Plus, Rappaport's billion-shekel Big Mac
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Then-U.S. President Barack Obama waves to reporters after returning to the White House on board Marine One September 3, 2015 in Washington, DC.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleGood Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on New York City Comptroller Mark Levine’s follow-up comments over the Israel bonds controversy and cover Brett McGurk’s comments at an Atlantic Council event last night, where he pushed back on arguments from some Biden administration colleagues that former President Joe Biden should have applied more pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza. We report on an unannounced meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, and cover comments by former President Barack Obama in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he said Israel’s founding had unjustly taken land from Palestinians. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Jessica Tisch, Assaf Rappaport and Tal Naim.
Curated by Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is joining Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed for rallies today at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, along with a “Latinos for Abdul” event in Detroit, after they launched their joint bus tour across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula yesterday. The trip marks Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign appearance for El-Sayed during the general election.
Jewish groups including the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Westchester Jewish Democrats will hold a door-knocking and canvassing event on Sunday for Cait Conley, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 17th Congressional District, as she seeks to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).
One Thing To Know
PREDECESSOR PROBLEMS
A day after New York City Comptroller Mark Levine sparked criticism by backing off a campaign promise to reinvest the city’s pension dollars in State of Israel bonds, mainstream Jewish groups rallied around the historically pro-Israel Democrat — though sources said they expect a change in his investment policy in the months ahead.
Levine, who ran on a vow to reverse his predecessor Brad Lander’s termination of the city’s half-century of investment in Israeli bonds, posted an extended statement to X on Thursday affirming his personal support for Israel and the city’s long-standing economic ties to the Jewish state. He noted that some $285 million in city pension funds, most of them outside of his direct management, remain invested in Israeli equities and firms.
Levine’s initial comments, made on Wednesday to The New York Times, about his decision not to reinvest in Israeli government securities emphasized regional and political instability as the basis for his decision. By contrast, his social media post stressed another reason — during his tenure, Lander had instituted policies over the pot of funds the comptroller directly controls to bar their investment in multiyear bonds of the sort Israel makes available to New York City to buy.
The Big Reads
DAYLIGHT DEBATE
Brett McGurk, a veteran national security official who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, pushed back on Thursday against arguments from his Biden administration colleagues that former President Joe Biden should have applied more pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of the hostages sooner, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Phillip Gordon, who served as national security advisor to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, argued that pressure on Jerusalem had worked and that “most” White House staff believed Biden should have taken an even tougher line against Israel. McGurk said at an Atlantic Council event about his book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, “If there was a shortcut, Joe Biden would have taken [it]. And if somebody could point to a key moment in which we would have been able to get a deal sooner, I’m open to that conversation. But I don’t think there was.”
MEETING MINUTES
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met quietly in recent days with Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot amid the final stretch of Israel’s high-stakes election campaign, Gili Cohen reports for Jewish Insider, the first known time U.S. officials have met with the former IDF chief of staff as a prime ministerial candidate, considered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival in the contentious race. The meeting, according to a source familiar with the matter, focused on critical security concerns, including Gaza, West Bank escalation and rising settler violence. According to another source, the meeting went beyond formal diplomatic courtesy and served as a reconnaissance move by Washington to gauge Eisenkot’s regional outlook.
Poll projection: A Times of Israel poll published Thursday found that Eisenkot’s Yashar party has opened up a significant lead over Netanyahu’s Likud, though neither bloc is projected to win a 61-seat majority.
PRESIDENTIAL POV
Former President Barack Obama criticized Israel’s security policy as having “ceded moral ground” and said that Israel’s founding had unjustly taken land from Palestinians in remarks in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. At the same time, the former president also emphasized that both Israelis and Palestinians have a responsibility to change their approach in order to move toward peace. “The fact is that the Jewish people for millennia were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of that. They understandably sought a refuge in a place where they had historic ties. That is undeniable,” Obama said, according to transcripts and recordings of his remarks. “What is also undeniable is that they took the land of people and they were expelled. And those people, understandably, said, ‘This is an injustice, and I want my land back.’”
On the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks: “You could not have designed something that was less likely to produce meaningful change. In fact, it created the opposite,” Obama said.
The Rundown
TEXAS TALK
ON DEFENSE
NUCLEAR NEWS
MAINE EVENT
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump, asked in a Newsmax interview if he trusts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responded, “I don’t trust anybody, honestly … in a world of politics, I don’t trust anybody.” Asked if he plans on being involved in Netanyahu’s reelection campaign, Trump said, “Well, they’d like me to be. Yeah, they’d like me to be. Look, I’ve had a very good relationship with him. We’ve had good success together”…
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch received a standing ovation on Thursday at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Manhattan, where she accepted the “Happy Warrior” award and joked about the Democratic Socialists of America’s calls for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fire her, while the mayor, seated one row below her on the dais, was met with scattered boos alongside cheers, The New York Times reports.
Also on the dais were Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), New York Attorney General Letitia James, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer….
Democratic Senate candidates far outraised their Republican opponents in the third quarter across the most competitive races, Axios reports. James Talarico brought in $64 million in Texas to Ken Paxton’s $18 million, Abdul El-Sayed raised $30.7 million in Michigan to Mike Rogers’ $9.7 million, Troy Jackson pulled in $20.4 million in Maine to Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) $5.2 million and Kansas pastor Adam Hamilton raised $11 million to Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) $800,000…
Politico talks to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) about why she hasn’t campaigned alongside El-Sayed since endorsing him. “There’s changing dynamics, and there’s a new coalition that Abdul has built, and some people are a die-hard part of it, and some people are not. We’re seeing some constituent community pain coming out,” Stevens said…
The U.N. Security Council issued a statement on Thursday condemning the “escalatory” Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and affirming the Gulf kingdom’s “inherent right to self-defence in accordance with international law”…
The Treasury Department issued further sanctions against Iran’s financial networks on Thursday including against an Iraqi bank, Iranian offshore banks, exchange houses and financiers accused of helping Tehran access U.S. dollars and evade sanctions…
The Financial Times reports that the Trump administration is exploring options to ease restrictions on “shadow fleet” tankers linked to Russia and Iran in an attempt to lower fuel costs ahead of the midterm elections…
CNN reports that the U.S. military has drawn up potential strike plans for Iran that could include using the GBU-43/B “mother of all bombs” against energy infrastructure and nuclear sites if Trump orders renewed combat operations…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Thursday with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun following Beirut’s seizure of a shipment of explosives destined for Hezbollah, which Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said were intended for use against Israeli forces…
The 10-year-old son of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wrote to his father that he wanted to “hold the Kalashnikov and shoot the Jews” when he grows up, accompanied by drawings of tanks, rifles and rockets, according to letters recovered by the IDF in Gaza and provided by the military to The Telegraph…
Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that he spoke with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa last year after Israel bombed the Syrian Defense Ministry due to government forces targeting the Syrian Druze population…
Police arrested a teenager who had allegedly planned to carry out a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago last weekend, officials said at a press conference on Thursday. Investigators found at the suspect’s home a rifle, loaded magazines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and tactical gear, as well as items with Nazi symbols…
A Nazi-looted painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, which was returned to its heirs in 2023, sold for almost $42 million at an auction in London on Wednesday…
A Hamburg court sentenced two men to prison for plotting, on Iranian intelligence orders, to kill Jewish leaders in Germany including Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and pro-Israel German politician Volker Beck…
The Jerusalem News Syndicate reports Paraguay announced that it will pursue full membership in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and adopt its working definition of antisemitism…
Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport is poised to buy McDonald’s Israel franchise’s 230 branches for roughly 1 billion shekels ($320 million)…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The 61-Seat Problem: Suleiman Maswadeh, senior correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13, lays out in The Atlantic the math problem facing both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition ahead of the Oct. 27 election, with polls showing both blocs falling short of a 61-seat majority. “Most polls give the ‘change camp’ — shorthand for the anti-Netanyahu bloc, which stretches from the left to the nationalist right — no path to 61 without either the Haredi or the Arab parties. Its leaders face a choice: break a promise or risk failing to form a government, which would send Israel to yet another election. … Every major poll except those on Channel 14, the network that functions as Netanyahu’s house broadcaster, shows that his bloc cannot form a coalition either. … Netanyahu’s best scenario, Israeli analysts say, is a stalemate: No bloc reaches 61, and the country goes to another election. Netanyahu would then remain at the head of a caretaker government, in power without a new mandate.” [TheAtlantic]
Demand Better: In Newsweek, Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and Joel Rubin, a former Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of state, lament that Jewish voters are being asked by both parties to overlook antisemitism from their own candidates, in the name of a greater electoral good. “Jewish voters are being told repeatedly in this election cycle to forgive and forget offensive comments and dangerous worldviews because the stakes are too high to do otherwise. As each party warns of an existential threat to the country if the other side wins, the common message to Jews is that we need to just keep our mouths closed and fall in line. We reject that deal. We reject the idea that hate speech should have a home in our political discourse. We reject the notion that acquiescing to discrimination is simply the price of admission to our political system. We reject the principle that ‘anything goes’ in pursuit of control of Congress.” [Newsweek]
Picture of the Day
Tal Naim, spokesperson of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, cast her ballot on Thursday after early voting opened at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world ahead of the Oct. 27 elections. Tal Naim/X
Birthdays
Marc Levy, best-selling French novelist, one of whose books was made into DreamWorks’ “Just Like Heaven,” turns 65 on Friday Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/ AFP via Getty Images
FRIDAY
Shimon Mizrahi, Israeli attorney, chairman of Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball, turns 87
Alfred Altschul, retired CFO of Amtrak, Midway Airlines and Airlines Reporting Corporation, turns 87
Morton A. Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), turns 79
