is already “certainly a very viable Democratic target, without new lines.”

The district is bordered by Virginia’s 3rd and 4th congressional districts, held by Reps. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Jennifer McClellan (D-VA). Both of those seats are “landslide Democratic districts,” and redistricting could shift some of those voters into the 2nd District.

Given her profile from having represented the seat previously, Kondik said that Luria will likely enter the race as the front-runner. The entry by a “quality recruit and a proven recruit” like Luria into the race is also a sign of Democratic confidence, he said.

He added that if the district is redrawn to be more safely Democratic, the moderate Luria could face a wider field of primary challengers, potentially some from her left, though he said she would still enter the race as the favorite.

With a week since the off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, a clear dynamic is emerging: President Donald Trump’s gains with nontraditional GOP voters — especially working-class Black and Hispanic voters and Gen Zers — are not translating into support for the Republican Party this year. 

If Republicans are unable to recreate the Trump 2024 coalition without Trump on the ballot, they will face serious political disadvantages for the midterms and beyond. 

The double-digit margins of victory of incoming Democratic governors Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia speak volumes about the current political environment. Their sweeping wins underscore that, while Democrats may be divided as a result of ideological infighting, the antipathy towards Trump and the GOP is the glue that holds the party together. 

The historic tendency of voters taking out their dissatisfaction on the party in power is alive and well, and is much more of a factor than the favorability ratings of the political parties.

The most revealing outcome from the gubernatorial elections is the fact that the majority-making elements of Trump’s coalition swung decisively back to the Democrats, according to the AP/Fox News voter analysis. In New Jersey, young men between 18-29 backed Sherrill by 14 points (57-43%) after narrowly supporting Trump in last year’s presidential election. In Virginia, Spanberger won 58% of young men, a huge margin for a demographic that had assumed to be trending away from the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party’s comeback with Hispanic voters is equally as significant. Because of continuing inflation and backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation of illegal immigrants and ICE tactics, Hispanic voters once again voted like reliable elements of the Democratic coalition. In New Jersey, over two-thirds (68%) of Hispanic voters backed Sherrill —12 points more than Kamala Harris’ support with Hispanics in the state in 2024. In Virginia, Spanberger’s 67% support with Hispanics was eight points ahead of Harris’ vote share with the key constituency.

Meanwhile, Black voters overwhelmingly sided with the Democratic nominees this year, after a notable minority of them backed Trump in last year’s presidential election. Spanberger won 93% of the Black vote, seven points more than Harris, even though she was running against a Black opponent in Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Sherrill won 94% of the Black vote in New Jersey, a whopping 15 points more than Harris carried in 2024.

There are a number of lessons from the gubernatorial results, even if they don’t neatly extrapolate into different states in future elections. 

First, the presence of pragmatic-minded Democrats with moderate voting records in Congress at the top of the ticket was a major selling point. In the 2024 presidential election, more voters viewed Harris as out of the ideological mainstream — a dynamic that was impossible to shake, given her long record of progressive posturing. That’s a clear lesson for Democrats to learn as they weigh their presidential nomination options for 2028.

Second, it’s evident that the GOP’s inroads with nonwhite working-class voters in 2024 was more of a short-term blip —mainly in response to former President Joe Biden’s handling of inflation — than any kind of lasting realignment. Republicans may come to regret their aggressive, partisan gerrymandering in Texas, given that it’s reliant on moderate-minded Hispanic voters in the state maintaining an affiliation with the Republican Party. That’s far from a sure thing.

Finally, it’s a reminder that the economy remains the dominant issue for voters — especially with these politically cross-pressured constituencies, which are generally less financially secure than their counterparts. One way to tamp down the so-called “culture wars” and rising extremism is by ensuring economic security and a broader safety net for less advantaged Americans. 

The firebombing of a hostage-release march in Boulder, Colo., this summer triggered a wave of calls from lawmakers — particularly Republicans — for action to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.

Legislation to that effect was introduced in both the Senate and House in July, taking a new approach to designating the group as compared to previous legislative efforts that had stalled over the course of the last decade.

The legislation would require the imposition of sanctions on the Muslim Brotherhood, making it illegal to provide support to the group, making its members and affiliates inadmissible to the United States and blocking transactions involving assets held by Muslim Brotherhood members in U.S. financial institutions.

There were also calls from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for the Trump administration to investigate the group and take action to designate it through executive authorities. The secretary of state has the authority to designate a group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and the White House could issue an executive order on the subject.

But so far, none of those efforts have come to fruition. The Senate bill currently sits at 11 co-sponsors, having recently picked up Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) as its first Democratic supporter, while the House bill has 19 co-sponsors from both parties — below the levels of support previous iterations of the bill had amassed.

Fetterman’s co-sponsorship could help the bill receive consideration by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the panel often only considers legislation with bipartisan support. A source familiar with the matter tells JI that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the bill’s co-sponsor in the Senate and a member of the committee, is pushing for the panel to mark up the bill at their next business meeting. 

Neither bill has been called up yet for a vote in committee — a process further slowed by the ongoing government shutdown — and it is currently not included in either the Senate or House versions of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a potential vehicle for legislation of this sort.

The White House declined to comment. A spokesperson for Cruz told JI: “Sen. Cruz is pushing for the bill to be advanced through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then to be passed by the full Senate. Sen. Fetterman is showing commitment and leadership to American national security interests by providing this measure with bipartisan backing here in the Senate, and it’s time to move it forward.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is not currently a co-sponsor of the Senate bill but is supportive of efforts to counter the Muslim Brotherhood, told JI on Wednesday that the issue is not top of mind for many colleagues and it will take time to build interest and support for moves like designating the group.

Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Trump administration official, told JI that, within the executive branch, FTO designations are a time-consuming process — requiring extensive legal consultations as well as significant behind-the-scenes work to understand potential implications, unintended consequences and diplomatic fallout, as well as assembling a list of visa exemptions needed for diplomats.

Based on public comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the National Security Council’s Sebastian Gorka indicating support for a terrorism designation, Goldberg said that he believes that there is momentum in the administration, further fueled by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, anti-Israel protests around the country and evidence of growing Islamist influence on the far right as well. He said that the fact that no designation has been announced should not necessarily be read as a sign that it is not actively being worked on in private.

Goldberg also said that any action on the designation from Congress would likely be timed to coordinate with potentially pending action by the Trump administration, given the high-profile nature of the issue and the administration’s expressed interest.