David Zucker, film director, producer, screenwriter and creator of “The Naked Gun” franchise, turns 79
Andrew S. Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College and author of 28 books, turns 79
Marvin C. Feuer, vice president for strategy at AIPAC
Elinor Lipman, novelist, short story writer and essayist, turns 76
Shmuel Slavin, chairman of Sela Capital Real Estate Ltd., he previously served as the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Finance, turns 73
Jeff Narod, executive director of Clark University Hillel
David Linsky, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 1999, turns 69
Daniel Benjamin, president of the American Academy in Berlin, he was the coordinator for counterterrorism during the Obama administration, turns 65
Howard David Krein, otolaryngologist who also specializes in facial and reconstructive surgery, turns 60
Scott Tobin, senior advisor at Battery Ventures’ Israel’s office
Adam Fetterman, attorney in North Palm Beach, Fla., he served in the Florida House of Representatives, turns 56
Gil Kenan, filmmaker, best known for directing “Monster House” and “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” turns 50
Kala Savage, actor best known for her television roles in “Undressed,” “Santa Barbara” and “8 Simple Rules,” turns 48
Sue Bird, retired basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the Women’s National Basketball Association, she has five Olympic gold medals, turns 46
Brandon Jared Perlman, founder and CEO at Social Studies, Inc., he is also the founder of The Gramlist
Boyd Melson, three-time U.S. Army light-middleweight boxing champion, he boxed with a Star of David on his trunks, turns 45
Jason Langsner, VP of data at The Atlantic
Margalit Rosenthal, West Coast regional director at Foundation for Jewish Camp
Avi Fink, SVP for financial planning and analysis at Vibrant Emotional Health
Devora Kaye, senior director of communications at Mark43
Sam Ginsberg, business analyst at LWF Group and project manager at Aqualinq
SATURDAY
Jody Gottfried Arnhold, chair emeritus of the board of directors of NYC’s 92NY, turns 83
Ronald Murray Gould, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit since 1999, turns 80
Michael L. Tolkin, filmmaker and novelist, turns 76
Robert Neil Chatigny, U.S. district judge for the District of Connecticut since 1994, he took senior status in 2017, turns 75
Lawrence Bender, movie and television producer, his films have won eight Academy Awards, turns 69
Peggy Futerman, Rochester, N.Y., resident
Jeffrey Shallit, number theorist and professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, turns 69
Ellyn Setnor Bogdanoff, shareholder in Becker & Poliakoff, she has been a member of both houses of the Florida Legislature, turns 67
Rabbi Mayer Twersky, rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, he is a son of Professor Isadore Twersky and a grandson of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, he also serves as the rebbe of the Talne Hasidic dynasty, turns 66
Andrew Straus, Oakland, Calif.-based former Northwest regional director of J Street, turns 66
Jeremy C. Stein, professor of economics at Harvard, he served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, turns 66
Shemsi Prinzivalli, N.J.-based licensed professional counselor
Josh Newman, former member of the California State Senate, turns 62
Cliff Asness, hedge fund manager, he is the co-founder of AQR Capital Management, turns 60
David Halbfinger, Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times, turns 58
Michael Granoff, founder of Maniv Investments in 1997 and Maniv Mobility (Israel’s first venture capital fund dedicated exclusively to the new mobility future), turns 58
Martin Heinrich, U.S. senator (D-NM), turns 55
Kenneth Baer, CEO and founder of Crosscut Strategies, a D.C.-based public affairs firm
Shari B. Diamond, rheumatologist and director of the rehabilitation division of Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates in the D.C. area
Ariel Levy, author and staff writer at The New Yorker, turns 52
Michael Beckerman, head of public policy for the Americas at TikTok, turns 48
Jessica Goldin, CEO of Wellbel, turns 47
Nicholas Britell, Emmy Award-winning film and television music composer, turns 46
Tomer Kagan, chief strategy officer of Relationship Labs, turns 43
Katharine Nasielski, D.C.-based director of federal affairs for New York University
Caroline Mehl, co-founder and executive director at the Constructive Dialogue Institute
Dalya Attar, member of the Maryland State Senate following seven years in the House of Delegates, turns 36
Adam Greenspan, staff software engineer at Zocdoc
SUNDAY
Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm, turns 93
Marius Job Cohen, former mayor of Amsterdam and leader of the Dutch Labour Party, turns 79
Victor A. Friedman, linguist, he is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, turns 77
Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, the first Jewish ambassador to an Arab country, he is president of the Coalition for a Safer Web, turns 76
Max S. Maizels, physician and political activist in Henrico County, Va., turns 76
Joshua B. Sinai, professor of practice in intelligence and global security studies at Capitol Technology University
Marc Widelock, Bakersfield, Calif.-based attorney focused on adoption and reproductive law
Chuck Lorre, television director, writer, producer, composer and actor, turns 74
Bob Weinstein, film producer and founder of Watch This Entertainment, turns 72
Jonathan Tasini, president of the Economic Future Group, a consulting firm, turns 70
Eugene Yelchin, award-winning illustrator and writer of books for children, turns 70
Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during almost all of the Biden administration, turns 69
Leon Calvin Murray, retired NFL running back, he writes of his conversion in From Rose Bowl to Rashi: My Unique Journey to Judaism, turns 68
Ben Caspit, Israeli journalist, political commentator and author of two books critical of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, turns 66
Andrew Getraer, former longtime director at Rutgers Hillel, followed by a year at the Harvard Hillel, he is now an adjunct professor at Sy Syms School of Business
David Fisher, founder of Coalesce Advisors, he is a former president at Birthright Israel Foundation
Steven Phillip Weitzman, professor and director of Jewish studies at the University of Pennsylvania, turns 61
David M. Price, weather anchor for NBC 4 New York, turns 60
Rachel Nichols, former ESPN television host, sports reporter and anchor, turns 53
Amy Lynn Webb, CEO of Future Today Strategy Group, she is an adjunct professor of strategic foresight at NYU, turns 52
Maryna Asauliuk, fashion designer, stylist and art director, turns 46
Suzanne Gershowitz, SVP and COO at the American Enterprise Institute
Graham Moore, Academy Award-winning screenwriter and author, turns 45
Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for Puck News, turns 44
Annie Karni, congressional correspondent for The New York Times
Ayal Kellman, support team leader at Moovit
Idan Yaniv, popular Israeli singer, turns 40
Emma Green, staff writer at The New Yorker
Zohran Kwame Mamdani, mayor of New York City, turns 35
Plus, NYC’s pension tension on Israel Bonds
In this photo illustration, the Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia - logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover a new Anti-Defamation League report on what the group says is a failure on the part of Wikipedia to address a coordinated effort to inject anti-Israel content into the site, look at New York City Comptroller Mark Levine’s decision not to reinvest some of the city’s pension funds into Israel Bonds, and report on New Jersey congressional candidate Rebecca Bennett’s decision to campaign alongside a local mayor embroiled in an antisemitism lawsuit, even as her opponent has also appeared with the mayor. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad, Ronen Bar and Theo Baker.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Tamara Zieve and Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
The Atlantic Council is hosting a sit-down this afternoon with former Biden administration official Brett McGurk, a distinguished fellow with the council’s Middle East Programs, and The Washington Post’s David Ignatius to discuss McGurk’s new book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, which details his role in White House efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is slated to deliver remarks this morning at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards at Georgetown University, which will honor Indian social worker Reema Nanavaty, designer Tory Burch and Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus.
In Baku, Azerbaijan, the seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia kicks off today after a day of preparatory meetings on Wednesday.
As Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who held a rare meeting with Bahrain’s foreign minister in Baku yesterday, took the stage earlier today, representatives from Turkey, Kuwait, Iran and Pakistan appeared to leave the room, while the delegations from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain stayed for the speech. The emir of Qatar, with whom Herzog first shook hands at COP28 in Dubai in late 2023, also stayed in the room for Herzog’s address.
One Thing To Know
EDIT WARS
By Haley Cohen
A year after the Anti-Defamation League exposed what it described as a coordinated campaign to inject antisemitic and anti-Israel narratives into Wikipedia entries, 91% of one banned editor’s contributions to six prominent articles on issues related to Israel remain in the live text, according to a new report.
The report, released Thursday by the ADL Center for Technology and Society, found that Wikipedia has failed to systematically review or correct edits to pages on Hamas, Zionism, the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza, even after banning editors involved in the alleged campaign.
The ADL’s analysis focuses specifically on activity involving articles about Israel, Jewish history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It found that while coordinated editing activity declined by about 95% since last year, 11 new editors continue to shape articles on Israel and the Palestinians, warning that the disputed content can also influence search results and AI-generated responses.
The Big Reads
pension politics
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine came under fire on Wednesday after he revealed to The New York Times that he would reverse course on a long-standing pledge to reinvest municipal pension dollars in State of Israel bonds — criticism that came even from a predecessor in the role, Scott Stringer, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Speaking to the Times, Levine stressed his continued personal relationship with and support for the Jewish state, and maintained his decision not to purchase the bonds was based solely on “technical challenges” and “financial considerations.” In a statement to JI, his office explicitly echoed a recent analysis by the ratings agency Fitch that cited upcoming Israeli elections as a stability risk, and further pointed to growing state debt and the possibility of additional military clashes with Iran or Hezbollah.
Empire state feud: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sharply criticized Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — the GOP candidate for New York governor — on Wednesday, calling the Republican’s assertions that he would not protect Hasidic communities from arson and sexual violence “directly racist.”
sharing a stage
New Jersey Democratic House candidate Rebecca Bennett campaigned this week alongside Linden, N.J., Mayor Derek Armstead, a Democrat who has been accused of antisemitic discrimination in an ongoing lawsuit, at an event that also featured House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. But her opponent, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), has also been photographed alongside Armstead on multiple occasions, including at least once since the lawsuit containing the antisemitism allegations was filed, at an event related to an energy and chemical manufacturing facility in Linden that appears to have been organized by a third party.
in their memory
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and his wife, Allison, CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper, State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun and other administration officials joined the families of former hostages and victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel for a commemoration event on Wednesday at the State Department, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Rubio and Lutnick played a central role in organizing the event to honor the 46 Americans killed in the Oct. 7 attacks, following advocacy by Ruby Chen — father of Itay Chen, an American who served in the IDF and was killed on Oct. 7 — and other bereaved families, several of whom delivered remarks. Others in attendance included Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Seb Gorka, the senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
Seeking answers: Families of Americans killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel said a State Department memorial event honoring their loved ones offered a meaningful recognition of their loss, with some calling on the U.S. government to take further action and investigate the attacks, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.
The Rundown
reggio regrets
booking bias
DRAWING A LINE
veep’s view
platform check
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. criticized a legal complaint filed in Lebanon against Beirut’s ambassador in Washington, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, over her outreach to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter after Leiter’s son was critically injured in a terror attack.