One potential obstacle to the efforts: Qatar and Turkey, with which the administration has been strengthening ties. Both have extensive links to the Muslim Brotherhood and could be resistant to such a designation. Goldberg, however, said he has not heard any discussion of those countries actively trying to stop a designation, and urged the Trump administration to push forward, describing the Muslim Brotherhood as both a threat to homeland security and President Donald Trump’s desire for Middle East peace.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called on his Republican colleagues to speak out against Tucker Carlson, arguing in a fiery Friday morning speech that they need to rise above their fear of alienating the popular conservative podcaster to denounce his platforming of antisemitism.

“It’s easy right now to denounce Nick Fuentes. That’s kind of safe. Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?” Cruz said in a speech at the Washington National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group. 

“Now I can tell you, my colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrifying. But a great many of them are frightened, because he has one hell of a big megaphone.”

Cruz’s speech escalates a feud within the Republican Party about antisemitism on the party’s rightward fringes, after Carlson, the former Fox News host, held a friendly interview with Fuentes, a neo-Nazi agitator and commentator.

Following Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, released a video defending Carlson from attacks by the “globalist class” and standing by his right to interview Fuentes. Since then, the influential conservative think tank has been navigating internal dissension and public blowback — with Roberts apologizing for the video but so far refusing to take it down. 

Speaking to a room of lawyers, Cruz emphasized his support for the First Amendment and made the case that calling out Carlson is not akin to “canceling” him. 

“My complaint about Tucker having Nick Fuentes on was not that he platformed him. That’s a choice you can make or not. But the last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross examine someone,” said Cruz, who had his own heated discussion with Carlson on his podcast in June. “If you want to cross examine and challenge him, that’s fine. But he didn’t. He fawningly gazed at him.”

Fuentes and Carlson, Cruz continued, “have a right to say what they are saying. But every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.”

At the start of his speech, Cruz outlined the rise of antisemitism on the American left, arguing that “there is a real and cognizable pro-Hamas wing of the Democrat Party.” But, he added, antisemitism does not end there.

“When that happened on the left, those of us on the right were quite comfortable standing up and denouncing it. In some ways, that’s easy. But now it’s happening on the right,” said Cruz. “In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I have at any time in my life. It is growing. It is metastasizing.”

Cruz invoked Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing,” as he implored conservatives to speak strongly and loudly against antisemitism. 

“I believe now, today, is a time for choosing as well. I think it is a time for every elected official, I think it is a time for every editorialist, I think it is a time for every lawyer, for every student, to decide, where do you stand?” said Cruz. “We will stand for liberty. We will stand for the Constitution. We will stand for the Bill of Rights, but we will also stand for truth, and we will call out lies where they occur, and we will call out hatred when they occur. And the best antidote to lies is truth. The best solution to darkness is light.”

He walked off the stage to a standing ovation.

As the GOP uneasily contends with rising hostility to Israel among younger right-wing voters, Nate Morris, a 45-year-old Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky who is courting the populist right with an anti-establishment message, emphasizes there is at least one long-standing party axiom he will never abandon: unwavering support for the Jewish state.

Morris, the wealthy founder of a successful waste management company who calls himself a “Trump America-First conservative,” said his commitment to upholding a strong U.S.-Israel alliance extends from his alignment with President Donald Trump’s vision for the Middle East.

“I think he’s been the most pro-Israel president we’ve had in our country’s history, and I want to continue that kind of leadership on the issue in the United States Senate, on behalf of Kentucky and the country,” Morris told Jewish Insider in an interview last Friday during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas, where he met privately with members to pitch his campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Trump, he added, “has gotten it right, and obviously the success speaks for itself.”

But Morris also cited a more personal reason for what he described as his unequivocally pro-Israel worldview, explaining that, as a “proud” evangelical Christian, he has “always believed Israel is the land that was given to the Jews by God.”

“My views on Israel are never going to change,” he pledged. “They’re in my bones. That’s the way I was raised. That’s what my faith teaches me.”

“Look, all our differences here and the different positions that are out there, we’ve got to have more education, we’ve got to have more conversations as a party,” Morris said, without referring to Carlson or Roberts directly. “I want to discuss these things as a party, get on the same page as a party.”

His comments, while hardly unusual in a deeply evangelical state like Kentucky, come at a fraught moment for conservative Christian supporters of Israel, in the immediate wake of Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with the neo-Nazi streamer Nick Fuentes, a source of sustained criticism throughout the RJC’s three-day summit attended by elected officials, conservative activists, media personalities and other political candidates.

But even as Carlson had expressed his disdain for Christian Zionists, claiming they had been seized by a “brain virus,” Morris was relatively cautious when addressing the interview with Fuentes as well as the backlash toward the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank whose president, Kevin Roberts, has continued to stand behind Carlson.

“Look, all our differences here and the different positions that are out there, we’ve got to have more education, we’ve got to have more conversations as a party,” he said diplomatically, without referring to Carlson or Roberts directly. “I want to discuss these things as a party, get on the same page as a party.”

Morris also stressed that “we shouldn’t be in the business of canceling anyone, but educating them and making sure they understand the full context and what’s at stake here.”

“That’s the way we’re going to win as a party,” he said, “and I think that is what’s going to tamp out any differences that we have and that we shouldn’t be having.”

The hesitance to offer a forthright condemnation speaks not only to Carlson’s strong influence in the MAGA movement but also to how his fan base likely overlaps with the right-wing coalition that Morris is hoping to activate in a competitive primary with two more-established rivals. 

Morris, a friend of Vice President JD Vance who launched his campaign in June, is facing Daniel Cameron, the former state attorney general, and Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), both of whom are strong supporters of Israel. Morris described the race as a “proxy war between Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump,” as the outgoing senator has become one of the most vocal Republican critics of the president in the upper chamber and frequently warns of growing isolationism in the GOP.

Even as he worked as an intern for McConnell early in his career, Morris, who attended graduate school at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs as well as Oxford, has sought to tie his rivals to the retiring senator, arguing that Kentucky voters are “ready for change” and that Congress is in need of “new perspectives.”

To underscore his point, Morris noted that Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently hosted an event for his Senate campaign, where Morris got the chance to “hear firsthand a lot of the inside details” about how the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas “came together.”

“What I love about the president is he uses tools of diplomacy, the same tools he uses as a negotiator and as a business leader, and he has applied those to his foreign policy to be able to get things done,” Morris said.

Trump’s approach “shows that when you have outsiders and business people negotiating, you can get great outcomes,” he added. “That’s one of the big reasons why I’m running for the U.S. Senate. I think that we need more people coming from the outside.”

“The thing is, unless you go there and see it, you don’t understand that every day, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Morris told JI. “You’re under constant threat and potential for assault when you live there and when you’re a citizen of Israel.”

He also called Vance, who encouraged him to run for the open seat, a fellow “outsider” who “wasn’t a career politician” before he launched his own bid for Senate in Ohio just a few years ago. Morris said that they had talked about foreign policy “in the context of” their “general worldview,” but did not elaborate. 

Morris was previously a fundraiser for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the libertarian Republican, with whom he traveled to Israel in 2013 on a trip that included evangelical leaders. He said the visit instilled in him a heightened sensitivity to Israel’s ongoing security concerns. (Paul has regularly voted against military aid to Israel and opposed Trump’s attack against Iran’s nuclear program, as part of his overall opposition to foreign aid and military engagement overseas.) 

“The thing is, unless you go there and see it, you don’t understand that every day, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he told JI. “You’re under constant threat and potential for assault when you live there and when you’re a citizen of Israel.”

The first-time candidate acknowledged waning support for Israel in younger Republican circles, even as he declined to criticize Carlson and others for stoking anti-Israel sentiment on the far right.

He expressed concern about students who posed a series of antisemitic questions to Vance at a recent Turning Point USA campus event, but stopped short of addressing the backlash the vice president subsequently faced for choosing not to challenge the students’ hostile remarks about Jews and Israel. 

While his evangelical faith primarily drives his own support for Israel, Morris said he also believes that “it makes the most sense for the United States,” and skeptical younger conservatives could be persuaded simply on the basis of that argument. “Even looking at it economically,” he said, “I could sell that all day long to any American, to say you’re going to prosper more by this relationship.”

“I think that these are the kind of tools that we can use to get over any hatred, any disagreement — any of the discourse that has been disgusting we’ve seen online,” Morris told JI. “These are the kind of things that can help change hearts and minds.”

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.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) warned on Monday against the mainstreaming of antisemitic figures within the conservative movement in response to Tucker Carlson’s platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

Hawley, an ally of the national conservative movement who has advocated for the Trump administration to take an aggressive approach to combating campus antisemitism, made the comments while speaking to Jewish Insider about the controversy surrounding Fuentes’ appearance on Carlson’s podcast late last week. 

“I just think on the substance of what he says, I mean, it’s antisemitic. Let’s just call it for what it is, let’s not sugarcoat it,” Hawley said of Fuentes. 

“That’s not who we are as Republicans, as conservatives. Listen, this is America. He can have whatever views he wants. But the question for us as conservatives is: Are those views going to define who we are? And I think we need to say, ‘No, they’re not. No. Just no, no, no,’” he continued. “We need to be really clear, and I say that not only as a conservative, but also as a Christian. There is no place for antisemitic hatred, tropes, any of that stuff. I just think we’ve gotta say that stuff.”

The Missouri senator drew a parallel between the antisemitism seen at universities across the country since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and Fuentes’ views. 

“Do we really want to be part of what we’ve seen happen on college campuses, for instance, in this country in the last two or three years? Conservatives have been decrying that,” Hawley said. “Are we now to believe that, oh, actually, we have no problem with that? And that all of the things they were saying about Jews and Jewish Americans, that was fine? That’s not my view. I wasn’t fine with it then, I’m not fine with it now.”

“I thought it was morally repulsive then, I think it’s morally repulsive now. I’m not going to change my opinion on that. I want to be really clear: that’s above all a moral issue,” he added. 

Hawley was not the only Republican senator to voice their objections to a GOP embrace of Fuentes or the avowed antisemite’s appearance on Carlson’s program.

The fallout now involves the Heritage Foundation, the result of its president, Kevin Roberts, coming to Carlson’s defense in a video last Thursday that called out the “venomous coalition attacking” Carlson and warned that “their attempt to cancel him will fail.” Roberts has since clarified that he and Heritage do not support Fuentes’ antisemitic views, though he refused to disavow him, and is facing growing calls to walk back his comments. 

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the co-chair of the Senate antisemitism task force, told JI that he was “a little surprised that Heritage jumped out in support of [Carlson] and Nick Fuentes to say, ‘Hey, we want them in our camp’ after the statements that were made.”

“Heritage could have just sat back and not said anything, but instead, they chose to jump out on their side,” Lankford continued. “I don’t get that.”

He, like Hawley and other Republican lawmakers, warned that the right faces a similar crisis of antisemitism as is roiling the left if conservatives do not proactively confront and shun antisemites in their midst.

“The left has seen an implosion of their party based on antisemitism rising in their party. I don’t want to see the same thing on the right,” Lankford said. “To say the least, I want to make it very, very clear we are not the party of antisemitism. We’re not the party that believes Hitler was a good guy and that Winston Churchill was the bad guy. We’re not the party that blames media issues on the Jews and all these weird tropes that are out there. That’s not who we are, that’s not what we stand for, nor what we should stand for.”

He said that he does not understand the impulse to “allow it to be a big tent and allow antisemitism in our party. If there are [antisemites] that are there, we should call it out and say that’s wrong.”

“What I’ve tried to be very clear on is [that] the ‘New Right’ is now quoting an old wrong. It’s wrong,” Lankford continued.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) offered a similar message.

“The Democrat Party — we already have a party that’s for antisemitism [and] is against Israel,” Scott told JI. “The Republican Party [is going to] stand for Israel and we’re going to stand against antisemitism. I don’t think there’s any question.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JI that Roberts’ message “was the most tone-deaf comment, in both its content and its timing, that I’ve ever heard from a major Washington organization on any political side.” 

Menken resigned from Heritage’s Project Esther, the group’s antisemitism initiative, last week in response to Roberts’ video message defending Carlson. Along with Menken and CJV, several other groups have also publicly disaffiliated from Heritage’s antisemitism task force, including the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Zionist Organization of America and Young Jewish Conservatives.

LAS VEGAS — Until last week, the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit was expected to be a triumphant gathering to celebrate President Donald Trump’s accomplishments in the Middle East, chief among them his administration’s recently brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

That all changed after Tucker Carlson hosted the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes on his podcast for a sympathetic interview, provoking fierce backlash. By the time that Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, came to Carlson’s defense on Thursday, the RJC recognized its conference would require a thematic update to more forcefully emphasize the urgency of confronting rising antisemitism — and its enablers — within the GOP.

“If there was ever a time for the RJC, this is our time,” Norm Coleman, the organization’s national chairman, said in opening remarks on Friday. “We have been called to this moment to fight the scourge of antisemitism.”

But even as multiple speakers at the three-day summit held at the Venetian Resort — including congressional leaders, conservative activists and media personalities — alluded to antisemitism in their ranks, many talked in broad strokes, didn’t mention Carlson by name or downplayed the issue as confined to the fringes, despite Carlson and Fuentes each commanding a significant number of dedicated followers on the far right.