The State Department is reportedly considering sanctions on the Lebanese judges involved in the legal complaint, which the Trump administration suggested was an effort by Hezbollah-linked government actors to undermine the ongoing U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon.…
Shipping authorities said two cargo ships were sunk in the Strait of Hormuz this week; Ali Ozmaei, the naval commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reportedly claimed on Wednesday that Tehran was “counting the moments” until it could strike U.S. warships…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks ahead of the CICA summit in Baku, Azerbaijan; the two discussed, among other issues, bilateral cooperation as well as Iran…
The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen said on Wednesday they planned to continue their attacks on Saudi Arabia, a day after striking and causing significant damage to Saudi Aramco’s headquarters…
The Wall Street Journal reports that a federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is part of an effort by the Trump administration to strip the congresswoman of her citizenship and ultimately deport her to her native Somalia; the investigation focuses in part on the validity of the date of birth on her citizenship application…
Speaking in Belfast, Northern Ireland, former President Barack Obama suggested that Israel has “ceded moral ground” through its actions in the Middle East…
Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee, told NBC News that his half-sister’s social media posts suggesting that their relatives, including for a time their mother, were members of the Muslim Brotherhood amounted to “hearsay,” days after he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that neither he nor members of his family had ties to the group…
A former grant administrator at Harvard’s School of Public Health is suing the university, claiming that he was fired weeks into starting a new position, after he had requested time off for Rosh Hashanah…
The OpenAI employee arrested after a recording device was found in an executive conference at the AI company’s headquarters had a one-way ticket back to his native Saudi Arabia at the time of his arrest…
Robert Kraft and the Kraft family donated $5 million for naming rights to the Chabad at Chestnut Mill (Ma.) which will now be called the Kraft Family Chabad at Chestnut Hill…
A South Jersey deli is facing a $1,000 fine from the state for using the terms “Jewish” and “kosher-style” in its marketing, despite serving non-kosher items…
Jewish members of the U.K.’s Green Party are planning to sue the party for discrimination over its recent passage of a measure declaring Zionism to be a form of racism…
The technocratic committee tasked with governing Gaza and Germany’s state-run GIZ development agency signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a framework for technical cooperation on Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction; the agreement covers economic recovery, municipal services, education, employment, water, agriculture and energy, with GIZ providing technical expertise, needs assessments and capacity-building support…
Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar filed a NIS 3 million ($970,000) defamation suit against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the prime minister’s claims that Bar knew of the Hamas threat on the night of Oct. 7, 2023, but decided not to alert him…
A new report from the University of Toronto’s digital watchdog group found that two Israeli firms installed spyware on dozens of computers at Al Jazeera..
Irish novelist Sally Rooney said that she is no longer permitted to sell her books in the U.K., owing to her public support for Palestine Action, which was outlawed by the British government last year…
Theo Baker, who as a Stanford student authored How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, is joining the San Francisco Standard as the outlet’s senior Silicon Valley reporter; read our May 2026 interview with Baker here…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Terminal Blow: In The Washington Post, Jim Geraghty warns of the rise of drone warfare targeting airports, following strikes on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport over the weekend in which more than a dozen people were killed. “If you’re looking to terrorize people, a drone attack on a major international airport is an effective tool. … Of course, blowing up an airport terminal doesn’t weaken a target country militarily. But the Houthis and Iranians are less interested in that objective. They are convinced that enough civilian casualties will force opposing governments to say ‘uncle’ and agree to their terms.” [WashPost]
Paying a Price: The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim looks at the pressure Democrats are facing from their left to take an increasingly critical approach to Israel. “The choice that Democratic leaders seem increasingly inclined to make — aligning themselves with the international left on Israel — will offer short-term relief but create hellish problems that have nothing to do with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The ‘anti-Zionist’ academics, activists, influencers and troublemakers Democrats wish to gather into a winning coalition despise democratic politics and loathe the whole idea of a coalition.” [WSJ]
Continental Concern: The Telegraph‘s Con Coughlin posits that European inaction on Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia will lead to deeper problems for the continent in the longer term. “The West’s reluctance to provide the Saudis with tangible support is short-sighted, especially for the European leaders who need to understand that the Houthis’ decision to escalate their attacks against the kingdom is as much a problem for Europe as it is the Saudis themselves. … [U.K. Prime Minister Andy] Burnham and his fellow European leaders need to understand that, by failing to confront foes who threaten their countries’ interests, they are demonstrating a level of weakness that their enemies will be only too eager to exploit.” [TheTelegraph]
Picture of the Day
Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar (center) and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (second from right) participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday at the opening of Colombia’s Embassy in Jerusalem, which comes months after a conservative government led by Abelardo de la Espriella came to power in Bogota. During Escobar’s visit, he reinstated a free-trade agreement between the countries that had been terminated by the previous Colombian government. Rafi Ben Hakoon/GPO
Birthdays
Lawrence John Miller, comedian, actor, podcaster and columnist, turns 73
Jack Newman, retired from the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1996, he is a mediator and arbitrator, turns 87
Rabbi Yochanan Zweig, founder and dean of the Talmudic University of Florida in Miami Beach, Fla., turns 84
Haim Saban, media mogul, major donor to the Democratic Party and producer of “Power Rangers,” turns 82
Barbara Corday, television executive, writer and producer known for co-creating “Cagney & Lacey,” turns 82
Alan D. Bersin, senior advisor at Covington & Burling, he was commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration, turns 80
Mindy Hersh, Miami-based mental health counselor and senior executive producer of the My Survivor Film Project
Alain Cohen, owner of Los Angeles-based Got Kosher? Bakery, turns 71
Yossi Shelley, Israeli ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, turns 69
Darrell Steven Steinberg, former mayor of Sacramento, Calif., turns 67
Neil Kugelman, founder and CEO of Refinement Services, a provider of software for precious-metal redemption retailers
Mitchell “Moyshe” Allen Silk, former U.S. Treasury official, he is reported to have been the first Hasidic Jew to hold a Senate-confirmed administration position, turns 65
Andrew Fawer, founding partner of Equalitas Capital and managing director at Allegiant Real Estate Capital
Shai Franklin, director of national government relations at Gotham Government Relations & Communications, turns 61
Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and chief executive of the global investment firm Citadel, turns 58
Stu Loeser, press secretary to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now a political communications strategist, turns 53
Wes Moore, governor of Maryland since 2023, turns 48
Melissa Batya Cohen Biden, documentary filmmaker, she is married to Hunter Biden, turns 40
Jesse Levine, director of racquet sports at Shell Bay in Boca Raton, Fla., and former professional tennis player, turns 39
Elizabeth Kenigsberg, managing director at SKDKnickerbocker
Mitch Glasser, second baseman on Israel’s National Baseball Team from 2017 to 2021, turns 37
Heiko Stoiber, director of strategic initiatives at the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai
Plus, another Jewish Dem endorses Lawler
An Israeli man casts his ballot during Israel's parliamentary election, at a polling station in Rosh Haayin, on September 17, 2019. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at whether the upcoming elections in Israel are likely produce a new government or, like in 2019, end in a governing stalemate, and report on Sen. Chris Murphy’s trip to Qatar. We spotlight Kansas Senate nominee Adam Hamilton’s position on Israel as the Midwestern Democrat gains traction in his effort to unseat Sen. Roger Marshall, and report on antisemitic messages posted online by the son of Maryland GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox, who also worked on his father’s campaign. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rahm Emanuel, Feridun Sinirlioglu and Sen. Ron Wyden.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Tamara Zieve and Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
The Israeli Embassy in Washington is holding its official memorial ceremony this evening for the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attacks. The event in Washington coincides with the official ceremonies in Israel that are being held today across the country.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is in the Middle East this week, having arrived on Saturday in Qatar. Murphy, who has praised Qatar as the U.S.’ “best partner” in the Gulf but more recently opposed Doha’s gifting of a luxury jet to President Donald Trump and attempted to block arms sales to the Gulf state, makes the trip days after Qatari-brokered talks between the U.S. and Iran hit a stalemate. Read more from JI’s Melissa Weiss here.
The investigation into FZ1073 is continuing this week amid deepening concerns over serious security lapses that led an Omani pilot with extremist beliefs to be assigned a flight to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the country’s National Security Council to appoint an investigator to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel,” amid reports that Emirati authorities had sent the names of all passengers and crew to Israeli counterparts prior to the flight. Israeli media reported that the Omani pilot had planned to disable his co-pilot and prepare the flight for normal landing procedures before crashing the jet into Ben Gurion Airport upon its descent.
First in JI: Stacy Caridi, the deputy mayor of Montebello, N.Y., became the second local Jewish Democratic official to endorse Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-NY) reelection bid, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod has learned. Caridi, who has known Lawler since his days as a state lawmaker, said the endorsement was in part due to the New York Republican’s record on antisemitism and Israel policy.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is expected to attend a fundraiser tonight in New York for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the country’s former president and an ally of Trump, are headed to a runoff slated for later this month after neither man garnered enough votes to win Sunday’s election outright. Netanyahu issued congratulations to Bolsonaro, saying, “I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil.”
Meanwhile in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez this morning called snap elections, slated for late November. The move comes amid widespread protests in the country and the progressive leader’s clashes with right-wing parties over the minority government’s emergency housing measures.
One Thing To Know
BACK TO THE FUTURE
By Lahav Harkov
Welcome to 2019, electorally speaking, that is.
With the High Holy Days season now in the rear-view mirror, Israelis across the country have received postcards in the mail in recent days listing their polling place address, one of the tangible signs that election season is in the homestretch. Yet the Oct. 27, 2026, vote is taking on an unmistakable back-to-the-future feel.
Then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was bloodied but unbowed, set to be indicted on bribery and public corruption charges, with a coalition that fell apart over a court order to resolve the issue of Haredi draft exemptions. Now, Netanyahu remains bloodied but unbowed, with a large swath of the public calling for him to take responsibility for security failings surrounding Oct. 7, 2023, and the Haredi draft issue still looms large.