The speakers also argued that anti-Jewish hatred had become an endemic problem for Democrats — especially in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. And in a preview of GOP messaging ahead of the midterms next year, many took aim at Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for New York City mayor and fierce critic of Israel favored to win the election on Tuesday.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is now running for governor of Florida, relied on euphemism to refer to right-wing antisemitism, declaring that the GOP would “not stand idly by” as “some in other parts of politics try to demonize Jewish Americans” and “try to weaken or destroy the relationship between the United States of America and the nation of Israel.”

“I will always call out and confront antisemitism wherever it is and whoever spreads it,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), the House Republican conference chair, said on Saturday, but shared no examples of such prejudice in her own party.

Some, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), more forcefully addressed growing antisemitism on their side of the aisle. 

In an interview with Jewish Insider shortly before he took the stage on Friday, Graham described Carlson’s interview with Fuentes as a “wake-up call” for the Republican Party. “How many times does he have to play footsie with this antisemitic view of the Jewish people and Israel until you figure out that’s what he believes?” Graham said of the former Fox News host. 

But in his speech later, the South Carolina senator adopted a more sanguine attitude, speaking more like a stand-up comedian as he sought to lighten the mood. “I just want to make it really clear: I’m in the ‘Hitler sucks’ wing of the Republican Party,” he said to applause. “What is this Hitler shit?”

“I feel good about the Republican Party,” he added, saying the GOP “has figured it out when it comes to Israel.”

Cruz also criticized Republicans who refuse to disavow right-wing antisemites in the conservative coalition, though he ultimately didn’t mention any of the offending individuals by name in his RJC speech.

McCormick, in his fireside chat with conservative author Douglas Murray, directly confronted the lack of right-wing voices challenging virulent antisemitism. “This very week, you had an avowed antisemite, Fuentes, given a platform. This is a guy that says Hitler is cool, says Jews should be terminated…and those views went unchallenged,” McCormick said. 

In his own speech at the summit, McCormick said: “Let’s face it, antisemitism is running wild on the progressive left and the leaders of the Democratic Party are not confronting it with their new star Mamdani,” McCormick said. “But I’m also sad to say we see that ugliness on the right too, and we must confront it. Jews can’t be slandered, antisemites can’t be given platforms.”

Their comments sidestepped a more deeply rooted challenge for mainstream Republicans following recent controversies in which young party leaders were caught sharing pro-Nazi messages in leaked group chats, and Paul Ingrassia, the controversial Trump ally, withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel after text messages were unearthed where he allegedly made antisemitic and racist remarks. 

Vice President JD Vance also faced criticism from Jewish Republicans last week over his recent appearance at a conservative campus event, where he chose not to confront some students who asked questions that invoked antisemitic tropes. While some attendees at the RJC summit told JI that they had been troubled by Vance’s performance, it was not a topic of discussion on the main stage.

Taking the floor on Saturday, however, Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), a freshman congressman from Florida who is one of four Jewish Republicans in the House, criticized those who focus only on left-wing antisemitism or just broadly talk about anti-Jewish prejudice on the right.

“It’s easy to talk about antisemitism on the left,” Fine said in his remarks. “I want to talk about the dark force rising on our side. Multiple speakers have talked about the rise of antisemitism on the right. But it is not enough to speak in platitudes or generalities about the fight. We must call evil by its name.”

He called Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America” and said he did not belong in Trump’s movement — a message that was amplified by a line of student attendees who stood before him holding up posters declaring “Tucker is not MAGA.”

Fine also said that he was canceling a scheduled event with the Heritage Foundation, adding that the group had “no future” in his office. “I will be calling on all of my colleagues on the Republican side to do the same,” he confirmed.

Matt Brooks, the RJC’s CEO, told JI last week that his group would be reassessing its relationship with Heritage, noting that he was “disgusted” by Roberts’ decision to stand with Carlson. The RJC has not yet further clarified how it plans to move forward with regard to Heritage.

As the summit neared its conclusion on Saturday, one RJC member, Jon Tucker of Chicago, voiced optimism that Trump, set to deliver a prerecorded message later that evening, would choose to speak out against what he termed the “ultra-right wing, isolationist” and “anti-Christian Zionist” voices in the Republican Party.

“I would hope the president comes out and has something to say about it, just like Ronald Reagan did back in the ’80s when he, famously, kicked the right wing out of the Republican Party,” he told JI, expressing concern that — in the absence of direct condemnation from the top — “we could lose” the GOP to “radicals.”

When he finally appeared on screen, Trump made no mention of antisemitism’s ascendance within the GOP, instead touting his administration’s efforts to target universities for their alleged failure to address antisemitism while listing his achievements in the Middle East, including the ceasefire deal.

He also credited the RJC with helping him to perform particularly well among Jewish voters in 2024, even as he reiterated his complaint that he should have received more support in light of his pro-Israel policies.

“I can’t imagine we didn’t do better than that after all I’ve done for the Jewish vote, I must be honest with you,” Trump said. “But that’s OK.”

This story was updated on Monday to reflect Sen. Dave McCormick’s comments regarding Nick Fuentes.

Triggered by President Donald Trump’s efforts to gain a partisan edge in the 2026 midterm elections, a cascade of states is undertaking unusual mid-decade redistricting efforts, in what has become a growing race between Democrats and Republicans to shore up incumbents, knock out lawmakers from the opposing party and create more-winnable seats.

On both sides of the aisle, the efforts could endanger a number of vocal pro-Israel incumbents.

In a handful of states that are looking to or have redrawn their congressional maps, some of the Democratic Party’s most prominent pro-Israel moderates could face uphill battles for reelection.

In Ohio, the state’s redistricting commission adopted new maps on Friday that would give Republicans a slight edge in Rep. Greg Landsman’s (D-OH) Cincinnati-area district. Under the old lines, the district was a Democratic-leaning seat that Vice President Kamala Harris won by three points, But under the new lines, Trump would have carried the district by a two-point margin, meaning Landsman will need to win a small number of Republican voters to win reelection.

Given that Landsman, a second-term Jewish Democrat who has been vocal on Middle East policy issues and a strong supporter of Israel, has proven to be a strong campaigner in past elections, the race is likely to remain highly competitive in an environment expected to be favorable to Democrats nationally in next year’s midterms. 

The Cook Political Report moved the rating for Landsman’s district from “Likely Democrat” to a toss-up as a result of the redistricting. 

In North Carolina, where Republicans have redrawn the state’s maps on several occasions this decade, the latest changes significantly modify the district held by Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) to heavily favor Republicans, further diluting the Democratic voting share in the moderate Democratic lawmaker’s district.

Davis has been among the most committed pro-Israel Democrats, frequently breaking with the majority of his party on the issue.

And in Florida, Republicans are considering efforts to pack Democratic voters into a smaller number of districts, potentially endangering several pro-Israel incumbents including Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Darren Soto (D-FL). One potential redraw could place Moskowitz and Wasserman Schultz into the same district.

Both Wasserman Schultz and Moskowitz are Jewish and vocal pro-Israel stalwarts representing districts with significant Jewish populations, and Soto’s record is also strong.

A pro-Israel Democratic strategist told JI that “it’s a big problem. The Republicans are trying to say they’re pro-Israel and they’re targeting pro-Israel Democrats left and right. … These guys are stalwart champions and we don’t want to lose them.”

One possible Republican candidate considering a run in a newly drawn South Florida district is Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, who has been a strong supporter of Israel. 

The strategist said that the redistricting efforts, as well as potential primary challenges to lawmakers such as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), could endanger a series of notable pro-Israel House incumbents, though they also noted that other pro-Israel candidates could be poised to be elected elsewhere in the country.

“I do think it’s probably a little more nuanced because I think there are other people who will show up to replace them,” the strategist continued. “We’re going to win some, we’re going to lose some.”

On the Republican side, a series of GOP lawmakers in California with strong records on Israel and antisemitism could be impacted by the redistricting push, including Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) — who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on defense funding — as well as Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) and David Valadao (R-CA).

Kiley has been a particularly outspoken voice against campus antisemitism from his perch on the House Education and Workforce Committee. 

“[California Gov. Gavin] Newsom’s Prop 50 [redistricting effort] is a desperate partisan power grab that would eliminate five consistently pro-Israel Members of Congress and give more influence to Democrats that spread hate, division, and promote extreme anti-Israel policies,” said Republican Jewish Coalition National Political Director Sam Markstein. 

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke out against Tucker Carlson for giving a friendly platform to Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi influencer, on his podcast this week, calling it “a wake-up call” for the Republican Party as it grapples with rising antisemitism within its ranks.

“How many times does he have to play footsie with this antisemitic view of the Jewish people and Israel until you figure out that’s what he believes?” Graham said of Carlson in an interview with Jewish Insider on Friday on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit at the Venetian Resort. 

Graham said that “antisemitism has been with us, and it’ll always be with us, and the goal is to limit it, fight back and contain it.”

“I am confident that if anybody in the Republican world ran for office as a member of Congress, for the Senate or any major elected office and spouted this garbage, it would get creamed,” Graham told JI. “This is a niche market. It won’t sell to a wider audience.”

Carlson, a frequent critic of Graham, has faced backlash this week for failing to challenge Fuentes’ antisemitic views, including praising Adolf Hitler and engaging in Holocaust denialism. During the interview, Fuentes railed against “organized Jewry” while Carlson expressed his disdain for Christian Zionists including Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, saying he had been seized by a “brain virus.”

“To suggest that evangelical Christians are confused or got it wrong says more about the critic than it does evangelical Christians,” Graham countered. “The guy that’s doing the talking is a raving antisemite white nationalist, and if you want to hook your wagon to that, you’ll have a very short journey in the Republican Party.”

Graham said that Carlson and Fuentes “did us all a favor by being so brazen. It’s kind of a wake-up call.”

Even as Carlson, a close ally of Vice President JD Vance, remains influential in the GOP, Graham argued that “being anti-Israel in the modern Republican Party is a death sentence to political viability.”

“We’re not gonna put up with that crap. We’re not that kind of party,” he said.

The South Carolina senator also joined other senators in raising concerns about the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, who has faced widespread criticism for defending Carlson’s interview and for soft-pedaling Fuentes views in a video he posted to social media on Thursday. “That’s the decision made, and we’ll see how well it plays in the marketplace,” Graham, who is facing a primary challenge next year from a former Heritage Foundation staffer, reiterated. 

Amid the criticism Friday, Roberts posted a follow-up statement on X where he condemned Fuentes’ “vicious antisemitic ideology, his Holocaust denial, and his relentless conspiracy theories that echo the darkest chapters of history” but made no further comment about Carlson.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who spoke at the RJC summit on Thursday night, and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have spoken out against right-wing antisemitism after Carlson’s Fuentes interview.

Vance also drew scrutiny this week from conservative Jewish critics after he spoke at a campus Turning Point USA event and avoided  forcefully confronting students who had asked him questions about Israel that used antisemitic tropes, such as suggesting Jewish control of U.S. politics and claiming that Jews oppress Christians.

Graham said he believed that the students were “espousing stereotypes about the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” which he called “pretty unnerving.”

“I think JD handled it well,” he said, but added: “I wish he would have been more direct.”

“I would have been real direct and said, ‘Let me tell you, if you think our relationship with Israel is less than beneficial, you’re ignorant. Israel’s fighting our fight,” he said. “My goal is to keep the threats over there so they don’t come here,” he added. “My goal is not to fight alone, to have other people fighting with us. And you can’t have a better partner in the fight than Israel.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized Republicans who refuse to disavow prominent antisemites in the conservative movement as “cowards” after the Heritage Foundation and its president, Kevin Roberts, defended Tucker Carlson and his friendly interview with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. 

Cruz warned during a half hour address at the opening of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas on Thursday evening that young Christians were turning away from supporting Israel, something he argued was the result of pro-Israel Christians being maligned by leading voices in the America First movement. 

The Texas Republican senator did not mention the Heritage Foundation, Roberts, Carlson or Fuentes by name, though he accused anyone who uncritically promotes Adolf Hitler of being “complicit” in spreading virulent antisemitism.

Fuentes has praised Hitler on multiple occasions; in his statement, Roberts said he “disagree[s] with” some of Fuentes’ views, “but canceling him is not the answer.” 

“The last year, we’ve seen three prominent people on the right publicly muse, ‘Gosh, maybe Hitler’s not all that bad.’ No. He is the embodiment of evil, a grotesque bigot. And if you’re confused by that, you’re an imbecile,” Cruz said on Thursday. “Too many people are scared to confront them. I want to ask you, how many elected Republicans do you see standing up and calling this out? How many do you see willing to take on the voices in the anti-Israel right?”

“More than a few of my Republican officeholders are terrified of upsetting people with really big megaphones,” he explained.

Cruz warned that antisemitic ideas are spreading among young Americans through social media and argued that rising support for isolationism and the pro-Israel community’s failure to adequately explain the benefits of the U.S.-Israel relationship accounted for the broad ideological shifts on the issue — but he noted that there “is also a theological argument” being made on the Christian right against Jews. 

“We are seeing young Christians and young evangelicals turning against Israel, and they are being pitched lies,” Cruz said. “One particular lie is something called replacement theology, and replacement theology is a twisted view that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, that the promises in the Old Testament no longer apply and that Christians have replaced Jews. Now in my Bible, I believe every word of it is true, and I believe every promise that God made to the people of Israel remains a promise that is made to the chosen people.”