The Big Reads
PASTOR’S POSITION
Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee in Kansas’ Senate race running against Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), said in a Politico video interview that he wants to end offensive aid to Israel, but disagreed with characterizations of the war in Gaza as a genocide, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The comments are a signal of how unpopular Democrats believe U.S. support for Israel has become even in ordinarily deep-red states. “I don’t want my tax money being used for weapons that are going to be dropped on hospitals, destroying entire communities,” Hamilton, a Methodist pastor, said. Pressed on whether he would vote to stop weapons transfers, he said “not all weapons transfers,” carving out an exemption for defensive weapons.
hate mail
The son — and one-time campaign worker — of Dan Cox, the Republican nominee challenging Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, sent Facebook messages predicting “Israel will fall” and calling Jews “scum who killed my savior Jesus” and the “Synagogue of Satan,” according to a post from a GOP consultant, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Republican operative Alexandra Levine shared screenshots of messages allegedly from Josiah Cox, the GOP gubernatorial nominee’s son, that were posted to a Facebook group in June. The profile in the images uses the same name and photo as one the gubernatorial hopeful tagged in a 2024 post, which also called his son his “bodyguard” and shared photos of him, including one with then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). “Jewish customs disgust me,” one of the screen-grabbed missives reads. “You’re pedophiles and Satan worshipping scum and you slaughter innocents all around the world.”
campaign offensive
Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate in Michigan, released a new ad featuring the University of Michigan student who confronted his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, over his positions on Iran and its repressive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a viral exchange last week, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. In the 30-second campaign ad posted on Friday, Iman Dashti, who identifies as Persian American, says that his family “escaped oppression in Iran to find freedom in America,” before calling El-Sayed “a real threat to our national security and our values.”
Early adopter: El-Sayed accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza as early as two weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, before Israel’s ground invasion began nearly a week later and well before any other mainstream political leaders used the term, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
The Rundown
photo op
daylight between them
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. withdrew a dozen B-1 bombers from the U.K.’s RAF Fairford air base a week after British officials arrested several dual British-Iranian citizens near the base who were suspected of planning an attack on the facility, which the U.S. used to conduct attacks against Iran during the height of the war…
A U.S. official said that two members of Iran’s delegation to the U.N. General Assembly had been “kicked out” of the U.S. over the weekend after ignoring an order from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to leave the country last week amid stalled talks between the U.S. and Tehran…
Iran’s oil minister, Mohsen Paknejad, resigned on Sunday, citing personal reasons; his resignation was accepted by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who had previously denied Paknejad’s efforts to step down…
The New York Times spotlights the continued operations of Mahan Air amid U.S. sanctions designed to shut down Iranian airlines, noting that Mahan recently began flights to Vietnam and Thailand, months after Iran permitted tankers bound for the region to transit through the Strait of Hormuz…
The Iranian rial hit a new record low of 2.688 million rials to the U.S. dollar on Saturday; the Islamic Republic’s central bank said it would begin selling up to $2 billion to support the rial…
“CBS Sunday Morning” talks to some of the Israeli passengers who neutralized the co-pilot of FZ1073 during last week’s attack on a flight traveling from Dubai to Israel…
The New York Times interviews more than a dozen passengers on the flight to piece together a detailed account of the events that transpired on the plane and in Saudi Arabia, where the aircraft made an emergency landing…
Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is mulling a 2028 presidential bid, addressed questions over the viability of a Jewish candidate, saying, “If my faith is a problem for you, don’t vote for me”…
A federal district court temporarily blocked the release of a long-delayed Department of Education report on individual foreign donors who have contributed to universities amid a lawsuit by a coalition of colleges and universities…
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) condemned antisemitic posters that appeared on the University of Oregon campus that attacked the school’s Hillel director as an “enemy of the people”…
Singer Zach Bryan performed at Robert Kraft’s Gillette Stadium over the weekend wearing a “Free Palestine” shirt, weeks after an uproar over a planned performance at the venue by rapper Macklemore, who had recently chanted “Free Palestine” and displayed imagery from Gaza during two shows in which he opened for singer Ed Sheeran…
The head of the Jewish Greens, the subgroup within the U.K.’s Green Party, said it was “quite possible” that she would leave the party following its weekend vote to equate Zionism with racism and for Israel to be replaced with a Palestinian state “with equal rights for all”…
Meanwhile, a new study from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research found a significant increase since 2022, prior to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, in the number of Jewish Brits who identified as Zionist and who said they were “very emotionally attached to Israel”…
The internationally recognized government of Yemen, backed by Riyadh, announced scaled-up operations targeting the Iran-backed Houthis in the country.
Additionally, the U.S. has deployed more than 200 intelligence and military analysts to Saudi command centers to support operations by Riyadh’s Yemeni allies against the Houthis; the U.S. is also providing aerial refueling for Saudi aircraft conducting defensive patrols…
Israel and Ireland played to a 1-1 draw in a spectator-less Nations League match in Serbia on Sunday, in which the Irish players donned black armbands and refused to shake the hands of the Israeli players; members of the Israeli team also wore black armbands, with the team’s captain, Dor Peretz, writing “7/10” on his armband in commemoration of Oct. 7…
Turkey is reportedly considering nominating Feridun Sinirlioglu, the secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to succeed António Guterres as U.N. secretary-general when his term ends at the end of the year; Sinirlioglu would be entering a race that does not have a clear front-runner but has seen two candidates, Costa Rican economist Rebeca Grynspan and Guyanese Ambassador to the U.N. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, emerge as top-tier hopefuls…
Reuters spotlights the “new geopolitical significance” of Eritrea, the largely isolated East African nation whose positioning along the Red Sea has made it part of an alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz…
Benny Stanislawski, the communications director for Bob Brooks’ Pennsylvania congressional campaign who previously served as spokesperson for Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), got engaged to Dahvi Cohen, a policy advisor to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), over the weekend…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Forced Into Heroism: In his Substack “Between Us,” Nadav Eyal considers the ordinary heroes of FZ1073 and the institutional failures that led to the harrowing midair attack. “There is a saying in the Israeli military: ‘where you find medals, you will also find failures.’ The point is that soldiers and officers sometimes have to display exceptional bravery because someone else failed to plan, prepare, or perform their duty. People are then required to compensate for institutional mistakes with extraordinary courage.” [BetweenUs]
Still on High Alert: In The New York Times, Yonatan Touval weighs the security considerations that are likely to factor into the upcoming Israeli election, taking place weeks after the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks. “Israel’s security institutions had been watching and still failed to understand what they saw. Israeli intelligence had obtained Hamas’s detailed invasion plan more than a year earlier and later observed parts of it being rehearsed. The deeper error was strategic. … No election can end the vigilance imposed by the dangers Israel faces. But its citizens can decide whether their own government must also be watched hour by hour.” [NYTimes]
Picture of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog opened the National Memorial Day marking the upcoming anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks this morning at 6:29 a.m — the time that the 2023 attacks began — by lowering the flag of the State of Israel at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem to half-staff. Spokesperson of the Office of the President
Birthdays
Dalila Bela, actor known for her role as Agent Olive on the TVOKids/PBS series “Odd Squad,” turns 25
Eli Jacobs, investor and board member of many companies, he was the owner of the Baltimore Orioles from 1989 to 1993, turns 89
Morton Meltzer, psychiatrist in Cameron, N.C., affiliated with WakeMed Health and Hospitals
Theodore Steiner, Fairfax, Calif., resident
Robert Winer, Long Beach, Calif., resident
Ben Cardin, former U.S. senator (D-MD), turns 83
Jonathan Dobrer, author, lecturer and journalist, turns 82
Brian Lehrer, talk show host on New York City’s public radio station WNYC, turns 74
Alan Cohen, founder of several pharmaceutical companies, he was the owner of the NHL’s Florida Panthers, turns 72
Madeleine “Mandy” Grunwald, political consultant and media advisor for the Democratic Party, turns 69
Andrew Cushnir, president and CEO of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, turns 63
Michael Jacobs, former editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, now a consultant, turns 57
Jesse Adam Eisenberg, actor, producer and playwright, he played Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” turns 43
Charlotte Kaye, past president of the Congressional Jewish Staff Association, turns 32
Eden Golan, Israeli singer, she represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2024, turns 23
Gladys Bendahan, Canary Islands native, she is a former coordinator at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations
Daniel Rubenstein, Israeli tour guide and educator
Plus, Bibi b’Abu Dhabi
Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images
Newly appointed U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband departs Downing Street on July 20, 2026 in London, England.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the race to succeed António Guterres as secretary-general of the United Nations, report on ties between a senior Mamdani administration official and an influence network tied to China-allied tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham, and cover Sunkist’s decision to bring back its discontinued candy gems that for decades have been a staple at Jewish celebrations. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gov. Gavin Newsom, Noa Argamani and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
Today’s Agenda
The U.S. and Iran are expected to engage in talks this week, President Donald Trump said on Sunday after rejecting a proposal from Tehran for a seven-day plan to end the war. “They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make. It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand,” Trump told Axios.
Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who traveled to the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly and is expected to stay in the U.S. through the middle of the week, said Tehran is both “ready for diplomacy” and prepared to “stand firm in the face of any aggression.”
The comments from both Trump and Araghchi come as Tehran faces increasing pressure from mediators to make nuclear concessions to restart talks.
Trump is slated to give an address today at 2 p.m., with the subject not yet public.
In Washington, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are expected to force a vote this week on legislation that would require the State Department present a report to Congress on West Bank violence by settlers and Israeli forces, including any deaths or detentions of Americans. Read more about the effort here.
One Thing To Know
analysis
By Melissa Weiss
Two security incidents that transpired in the U.K. over the weekend are presenting Prime Minister Andy Burnham with some of his new government’s first major tests since taking power over the summer: how to address domestic counterterror threats and mounting issues related to asylum seekers, while also responding to concerns by British Jews over their safety and security amid growing tensions between London and Jerusalem.
On Sunday, U.K. officials arrested several individuals near a military base in Gloucestershire used by the U.S. for attacks against Iran. A police statement released about the incident said that an ordnance disposal team had been dispatched to the area and that properties in the vicinity had been evacuated.