After noting that he was “proud to be a Christian Zionist,” Cruz noted Carlson’s recent comments expressing his disdain for people who identify as such while appearing to note his protected status in the Trump administration. Carlson attacked Cruz and other pro-Israel conservatives, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, by name in his podcast conversation with Fuentes, where Carlson claimed that those who identify as Christian Zionists have been infected by a “brain virus.”

“There are some people who are embraced at the highest level of government who said there is no one they hate more than Christian Zionists,” Cruz said. “Well, I’ll tell you what, there’s no one I hate more than communists and jihadists who want to murder us. Now is the time for choosing. Now is the time for courage.”

“If you sit there and nod adoringly while someone tells you that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, if you sit there and nod while someone says, ‘Well, there’s a very good argument that America should have intervened on behalf of Nazi Germany in World War II.’ If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil,” he added.

Omri Ceren, Cruz’s legislative director and longtime advisor, criticized Heritage directly in a post on X on Friday morning, writing that: “I mean, if Republican Jews don’t have a place at @Heritage that’s a choice its current leadership is institutionally empowered to make, but it sits uncomfortably with the organization’s history.”

Cruz’s comments were met with praise from Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special antisemitism envoy during the Biden administration, who posted a message on X commending the Texas Republican.

The White House has told Republicans that President Donald Trump will not pull the nomination of Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait and wants the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a vote on his candidacy, despite the growing bipartisan opposition to his nomination, Jewish Insider has learned. 

White House officials have communicated to committee Republicans in recent days that Trump would not withdraw Ghalib’s nomination because the president credits the Democratic Hamtramck mayor with helping him turn out Michigan’s Arab-American vote and win the state in last November’s presidential election, two sources familiar with the ongoing discussions told JI.

“We were told Trump believes he [Ghalib] helped him deliver Michigan. He doesn’t want to abandon him,” one GOP senator on the committee said of the White House’s characterization of the president’s thinking.

Pressed about the four committee Republicans who already committed to joining all Democrats in opposing Ghalib’s confirmation, the White House has told senators and senior committee staffers that Trump wants Ghalib’s nomination to receive a vote regardless of the outcome. 

“If Trump wants his friend to go down that way, that’s OK. He can go down that way,” another Republican on the committee said, expressing confidence that Ghalib had no path to advance out of committee. 

No Democratic senators on the committee will support advancing Ghalib’s nomination to the full Senate if and when it comes up for a vote, a source familiar with the Democratic whip count told JI. With all Democrats opposed, Ghalib could only afford to lose one Republican to be reported favorably out of committee. 

Four committee Republicans have already come out publicly against his nomination — Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Curtis (R-UT), Dave McCormick (R-PA) and John Cornyn (R-TX). At least two others confirmed to JI that they have voiced their reservations about Ghalib to the White House in the wake of his confirmation hearing last week, when Ghalib faced a bipartisan grilling over his long record of promoting antisemitic ideas and his embrace of anti-Israel positions as an elected official. Those senators have not yet made those concerns public. 

The White House did not respond to JI’s request for comment on Tuesday.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the committee’s chairman, acknowledged to JI on Tuesday evening that he had not yet scheduled Ghalib’s nomination for a vote, but demurred when asked if he planned to do so. 

A committee spokesperson for Risch declined to comment.

“A lot of what Trump is doing is kind of testing whether these guys have a gag reflex,” one Democratic committee member said of the situation, surmising that the president’s actions were partially aimed at assessing how much Republicans were willing to push back on nominees and legislative proposals that they object to.

President Donald Trump defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to order what the prime minister called “forceful” strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza on Tuesday in response to ceasefire violations by the terror group, dismissing concerns that the actions could upend the deal.

“They killed an Israeli soldier, so the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday evening. “Hamas is a small thing, but they kill people. They grew up killing people, and I guess they don’t stop. Nobody knows what happened to the Israeli soldier, but they say it was sniper-fire and it was retribution for that. I think they have a right to do that.”

“Nothing’s going to jeopardize that [the ceasefire],” he continued. “Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave. They’re on the rough side, but they said they would be good, and if they’re good, they’re going to be happy. If they’re not good, they’re going to be terminated. Their lives will be terminated, and they understand that.” 

The Associated Press reported at least 80 killed in the strikes, including dozens of children. The Israeli army said it had hit dozens of terror targets and struck over 30 terrorists holding command positions within terrorist organizations operating in Gaza.

Initial reaction to Netanyahu’s decision to strike in Gaza fell largely along party lines, with Israel’s Republican allies in the Senate defending the Jewish state’s actions as self-defense while Democrats expressed concerns that the ceasefire in Gaza could be in jeopardy. 

“You’re going to see a lot of this,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider of the renewed skirmishes in Gaza. “I mean, the Hamas soldiers are not terribly civilized, and the fact that there’s a ceasefire is of no moment to many of them. You’re periodically going to see them continue to shoot at the Israeli soldiers, and when they do, the Israeli soldiers are going to shoot back and kill them.”

“Eventually the really stupid Hamas members will stop doing it, because they’ll be dead,” the Louisiana senator continued. “But this is gonna happen. I mean, you’re not talking about sane people.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) suggested “we ought to expect” the Israelis to still conduct operations in Gaza given Hamas’ actions targeting IDF troops and Palestinian civilians since the ceasefire went into effect. 

“Hamas is a terrorist organization. They are going to continue to commit acts of violence, and Israel is going to need to respond,” Ricketts told JI. “That’s why it’s imperative that the Gulf states work together to get an international police force to be able to keep peace in Gaza while we go through this transition.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he felt it was “entirely appropriate” that Israel struck Hamas targets in order to protect Israeli forces.

“Because Hamas is attacking the IDF, that is entirely appropriate for Israel to defend itself — today, yesterday, tomorrow. If Hamas is attacking them, violating, obviously, the ceasefire and attacking IDF soldiers, Israel has been very clear: If you shoot us, we’re going to actually stop you,” Lankford told JI. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who offered his support for further Israeli confrontation with Hamas earlier this week, wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon that he was in “total support” of “the recent military action by Israel against Hamas.”

“Without Hamas being disarmed and removed from power permanently, there will be no pathway to stability and peace in the Middle East. Hamas is killing their opposition and consolidating their power,” Graham wrote. “If Israel believes it is necessary to reengage Hamas militarily, so be it. They have my complete backing.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) concurred with his GOP colleagues, telling JI, “If Hamas is going to strike Israel, they [Israel] don’t have a choice. They have to strike back. It’s too bad, but they don’t have a choice.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) surmised that Israel launched the strikes because Hamas was not honoring their side of the ceasefire deal by refusing to disarm. 