The incident occurred hours after a report in the U.K.’s Times that a former bodyguard for Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who was killed by Israel in 2024, was granted asylum — and later citizenship — in the U.K., from which he plotted attacks across Europe. The man, identified as “Mr. X” due to a British court order protecting his anonymity, was arrested last year in connection with a plot to attack Jewish targets in Germany and Austria on the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
The Big Reads
talk of turtle bay
The race to succeed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is still wide open, with seven candidates vying to lead an organization whose approach toward Israel has become a central concern for the United States and pro-Israel advocates, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Costa Rican economist Rebeca Grynspan and Guyana’s U.N. ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, have emerged as the leading contenders. Ben Cohen, a senior analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, described Grynspan, the daughter of Holocaust survivors with family members residing in Israel, as a U.N. insider candidate who knows the U.N. system well and would likely “be in the mold of Guterres.” Rodrigues-Birkett, meanwhile, has previously described the Jewish state’s actions against Palestinians as “brutality that would make some of history’s most cruel oppressors blush,” and praised former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as a “visionary” in a 2013 speech.
city hall hire
A few months before New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, his administration hired an expatriate supporter of the left-wing South American leader — an academic and activist involved in a group tied to the sprawling global influence network of China-allied tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Hired in June as a deputy commissioner for international affairs, Gianpaolo Baiocchi in July brought the organization Defend Democracy in Brazil into his city office for a formal meeting to “strengthen ties of the Brazilian community in New York.”
the sunkist also rises
Sunkist Fruit Gems announced that it plans to bring back its beloved kosher candy, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports, days after eJP first reported on the discontinuation of the synagogue staple. The discontinuation of the Fruit Gems had prompted a good-hearted national backlash, particularly on social media, where people jokingly called the move “antisemitic” or wrote “baruch dayan emet,” the traditional phrase that is used when hearing that a person has died.
The Rundown
in the courts
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. Navy awarded two military contracts for missile canisters and survival radios, collectively worth $127 million, to subsidiaries of Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems…
The Department of Education again delayed the release of data on foreign funding to U.S. schools, the sixth such delay since July; the data is now expected to be released on Oct. 2…
Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) filed an amicus brief in a Holocaust restitution lawsuit, Reif v. Republic of Austria, citing their legislation that aims to aid the heirs of Holocaust survivors in recovering Nazi-looted art…
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Mike Quigley (D-IL), as well as 41 House members, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to work to ensure the release of Palestinian physicians and healthcare workers held in Israeli detention…
The New York Times looks at VoteVets’ involvement in the midterms as the group spends more than $60 million on more than 300 candidates, the vast majority of whom are running in down-ballot races, and leans into voter antipathy toward the Iran war…
A new poll from the Democratic polling firm GBAO found Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed up four points, 48-44%, over former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI)…
Singer Ed Sheeran’s weekend concerts at Boston’s Gillette Stadium were canceled due to weather, weeks after a firestorm over the anti-Israel activism and antisemitic rhetoric of Macklemore; the rapper was removed from the tour by organizers after stadium owners, including Gillette owner Robert Kraft, raised concerns about Macklemore’s recent performances and past activities…
In an event at Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard Temple, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Safe Worship Zone Act and the expansion of the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program…
An Illinois man who previously served jail time for antisemitic vandalism was sentenced to seven years in prison for graffitiing a swastika and other antisemitic imagery across the Northwestern University campus earlier this year…
A Canadian man in Kitchener, Ontario, was arrested in connection with a livestream in which he allegedly made threats targeting the Jewish community…
The council of the eastern German town of Heidenau, in a move led by the far-right Alternative for Germany party and ruling Christian Democratic Union, banned future plaques commemorating residents of the city who were killed during the Holocaust…
Maastricht University in the Netherlands suspended a Palestinian student who claimed he took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks…
The IDF said it killed one of the terrorists involved in the abduction of former Israeli hostage Noa Argamani from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 attacks…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly traveled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday to meet with Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan…
The Wall Street Journal reports that Egypt’s former intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, personally called Netanyahu with a third warning of an impending attack from Gaza in the days before Oct. 7, 2023, after two earlier Egyptian alerts went unheeded, according to Arab officials…
Israel gave Dutch diplomats in Ramallah seven days to return their Israeli-issued credentials, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on X on Sunday, after a Dutch ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights went into effect…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pressure Points: In The Wall Street Journal, former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus argues that the U.S.’ continued economic pressure on Iran coupled with its support for Gulf states will strengthen Washington’s negotiating position. “Iran’s leverage comes from imposing costs on everyone else by disrupting Hormuz, threatening bypass routes and widening pressure through aligned groups such as the Houthis in Yemen. Washington’s leverage runs in the opposite direction: helping everyone else’s oil get out while making it harder for Iran’s oil and maritime commerce to do the same.” [WSJ]
The Blair Pitch Project: The Free Press’ Audrey Fahlberg profiles former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair as he works to mitigate Democratic gains in the midterms. “I asked [Blair] about the notion that the president has betrayed his own base by dragging the country into war with Iran after campaigning as a peacemaker — a claim repeated often by popular podcasters like Tucker Carlson and others on the right who prefer a restrained foreign policy. ‘The Tucker Carlsons of the world aren’t being honest about what the president has always said,’ he said. ‘The president has said endless times’ going back to the 1980s ‘that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.’ By denying this, Blair said, the restrainer wing of the GOP is ‘projecting something that he never said onto him in the Iran case.’” [FreePress]
Groyper Groupie: The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell spotlights former “groypette” Amy Dangerfield in the wake of her falling out with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. “Amy had developed tough skin over years of derogatory jokes being made at her expense; for conservative women, she said, it just came with the lifestyle. … But this felt different. The kinds of conspiracy theories she’d once amplified about elites were now being rewritten about her: that she was a spy for Israeli surveillance, or a federal infiltrator, or a rebel attempting revolt.” [WashPost]
Picture of the Day
Israeli soccer fans cheered on the Israeli national team on Sunday during the team’s UEFA Nations League match against Ireland in Debrecen, Hungary.
Members of the Irish team wore black armbands and skipped the customary pre-match handshakes before beating Israel 3-0. In addition, the Irish players bowed their heads during Israel’s anthem, and captain Dara O’Shea kept his hands clasped behind his back rather than greet Israel’s Manor Solomon. Sebastian Frej/Getty Images
Birthdays
Daniel Braverman, former NFL, XFL and CFL wide receiver and kick returner, turns 33
Sir Jeremy Israel Isaacs, Emmy Award-winning Scottish television producer, turns 94
Madeleine Kunin, former governor of Vermont (the first Jewish woman elected to govern any state), she was also the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, turns 93
Stuart Kauffman, physician and theoretical biologist, he was a 1987 MacArthur genius fellow, turns 87
Warren Lieberfarb, former president of Warner Home Video, turns 83
Alain Wertheimer, French businessman who, with his brother, own the controlling interest in the House of Chanel and several famous vineyards, turns 78
Jerry Weiss, real estate agent in New York’s Hudson Valley
Gary Miller, Teaneck, N.J.-based real estate attorney
Bill Cassidy, physician and outgoing U.S. senator (R-LA), turns 69
Michael Harris, pediatrician and author of the book Winning A Debate with An Israel Hater about the fight against BDS
Ben Greenman, best-selling author of more than 25 books, he is also a magazine journalist, turns 57
Elliott Nahmias, area director for San Diego and Orange counties for AIPAC
Lenny Krayzelburg, winner of four Olympic gold medals in swimming for the USA (2000 and 2004), turns 51
Michael Lipin, news editor and White House correspondent at Voice of America
Nina Pekerman, Israeli Ironman triathlete, turns 49
Lauren France, SVP at the Katz Watson Group
Samantha Collidge, director of leadership engagement for the Anti-Defamation League
Hadassa Levenson, regional director for the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition
Ayelet Cohen, VP of operations at Tel Aviv-based iAngels, a women-led venture capital firm
David Hopen, 2023 graduate of Yale Law School and author of a coming-of-age novel set in the Modern Orthodox community, turns 33
Plus, the MS NOW anchor who got her start in Israel
JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images
Abdul El-Sayed addresses supporters at his election night event at The Majestic Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, on August 4, 2026
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we have the scoop on a recent meeting between Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and rabbis from Michigan’s Temple Israel, which earlier this year was attacked by a pro-Hezbollah terrorist, and cover yesterday’s Capitol Hill rally supporting the passage of the Right to Worship Act. We report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s remarks that he will not participate in protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during next week’s U.N. General Assembly, and profile MS NOW anchor Erielle Reshef, who got her start on Israeli television. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Michael Dell, Lacey Schwartz Delgado and Jonathan Powell.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
Vice President JD Vance is sitting down for an interview with Sid Rosenberg today, during which the conservative radio host said he intends to press Vance on his relationship with Tucker Carlson and his stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The Hudson Institute is holding a fireside chat this morning focused on Iran-China relations and the U.S.’ Operation Economic Outcast effort to financially isolate Tehran that had initially featured Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA). Nunn, who is locked in a tight reelection bid and earlier this week voted in favor of a war powers resolution to force an end to the Iran war, no longer appears on Hudson’s promotional page for the event, which now features Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-WA).
Axios is releasing portions of its recent interview with far-left commentator Hasan Piker over the course of the day, ahead of the release of the full interview tomorrow. In the first released clip, Piker told the outlet’s Alex Thompson that he believed that the U.S. had committed more acts of terror than al-Qaida, saying, “Pound for pound as far as the number of deaths, yes,” adding, “We have caused tremendous terror all around the world.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is holding a briefing today alongside NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch about security around the U.N. General Assembly, which begins next week. More below.
The Atlantic Festival kicks off today in New York. The three-day convening begins this morning with a sit-down with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (who was in New York’s Hudson Valley yesterday campaigning with NY-17 Democratic candidate Cait Conley). This afternoon, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is mulling a 2028 bid, will take the stage for a fireside chat about the future of the Democratic Party.
We’re continuing to follow the fallout from Macklemore’s performance earlier this month at two Ed Sheeran concerts over the rapper’s anti-Israel remarks at previous concerts and past antisemitic incidents. Robert Kraft, who along with several other stadium owners banned the rapper from performing at their venues over his past antisemitic rhetoric and imagery — prompting several other opening acts to drop out of the shows in solidarity — pledged $2 million for aid to the Middle East on Wednesday, matching a donation of the same amount by Sheeran. Read more about the donation here.
One Thing To Know
SCOOP
In the most significant sign of his efforts to make inroads with skeptical Jewish voters in Michigan’s Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, recently met with rabbis at Temple Israel for a closely guarded conversation, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Two rabbis who were said to have participated in the conversation, details of which were unclear, declined to comment when reached on Wednesday. El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The covert nature of the meeting, which neither party has publicized, underscores the sensitivities felt among some Jewish leaders who have remained wary of publicly associating with El-Sayed because of their continued discomfort with his positions on Israel and remarks about antisemitism.
The Big Reads
show of support
Reps. Brad Knott (R-NC) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) rallied outside the Capitol on Wednesday alongside more than two dozen representatives of religious community organizations in support of the Right to Worship Act, their federal bill establishing buffer zones outside of religious institutions to protect them from disruptions. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has been involved in supporting the bill behind the scenes, also expressed his support for it in a statement to Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. “Religious liberty is regarded as our ‘First Freedom.’ Our Founders listed it first in the Bill of Rights because they understood how essential it was to the foundation of our Republic. But that right rings hollow if worshippers must brave harassment or worry for their safety as they exercise their religion,” Johnson said.
First in JI: Over a year after the deadly firebombing attack targeting an Israeli hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO), who represents the city, and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced legislation to modify Nonprofit Security Grant Program conditions to allow grantees to use funding for staffing costs.
PROTEST POLITICS
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters on Wednesday that he does not intend to participate in any demonstrations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance at the U.N. General Assembly next week — and maintained he did not endorse public agitation against the Jewish state’s premier, an apparent ratcheting-down of his remarks from earlier this summer, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Following an unrelated press conference, Mamdani confirmed information leaked to Politico that he would not take part in anticipated protests against Netanyahu’s scheduled arrival in New York on Sept. 23 or speech at the international summit the next day. He also stressed that he did not call for his anti-Israel allies on the left to take to the streets either. “I do not have any plans to attend any protest at the U.N. General Assembly,” Mamdani said. “To New Yorkers, I have never encouraged them to protest.”
anchor point
MS NOW anchor Erielle Reshef never planned to become a television journalist. After completing a master’s degree in diplomacy and conflict studies in Israel in 2010, she happened to be watching an English-language news program whose anchors were about to go on maternity leave. Her husband wrote down the email address on the screen and pushed her to apply. That opportunity launched a career that has taken Reshef from her hometown of Oklahoma City to local television, international news and eventually ABC News, where she spent eight and a half years, including as a national correspondent. In June 2025, Reshef left the relative comfort of a network news reporting job to join MSNBC, which was rebranded later in the year as MS NOW, where she is now a fill-in anchor for daytime cable news shows for the first time. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen, Reshef said her Jewish values — particularly curiosity, rigorous debate and a commitment to understanding people on the margins — are the “scaffolding” of her journalism.
The Rundown
ON THE HILL
not so fast
behind the veil
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump is planning to meet with Gulf leaders next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to discuss a postwar strategy for Iran; the president held a similar meeting on the sidelines of last year’s UNGA to discuss Gaza, a week before publicly releasing his postwar plan for the enclave…
The State Department extended its visa ban on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials, preventing members of the delegation from attending UNGA next week for the second year in a row; State Department officials attributed the ban to Palestinian leaders’ efforts to “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”…
New photos obtained by CBS News indicate widespread damage at U.S. facilities around the Gulf resulting from Iranian attacks, including destroyed planes, buildings and vehicles in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
CNN reports that more than a dozen Russian spy satellites had operated over a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia two days before the facility was struck in an Iranian drone and missile attack in which 15 U.S. troops were injured…
The House passed, in a 262-159 vote, a major Russia and Iran sanctions package named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which targets Russia’s energy sector as well as Iran’s weapons and energy industries…
Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) filed a war powers resolution to block military action against Oman, in response to Trump‘s threats to bomb the U.S. ally if it does not cooperate with U.S. efforts to counter Iran in the Strait of Hormuz…
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is slated to campaign with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed next week in the Wolverine State.
Meanwhile, the Detroit News endorsed El-Sayed’s opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), citing in part El-Sayed’s history of deleting past social media content and noting that a “candidate who feels the need to hide his past from voters is not someone who can be trusted to be the same person after Election Day as he was on the campaign trail”…
A New York man who pleaded guilty to assaulting a Jewish man days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks was sentenced to 90 days in jail; during sentencing, Yehia Amin was photographed smiling and flashing the peace sign with his hands, telling the judge through an interpreter that he wanted to look good in photographs from the courtroom…
Michael Dell listed his Boston penthouse in the city’s Millennium Tower for less than he purchased it a decade ago for $10.9 million…
The Hollywood Reporter reviews documentarian Lacey Schwartz Delgado’s “Re/Pair,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and pairs Black and Jewish figures, including David Schwimmer, Van Jones, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and Rabbi Sharon Brous, for conversations about Black-Jewish relations…
The Spectator reports that both U.K. National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell and London’s ambassador in Israel, Simon Walters, advised Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband against banning imports from Israeli settlements, warning that such a move would bolster support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government ahead of next month’s elections…
Air Canada removed an in-flight service director following a report that the employee had shared antisemitic content on social media; the Canadian carrier will also resume direct flights between Toronto and Israel at the end of November, earlier than its planned January resumption of flights…
A Kurdish-Jewish man with Canadian and Israeli citizenship who had traveled to the region to fight ISIS more than a decade ago was freed from an Iraqi Kurdish prison after he was convicted of killing a taxi driver in 2015; Aish announced that Ben Chasin will arrive at the organization’s yeshiva this week, where he will study…
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita in New York in a meeting convened by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, during which Jerusalem and Rabat agreed to a series of measures to boost bilateral ties, including appointing full ambassadors to each other’s countries, turning their diplomatic missions into embassies, increasing direct flights and holding high-level visits in the near future.
The night prior, Waltz hosted Sa’ar, Bourita, United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba and diplomats from Bahrain and Kazakhstan for a diplomatic reception marking the sixth anniversary of the Abraham Accords.
While in New York, Sa’ar also met with senior leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations for a wide-ranging discussion on Israel’s security, regional developments and U.S.-Israel relations…
Dalia Ziada is joining the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy as the director of the organization’s Washington office…
Artist and graphic designer Peter Max died on Monday at 88…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Meta-morphosis: Bloomberg’s Riley Griffin and Alexandra Levine look at the role that Dina Powell McCormick plays at Meta, where she now serves as president, vice chairman and co-leader of Meta Compute after eight months on the company’s board. “While [Mark] Zuckerberg, 42, is the cerebral engineering leader obsessed with improving Meta’s products for the AI race, Powell McCormick, 53, has her pulse on the world outside of Silicon Valley, and can be Meta’s bridge to opportunities and fixer of challenges. ‘She is a close, trusted advisor of the whole senior leadership team, but especially of Mark,’ said CJ Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer. ‘She’s generally the last person who’s consulted on really important decisions.’” [Bloomberg]
Riyadh Ruminations: In War on the Rocks, Richard Nephew posits that the burgeoning nuclear agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is better than had initially been expected. “If it performs as promised, its provisions of exclusivity will provide benefits to the U.S. nuclear industry and lock Russia and China out of a potentially lucrative market that could have attendant political and security implications long term, especially in a Middle East where nuclear proliferation remains a serious threat. The U.S.-Saudi agreement is also innovative and imaginative, a credit to creative negotiations to unlock an issue that has been difficult for multiple administrations.” [WarontheRocks]
AI and the Archives: In The Washington Post, Daniella Greenbaum Davis explains how she used Anthropic’s Claude to recover and translate a 1946 Yiddish-language article that had been authored by her grandmother and detailed the day she was liberated from Bergen-Belsen. “Much of the debate concerning AI today is about scale and mortal threat, about destroying jobs and flooding social media with slop. It’s easy to forget that large language models, like all tools, are a thing human ingenuity has built to finish what human hands cannot. … I had spent years blindly feeling my way through archives; in a matter of days, AI had stitched together pieces of information that I couldn’t see, let alone put together.” [WashPost]
Picture of the Day
Birthdays
Stan M. Herman, fashion designer known worldwide for his leading-edge corporate uniforms, turns 98
Chuck Grassley, U.S. senator (R-IA) since 1981 and president pro tempore of the Senate, turns 93
Peter J. Solomon, investment banker who once served as a NYC deputy mayor, turns 88
Gail Carson Levine, Newbery Honor-winning author of many young adult books, some with Jewish themes, turns 79
Joshua Muravchik, author of 11 books and hundreds of articles on foreign policy and the Middle East, turns 79
T. Alan Hurwitz, former president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and then president of Gallaudet University, turns 79
Frank Hagelberg, Rochester, N.Y., attorney, he has held positions at the UJA-Federation of New York and the Rochester Jewish Federation
Jeremy Don Fogel, retired judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, turns 77
Harold Solomon, former professional tennis player who achieved a world ranking of No. 5 in 1980, turns 74
Rita Rudner, comedian, writer and actor, she was a frequent guest of Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show,” turns 73
Daniel Fingeroth, author, comic book writer and editor, best known as group editor of the Spider-Man books at Marvel Comics, turns 73
Mody Kidon, Israeli businessman with real estate holdings in Israel and NYC, turns 72
Ellen Kahan Zager, author and graphic designer
Rina Frenkel, former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, turns 70
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, rabbi emeritus of the New North London Synagogue and senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism UK, turns 69
Elliott S. Feigenbaum, former consultant at Quick Hits News
Richard Wolffe, journalist, best-selling author including two books on the Obama presidency and Emmy Award-winning executive producer, turns 58
Mandy Krauthamer Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the last 18 months of the Biden administration, turns 48
Adam Abrams, former regional communications director and spokesperson for former President Barack Obama, now a partner at Seven Letter
Nick Melvoin, member of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education, turns 41
David Litt, former Obama White House speechwriter who has since written a best-selling comedic memoir, turns 40
Adina Shatz, principal product manager for CathWorks
Rachel Roubein, national healthcare reporter The Washington Post covering the FDA
Natalie Edelstein Jarvis, editorial producer at Google
Max August, founder of the Israel Summit at Harvard, now a member of the partnerships team at OpenAI
Plus, Saudis stymied by Houthi gains
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Mayor Brandon Johnson participates in a May Day march on May 01, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s targeting of AIPAC and a top Jewish donor in Illinois as he kicks off his reelection campaign, cover Vice President JD Vance’s comments on the U.S.-Israel relationship and talk to experts about the challenges in combating the Houthis as the Iran-backed terror group scales up its attacks on Saudi Arabia. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Fatema Al Harbi, Deborah Lipstadt and Rep. Tom Suozzi.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) is holding a press conference at the Capitol today on the Right to Worship Act, which he is sponsoring. Suozzi told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod this week in a wide-ranging interview, “The big thing in my head was that a person shouldn’t have to show particular courage just to attend a religious service.” Read the full interview with Suozzi.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a nomination hearing today for a number of vacant ambassadorial postings across Africa, as well as for the position of ambassador to Malaysia. The hearing comes weeks after Malaysia expelled a dual American Israeli citizen over the country’s ban on Israelis entering the country, which prompted the State Department to summon Kuala Lumpur’s top diplomat.