“I think the reasoning for it was: Hamas is supposed to be planning on disarming, but I suspect that there’s probably some portions of Hamas that don’t want to disarm, and they’re probably regrouping,” Rounds told JI. “If [Netanyahu] can take out some more of those terrorists, I think he probably decided he would do it now as opposed to later.”

“We want that ceasefire to be successful, but it means Hamas has got to give up their weapons,” he added.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) wrote on X on Tuesday that, “Hamas is in direct violation of the ceasefire, including deceptively & cruelly obstructing the return of deceased hostages to their families. The @IDF’s actions are a result of Hamas’ repeated violations & their targeting of Israeli troops.”

The North Carolina senator declined to elaborate when asked by JI at the Capitol about the developments, noting that he wanted to hold off on commenting further until he had been fully briefed on the situation. 

Some Senate Democrats who have been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on the Jewish state said they hoped the latest developments would not completely upend the ceasefire deal. 

“It is very troubling,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said of Netanyahu launching the strikes. “I give President Trump a lot of credit for really working hard to get him [Netanyahu] to accept the deal. He wouldn’t have accepted it before.”

Kaine questioned if Netanyahu was aiming to derail the ceasefire, and noted that such a development would upend current efforts by the U.S. to bring more Gulf states into the Abraham Accords. 

“My question is: Is he trying to undo the deal?” the Virginia senator asked of Netanyahu. “If he’s trying to undo the deal, then he’s got another problem, which is [that] they [the U.S.] want more nations in the Abraham Accords, and those nations have said we’re not coming in unless there is a path forward to Palestinian autonomy.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told JI that he was waiting to be briefed before speaking publicly, but said it would be “unfortunate if we wound up in a situation where this unravels.”

Middle East experts with whom JI spoke described Israel’s strikes against Hamas as necessary for its security, and dismissed concerns that Israel was acting without U.S. involvement or trying to disrupt the deal, while others expressed concern regarding Washington’s ability to constrain the Israelis. 

“Israel has shown considerable patience and restraint in the face of multiple Hamas violations of its ceasefire obligations, but attacks on its personnel are something no government can accept,” Rob Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI. “Hamas’ violations are real and serious, deserving of an appropriate response.”

Mona Yacoubian, director and senior advisor of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, remained skeptical over Israel’s decision to strike. She said the operation could reflect a developing pattern where Israel takes military action with or without U.S. cooperation, and argued that Washington should be willing to adjust accordingly to “enforce” and monitor the ceasefire arrangement.

“Although we are still very much in the ‘fog of war,’ it does not appear that the United States approved the strike or necessarily even agrees with Israel’s interpretations that Hamas violated the ceasefire,” Yacoubian told JI. “We are likely seeing the beginnings of a ‘new normal’ where Israel strikes as it sees necessary. The key question is whether or not the United States will acquiesce to that.”

Gaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, predicted that the breakout of strikes was an isolated episode that would be “contained.” 

“The current escalation is concerning but not surprising. Ceasefires take a while to solidify and stabilize, whether because of accidents or because the sides testing the limits of the ceasefire,” al-Omari said. “The challenge facing the U.S. now is how to balance supporting Israel’s right to respond to Hamas’ violations while at the same time ensuring that this round of escalation does not spin out of control.”

The nomination of Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait is facing what appear to be insurmountable odds as opposition to his confirmation grows among Senate Republicans.

No Republican or Democratic senators have come to Ghalib’s defense after his performance at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, when he faced a bipartisan grilling over his long record of promoting antisemitic ideas and his embrace of anti-Israel positions as an elected official. 

Senators on both sides of the aisle had privately expressed reservations about Ghalib’s nomination prior to the hearing, but his attempts to evade responsibility for his record while under oath prompted several Republicans on the committee to go public. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced at the end of Ghalib’s hearing last Thursday that he would not be able to support moving his nomination out of committee to the Senate floor. Sens. John Curtis (R-UT), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) have since followed suit. Others on the panel, including Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), have said they plan to raise their concerns about Ghalib with the committee chairman, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), and the White House. 

“Based on the hearing that we had last week, I’m going to vote no against him,” McCormick told Punchbowl News on Tuesday. “I don’t think he demonstrated that he’s qualified for the role.”

Asked about Ghalib and the concerns surrounding his nomination while speaking to reporters on Tuesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he was “vaguely familiar” with the Hamtramck mayor’s nomination but had not “examined” the matter closely. 

The White House did not respond to Jewish Insider’s multiple requests for comment on the status of Ghalib’s nomination or the growing number of GOP senators coming forward to oppose him. 

Ghalib is not believed to have any support on the Democratic side, reinforced by his lackluster answers to questions about his documented history of antisemitic remarks from Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the committee. He also has an embattled standing within the Democratic Party because of his decision to help President Donald Trump win the state of Michigan for Republicans last November. 

“I think that you have dug your hole deeper today,” Murphy, who already opposed Ghalib prior to last week, told the nominee at his confirmation hearing. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed skepticism on Monday that Hamas will comply with disarmament requirements in its U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement with Israel, saying that finishing off the terrorist group may require further confrontation from Israel. 

“To expect Hamas to disarm without the threat of confrontation is unrealistic,” Graham wrote in a post on X. “Therefore, it is my growing belief that Hamas is not going to disarm but instead is in the process of consolidating power in Gaza by attacking those who oppose them.” 

Few Republican lawmakers have thus far questioned if President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan — which has brought all the living hostages back to Israel — will be sufficient to take Hamas out of power in Gaza. 

“Under the current approach, every day that goes by allows Hamas to get stronger and more lethal,” said Graham. “The world needs to understand that Israel cannot tolerate this outcome. If Israel feels it needs to reengage in Gaza to finish Hamas off, they have my full support.”

Israel currently controls 58% of Gaza, marked by a yellow “initial withdrawal line,” while Hamas maintains a presence in the western part of the enclave. The terrorist group has failed to disarm or relinquish power yet, as indicated in Phase 1 of Trump’s proposal, instead mobilizing more fighters and clashing with rival Palestinian gangs. 

Phase 2 Trump’s plan envisions an International Stabilization Force, comprised of troops from mediating countries, to stabilize the Gaza Strip. However, several leaders have indicated they have  little appetite to participate, including the King of Jordan, who told the BBC “nobody will want to touch” peace enforcing.

“I completely agree with the King of Jordan’s analysis regarding what it takes to stabilize the Gaza strip,” Graham said on X. “To expect an international force to go to war with Hamas to require their disarmament is unrealistic.”

With Trump’s plan at a standstill, experts say a new strategy may be required in Gaza.  