The House Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing this morning on counterterrorism efforts in the post-9/11 era.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee is slated to hold a hearing this morning on the evolving terrorism landscape with Lt. Col. (ret.) Joel Borkert, the deputy coordinator for programs and military coordination at the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism.
The House Natural Resources Committee is convening today for a markup on legislation to designate Fort Ontario, in Oswego, N.Y., as a unit of the National Park System, owing to its use from 1944-1946 to house nearly 1,000 Holocaust survivors from Europe.
One Thing To Know
WINDY CITY WEDGE
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is facing a long list of challengers in his reelection campaign next year — not to mention dismal job approval ratings and paltry fundraising. He kicked off his bid for a second term at an event on Sunday, however, directly targeting AIPAC as well as a Jewish Democratic donor who has contributed both to the pro-Israel group and, more recently, a top rival of Johnson’s.
“When you hear that someone wants to be your mayor and they claim to be progressive but they take money from AIPAC and Michael Sacks and corporate interests and shell PACs,” Johnson said at a rally over the weekend, “you know who has the power. It’s not you.”
The embattled mayor was likely making a thinly veiled reference to Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, the front-runner in a race that has so far drawn over a dozen candidates. But Johnson’s statement, which has faced criticism from local Jewish leaders for espousing what they decry as antisemitic tropes about Jewish influence, was misleading, as AIPAC is not involved in his race.
The Big Reads
waiting game
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team vowed that it would produce its long-promised plan to fight antisemitism in the five boroughs “soon” — but declined to provide any specifics about when it might actually come out or why his administration failed to meet its original Rosh Hashanah deadline, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Sam Raskin, Mamdani’s deputy press secretary, told JI, “The mayor is fully committed to the safety of Jewish New Yorkers and to using every tool available to ensure that Jewish communities continue to thrive as an essential part of the fabric of the five boroughs.”
red sea reckoning
Saudi Arabia’s escalating conflict with the Houthis has revealed just how challenging it has become for the U.S. to deter the Iran‑backed terrorist group, former officials and regional experts told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea, as Houthi gains along the Red Sea raise alarms about global shipping and give Tehran fresh leverage. Analysts said that while Israel could help Riyadh in combating the attacks, any cooperation is likely to be limited and politically fraught. Saudi Arabia on Tuesday issued an alert for a possible attack on the holy city of Mecca amid escalating strikes by the Houthis, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. A day earlier, Vice President JD Vance said the administration was “on top” of the issue and confirmed the U.S. is in direct talks with the group.
Bonus: CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper convened a meeting last week in Germany between the military chiefs of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt to discuss regional tensions.
the jd doctrine
Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that the U.S. must prioritize its own needs and “cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel,” likening the dynamic to that of NATO during a virtual appearance at the All In Summit, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports. Vance made the comments in conversation with “All-In Podcast” co-host Jason Calacanis, saying there are “obviously a lot of important relationships, a lot of important partnerships in NATO, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to completely make our European foreign policy subservient to NATO in the same way that we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel.”
The Rundown
on the hill
designation push
digital danger
Q&A
austin speaker limits
PEOPLE OVER PARTY
minyan matters
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) ruled out a 2028 presidential bid, telling the Washington Examiner, “I have no intention of doing so, period”…
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is moving forward with an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing Hegseth of “high crimes and misdemeanors” over the war…
The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee advanced the Pray Safe Act by a voice vote; Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement the move “bring[s] us one step closer to passing a bill that would ensure every house of worship, faith-based organization and nonprofit can access critical resources to protect themselves”…
More than 20 Senate Democrats joined a resolution seeking to force a vote on Israeli policy in the West Bank, including the top Democrats on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, as well as incoming No. 2 Senate Democrat Brian Schatz (D-HI) and pro-Israel stalwart Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)…
Former State Department antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, who returned to Emory University as a university distinguished professor after her departure from government at the end of the Biden administration, is founding the Emory Policy Institute on Countering Antisemitism, with a fellowship program set to begin in January…
The head of the Harvard Kennedy School rejected a call from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance to revoke New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s invitation to speak at an endowed lecture at the school later this week, citing the HKS’ “commitment to free speech”…
The newly released fifth season of “Fauda,” which came out on Netflix earlier this month and covers the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and their aftermath, scored the show’s highest streaming numbers to date, ranking as the top show last week in both Israel and Lebanon…
Several musical acts set to open for Ed Sheeran withdrew from the singer’s remaining U.S. tour dates after the production company overseeing the tour parted ways with rapper Macklemore over his political rhetoric during two recent performances; Sheeran and the production company had faced pressure from venue owners, including Robert Kraft, who said the rapper’s onstage comments and displays and “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery” led to the decision…
The British government introduced legislation that would repeal a long-standing law barring Roman Catholic and Jewish prime ministers from involvement in appointments made by the Church of England…
Dennis Richardson, the former head of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, criticized media coverage of “blatant antisemitism” in the country following the Oct. 7 attacks, saying he agreed “with those who argue that following 7 October we dropped the ball and failed to draw a line”…
Tanchum Portnoy, the composer of the popular melody for “Eitz Chaim,” died at 75…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Strait Talk: In The Wall Street Journal, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh argue that the Trump administration needs to end Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz in order for the U.S. to win the monthslong war it has fought with Tehran. “Control of the strait gives Tehran leverage over many enemies but doesn’t provide a perfect defense (or offense), especially against Israel. But if the clerical oligarchs and the Revolutionary Guards lose the strait, they will stand before their angry people bereft of accomplishment and legitimacy. Power once demystified is harder to sustain. If the White House doesn’t deny the regime this victory by fighting and winning the Battle of Hormuz, then Mr. Trump has surely lost this war.” [WSJ]
Civil Rights and Wrongs: In The New York Times, James Loeffler argues that American Jews have been turned into a political football as both parties have long failed to adequately address antisemitism and the Trump administration uses the issue as a cudgel. “Progressives have failed to grapple with antisemitism among their own ranks. And now a conservative administration intent on undoing civil rights law has turned that ambiguity to its own advantage. The civil rights revolution was never finished. Now its contradictions have returned, sharper than ever. They won’t end with antisemitism, because debates about Jews are never just about Jews. They are the seismographs of a society’s deeper tremors: its fears of difference, its contested visions of nationhood.” [NYTimes]
Picture of the Day
Moshe Edri, director-general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), addressed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 70th General Conference in Vienna on Tuesday. In his remarks, Edri said, “it’s clear that a public threat by the radical regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran to destroy the State of Israel is something we cannot ignore. Israel cannot, and will not, sit idle, in light of such a threat. We acted to ensure our survival, and we will do it again if needed.”
Birthdays
David Seth Kotkin, award winning illusionist, who has sold tens of millions of tickets to his shows worldwide, known professionally as David Copperfield, turns 70
Esther Vilar, Argentine German writer and physician, author of books on gender relations, turns 91
Elaine Bloom, Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives for multiple terms, in 2015 she became the president and CEO of Plaza Health Network, turns 89
Rubin Schron, NYC-based real estate investor and the founder of Cammeby’s International Group, turns 88
Richard Perle, defense policy advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 and member of a number of DC-based think tanks, turns 85
Jon Olesen, Montebello, Calif., resident
Shari Goldberg, Pompano Beach, Fla., resident
Motti Lerner, Israeli playwright and screenwriter, turns 77
Jim Perelman, sheriff of Nantucket County, Mass., turns 76
Jonathan Medved, founder and former CEO of OurCrowd, an equity-crowdfunding platform focused on investing in Israeli startups, turns 71
Fern Wallach, former advertising account executive at The Forward, now a media sales consultant
Jonathan Boyarin, anthropology professor at Cornell, his work centers on Jewish communities and culture, turns 70
Dan Kohl, director of stakeholder engagement at the National Council of Jewish Women, he is a nephew of former Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), turns 61
Rabbi Dov Linzer, president and rabbinic head of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in Riverdale, N.Y., turns 60
Jason Zengerle, staff writer at The New Yorker
Gal Fridman, Israeli windsurfer, he won bronze in Atlanta 1996 and gold in Athens 2004, Israel’s first Olympic gold medalist, turns 51
Tzvi Avisar, mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, a city in the Haifa suburbs, turns 48
Josh Ginsberg, VP of corporate marketing at Meta
Koby Altman, president of basketball operations for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, turns 44
Lauren Morgan Suriel, chief field officer at the Israel on Campus Coalition
Suzy Goldenkranz, VP of customer success at SimpliFed
Daren Maxwell Kagasoff, actor, best known for starring in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” turns 39
Rachel Louise Ensign, NYC-based economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal
Niv Sultan, Israeli actor who played the lead role in Apple TV’s spy thriller “Tehran,” turns 34
Avishag Semberg, winner of an Olympic bronze medal for Israel in taekwondo at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, turns 25
Caryn Rosen Adelman, planned giving consultant
Plus, voters split on aid to Israel
Nic Antaya/Getty Images
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a rally at Universal Contracting and Urban Tree Trimming on August 31, 2026 in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Good Tuesday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
The U.S. destroyed two Iranian vessels yesterday after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tried to steal a Navy drone in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials told Axios…
Top military leaders from the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt reportedly met in Germany last week to discuss the war in Iran. CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper assured the group that the U.S. does not plan to withdraw its forces from the region, while Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, updated participants on IDF operations in several arenas…
Saudi Arabia issued an alert today for a possible attack targeting the pilgrimage city of Mecca, amid ongoing attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in recent days…
Riyadh also canceled some oil shipments meant to depart for Europe in September after its key East-West pipeline was damaged in drone attacks, Reuters reports, compounding the global oil crisis…
The Trump administration is preparing a $2.8 billion sale of 40,000 one-ton bombs and 20,000 Penetrator warheads to Israel, a U.S. official told The Washington Post…
The Iran war could cost the U.S. up to $3 billion for each month that it continues, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found in a report released today, on top of the $38 billion the CBO estimated that the war already cost in its first five months…
U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa visited southern Lebanon today to “see firsthand the progress and challenges in the pilot zones” where the Lebanese Armed Forces have taken over control from the IDF, according to a statement…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) said she was “followed, shouted at, and harassed by two rogue paid actors,” following a hearing on the Hill today, who ostensibly targeted her for her views on the Middle East. “Let me be clear: I have always wanted the wars in the Middle East to end,” she wrote in a statement on X. “People are free to disagree with me, challenge me, and protest my positions. That is democracy. But disagreement is not license for intimidation or harassment”…
The Trump administration reached a settlement agreement with Lincoln Memorial University to end discrimination against Jewish students, the Justice Department announced today, after a federal investigation found that an LMU college denied requests by Jewish students for religious accommodations, but provided those same accommodations to non-Jewish students…
Michigan Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Gary Peters (D-MI) are imploring the Democratic Senate caucus to help Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed with financial support in his race against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Semafor reports, and are inviting members to a meet-and-greet with El-Sayed in Washington later this week…
In a meeting with House Republicans today, Vice President JD Vance urged members who are “running against a Democrat who’s not that crazy” in the midterm elections to “just talk about Abdul El-Sayed. He’s got enough material for the whole country”…
Vance also told the New York Post that the Iran war will be in a “much different phase in a couple of months” and said the U.S. “is not engaged in aggressive operations [against Iran]. We’re just not”…
Appearing at the Hudson Institute today, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) argued that the U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed much of Iran’s leadership could have a deterrent effect on Chinese President Xi Jinping by proving that authoritarian rulers are not untouchable. He further claimed that Chinese bot networks helped drive the surge in online antisemitism after the Oct. 7 attacks, citing an estimate that these bots accounted for roughly 22% of such social media activity.