“If Hamas refuses to disarm and no international force steps forward that is prepared to do the hard work of forcibly disarming it, why should the world grant Hamas a total veto over positive movement on the rest of Trump’s 20-point plan?” John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told Jewish Insider. “There’s no doubt that both in Israel and the United States there is active discussion of how to take advantage of this.”

Vice President JD Vance’s suggestion on Tuesday that the U.S. would welcome Turkish troops playing a role in the proposed stabilization force in Gaza was met with skepticism from leading Republican lawmakers and experts in Washington. 

Vance told reporters in Israel that while the U.S. would not “force” Israel to accept Turkish troops “on their soil,” the Trump administration believed “that there’s a constructive role for the Turks to play.” 

Asked about the prospect of Ankara’s involvement in President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the region while appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day, the vice president replied that the U.S. does not view Israel as a “vassal state” or a “client state” but as a “partner.”

“The president believes very strongly that … Israel, honestly with our Gulf Arab allies, can play a very positive leadership role in this region to where, frankly, the United States can care less about the Middle East because our allies in the region are stepping up and taking control and taking ownership of their area of the world,” Vance said.

The vice president made the comments in response to Netanyahu suggesting that he took issue with the notion of Turkey playing a role in the future of Gaza. “We will decide together about that. So I have very strong opinions on that. Want to guess what they are?” the prime minister quipped. 

Vance’s embrace of the Turkish troop proposal prompted leading Republicans in Washington to voice their concerns about allowing the country to install forces inside Gaza as part of the proposed International Stabilization Force, citing Israel’s opposition to the idea, Turkey’s openly hostile posture toward the Jewish state and Ankara’s ties to Hamas. 

“I found it interesting that the opposition leader, Mr. [Yair] Lapid, who I know and like, was adamant that Turkey and Qatar have very limited roles in Gaza because of the relationship with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Jewish Insider. 

“I appreciate Turkey and Qatar as allies, but when it comes to Israel, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s been terrible in terms of rhetoric. I appreciate the role they played in trying to get the ceasefire, but the appetite in Israel for Turkey and Qatar to have a major role is pretty limited, given the history,” he continued. 

Graham said that he was “hoping we can find a stabilizing force. People keep mentioning Egypt. Maybe that works, but I don’t buy into the idea Hamas will ever change their stripes. They have to be dealt out of Palestinian society.”

“It’s very important for Israel to have a stabilizing force that they trust that understands the danger Hamas presents,” the South Carolina senator argued.

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow for American strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, expressed similar doubts. 

“There’s a million reasons why it won’t be viable to have a long term Israeli military presence on the ground in Gaza. But the same goes for Arab partners,” Ruhe told JI. “Having Turkish forces in there particularly strikes me as a bad idea. Turkey is not an impartial force. They are a capable and experienced military, but mostly doing things the United States and Israel don’t want them to be doing.” 

“Turkey does not deserve anything like the benefit of the doubt. Their intentions are certainly suspect given their close ties to Hamas. Having a Turkish military presence literally on [Israel’s] front doorstep in Gaza could actually be worse,” Ruhe continued. “I wouldn’t see them doing anything concrete and substantive to prevent Hamas from basically reestablishing itself as the main actor on the ground in Gaza.”

Beyond a potential incapability to root out Hamas, Ruhe suggested that enabling Turkish troop presence in Gaza could be counterintuitive to U.S. interests in other ways. 

“Hamas might actually find it in their interest to try and stoke tensions between Turkey and Israel. That would be a massive headache for the U.S., having, technically, a NATO ally at daggers drawn with our closest partner in the Middle East,” Ruhe said.  

One senior GOP senator offered a blunt assessment while speaking on condition of anonymity about Vance’s comments. “They’re pushing Israel into a terrible situation. Turkey and Qatar are the benefactors of Hamas. It’s like putting a fox in the henhouse,” the senator said.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) did not disagree with Vance’s suggestion that Turkey had a role to play in the broader peace plan, but questioned the likelihood that Israel would accept such a proposal.

“Would Israel accept Turkish forces? That, I think, is the key. I think that’s the most important part of this,” Rounds told JI. “I do think our ally, our NATO ally, Turkey, could play a very constructive role in the Middle East in terms of keeping the peace, but that’s not an easy thing to do because Turkey and Israel have had strained relations.”

Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and fifth-generation Kentucky farmer, launched his bid on Tuesday to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) after being urged by President Donald Trump to challenge the renegade, anti-Israel congressman in the GOP primary.

Gallrein’s campaign launch comes four days after Trump declared that the Kentucky native was his preferred candidate to take on Massie, whom Trump had soured on over his growing antagonism towards Trump’s agenda. Massie was one of the only congressional Republicans to oppose Trump’s landmark “big, beautiful” spending bill and has worked with Democrats to force a floor vote to release Justice Department documents on Jeffrey Epstein. 

“I’ve dedicated my life to serving my country, and I’m ready to answer the call again. This district is Trump Country,” Gallrein said. “The President doesn’t need obstacles in Congress — he needs backup. I’ll defeat Thomas Massie, stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, and deliver the America First results Kentuckians voted for.”

“Thomas Massie has become one of the biggest roadblocks to President Trump’s America First agenda,” he added. “When Trump fought for historic tax cuts, Massie voted no. When Trump tried to fully fund border security, Massie stood in the way. President Trump endorsed me because Kentuckians deserve a Congressman who will stand with our President, not against him.”

Massie is also a frequent opponent of U.S. support for Israel and legislation to combat antisemitism. The president’s allies recently launched a $1 million ad blitz against Massie, the opening salvo of the Trump-backed effort to unseat the lawmaker, who has swatted down previous primary challenges.

Trump said on Friday in a post on his Truth Social platform that Gallrein was “a true America First Patriot” who would support his Make America Great Again agenda. 

“A Brave Combat Veteran, Ed knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Defend our Country, Support our Military/Veterans, and Ensure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” Trump wrote. 

Trump went on to call Massie a “Third Rate Congressman” and a “Weak and Pathetic RINO,” adding that residents of Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District should be served by someone in favor of the president’s agenda given his electoral success there.

“The incredible people of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District gave us a mandate to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and the person that will help us do that is Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Fifth Generation Kentucky Farmer, Captain Ed Gallrein, a true America First Patriot,” Trump wrote.

Gallrein is a Kentucky native whose family built the state’s largest dairy farm and one of the state’s largest grain farms. He describes himself as a traditional conservative who was inspired by former President Ronald Reagan to enter public service in the 1980s. 

Gallrein ran unsuccessfully in a 2024 GOP primary for a Kentucky state Senate seat, losing narrowly to now-state Sen. Aaron Reed. Trump’s political team also considered recruiting Reed, who is also a former Navy SEAL, to run against Massie but the state lawmaker passed on the race.