Ricketts also sharply criticized the isolationist think tank Defense Priorities, likening its case for a U.S. pullback from the Indo-Pacific to Britain and France’s 1938 agreement in Munich to let Hitler seize part of Czechoslovakia…
Ed Sheeran issued a statement regarding Macklemore being dropped as the opening act from the rest of his U.S. stadium tour, writing on Instagram that the decision was out of his hands and that he respects Macklemore’s choice to speak about Israel onstage, even if he does not choose to do the same. He confirmed that he spoke with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft about the issue as well as promoters and “activists on both sides.”
Four of Sheeran’s other opening acts — Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Irish folk band Beoga — pulled out of his tour today in what they said was solidarity with Macklemore and the Palestinian people…
In a New York Times/Siena poll released today, respondents were split over whether they preferred a candidate who would support or oppose military aid to Israel. The survey found that 36% of respondents overall backed a candidate who was supportive of military aid, while 37% leaned towards someone who was opposed — and responses broke sharply along partisan lines. By a 67%-9% margin, Republicans said they would support a candidate advocating for Israel aid, while Democrats backed the candidate opposing Israel aid, 53%-17%…
Ally Chemtob, a Democratic member of the New Castle, N.Y., Town Council, yesterday endorsed Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) for reelection, citing his relationship with the Jewish community and record on antisemitism and Middle East policy, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for a dive into Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s attacks on AIPAC and Democratic operative Michael Sacks and what they mean for pro-Israel donors in the deep-blue city.
On the Hill, the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold hearings on how counterterror efforts have evolved in the quarter-century since the 9/11 attacks.
Politico’s Decoded Summit will take place in Washington, with speakers including David Sacks, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Stories You May Have Missed
BOOKSHELF
Speaking to JI about ‘I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends,’ the liberal Fox News co-host also shared her conflicted views on Zohran Mamdani and how Oct. 7 deepened her Jewish identity
YE SAYER
House contender Joel Anabilah-Azumah, a Republican, cast the rapper’s antisemitic posts as criticism of a music-industry ‘power structure’ and questioned arrests in an alleged synagogue plot
Plus, Houthi hits, Saudi sits — so far
(Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
Recording artists Ed Sheeran (L) and Macklemore perform onstage during the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 20, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to senators about how the U.S. could respond to Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, report on New York GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman’s support for a long-shot House candidate who defended Ye’s antisemitic comments, and report on rapper Macklemore‘s removal from the remainder of Ed Sheeran‘s concert tour over his on-stage anti-Israel activism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Wesley Hunt, Jessica Tarlov and Danny Meyer.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
Today marks the sixth anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington. The anniversary of the agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — which has held amid several years of war, during which Israel supplied missile-defense technology to Abu Dhabi — comes at a time of renewed tensions in the region as the Iran-backed Houthis continue to disrupt shipping routes and mount attacks on Saudi targets.
Riyadh — which was on the brink of normalizing relations with Israel prior to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks — now finds itself in what former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney described as the “worst-case scenario” for the Saudis as Iran and its proxies increasingly target the Gulf state. Earlier today, Riyadh vowed to respond “firmly” to the ongoing Houthi attacks.
Those regional tensions will form the backdrop to the Arab Media Summit, which kicks off today in Dubai. Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is set to address the opening session of the annual gathering.
In Washington, Vice President JD Vance will address House Republicans today at a political conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club.
Elsewhere in Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Steve Bannon are slated to speak today at the Future of Life Institute’s AI-focused “Pro-Human Assembly.”
The three-day Eradicate Hate Global Summit begins today in Pittsburgh. Former National Amusements President Shari Redstone, Holocaust survivor Dr. Alfred Garfinkle, commentator Van Jones and political scientist Robert Pape are slated to speak at the annual conference.
At noon ET, the academic consortium CASJE and eJewishPhilanthropy will host a panel discussion, “Who Shapes Campus Conversation? What Research Tells Us About Faculty Attitudes Toward Israel and Jews.” Speakers include Hillel International’s Lisa Armony, the Academic Engagement Network’s Raeefa Shams, the Curricular Review Council’s Yuval Avnur and Leonard Saxe and Graham Wright of Brandeis University., while Vance will represent the White House in attending the memorial ceremony at Ground Zero.
One Thing To Know
ON THE HILL
By Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs
Senators returning to Washington on Monday offered mixed responses to the recent Houthi offensive inside Yemen and Saudi Arabia, with some Republicans telling Jewish Insider that the Iran-backed terror group’s moves warranted a response, while some Democrats framed the Houthi attacks as further fallout from the U.S. war against Iran.
The Iran-backed Yemeni terrorist group seized control of key port cities along the Red Sea coast, near the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait, as well as Perim Island inside the waterway and the Hanish archipelago to the north. The U.S. has thus far declined to intervene.
Republicans who spoke to Jewish Insider said they had not been fully briefed on the situation since returning to Washington on Monday after being away for the Senate’s extended August recess. Still, they said a forceful response from the Saudis was warranted, while Democrats generally framed the Houthi offensive as an extension and expansion of the Iran war.
The Big Reads
mackle-no-more
Macklemore has been dropped from the remainder of singer Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after several venues objected to hosting the rapper, following the rapper’s chants of “Free Palestine” and comments and imagery on Gaza during two recent opening sets for Sheeran, Jewish Insider‘s Haley Cohen reports. Among the eight remaining shows on Sheeran’s tour, Macklemore was set to open for the singer at Massachusetts’ Gillette Stadium, which is owned by Robert Kraft. In an Instagram post, Macklemore claimed that Kraft, the founder of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, rallied the other stadium owners to get him dropped from the venues. Kraft responded that the decision came following Macklemore’s “recent actions” and “history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery,” adding that the rapper crossed a line the stadium would not platform.
YE SAYER
Long-shot Brooklyn Republican House candidate Joel Anabilah-Azumah got a boost last week with an endorsement from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — who hopes to unseat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul with an appeal to fellow New York Jews, particularly those discontented with Democrats’ declining support for Israel. But Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman found that Anabilah-Azumah has criticized Zionism while defending a string of antisemitic remarks by rapper Ye, also known as Kanye West, who the now-candidate hinted was at risk of assassination by Jewish music industry figures.
BOOKSHELF
In her new book, Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov advocates for constructive disagreement — “acknowledge without accepting,” or hearing someone out, hard as it may be, without torching the relationship or one’s own beliefs. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen ahead of Tuesday’s release of I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends, Tarlov pointed to her closely watched sit-down last year with far-left streamer Hasan Piker as evidence that her framework holds even when strained against its limits. Piker was “incredibly nice and gracious,” she recalled, arguing that calls for him to be shut out of Democratic circles are misguided. The exchange highlights the balancing act central to both Tarlov’s book and her on-air image as the primary liberal co-host on the Fox News talk show “The Five.”
The Rundown
ROAD TO RIYADH
on the trail
delay deja vu
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The Pentagon’s inspector general released a congressionally mandated report — the first since the beginning of the conflict with Iran earlier this year — that found that the war has led to a munitions shortfall for the military, as well as some $208 million in damages to the State Department across Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates…
The U.S. filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Iran alleging that the Islamic Republic laundered some $1.5 billion in oil through cryptocurrency networks to benefit the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…
CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah on Monday, as Riyadh continues to face escalating attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen; the Saudi leader reportedly urged President Donald Trump last week to conduct strikes against the Houthis, which Trump refused…
Vice President JD Vance told reporters that the U.S. is in direct contact with the Houthis as well as in continued discussions with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, “so we actually feel like we are on top of the situation” amid growing tensions in the region…
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) returned to the Senate floor on Monday evening for the first time since he was hospitalized after a fall in June, appearing in a wheelchair; in a post on X, the Kentucky Republican wrote, “I’m still not quite back to 100%, but I’ve assured Leader Thune that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our Conference needs me”…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he would not run for president in 2028 if former Vice President Kamala Harris chooses to mount another bid, saying that the Venn diagram of their personal and professional relationships “is just pure crossover. I wouldn’t do that”…
Former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan cut an ad for his wife, Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), for her reelection bid; in the TV spot, Sullivan recounts their meeting at the Munich Security Conference when she approached him “to raise her concerns about some of our foreign policies” while she was working for then-Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sullivan was serving as an advisor to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the Obama administration…
The New York Times profiles Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer ahead of the release of his new book, What Could Possibly Go Right?, which looks at his past business decisions — for better and for worse — and will be released later this month…
Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and several of his fellow activists filed a federal lawsuit against the school, arguing that administrators failed to protect them against harassment they allege that they faced on campus due to their activism…
Widespread protests, the largest since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad in 2024, broke out across Syria after Damascus raised diesel prices by 40% and household gas prices by 9% over the weekend…
The New York Times looks at the Israeli pushback to the film “NAZA,” which premiered on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival; Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called on Jerusalem to revoke the citizenship of the Israeli filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, over the film’s content, which included interviews with anonymous Israeli military and intelligence officials regarding the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza…
Bloomberg reports that Malaysian authorities have for more than a month held three shipments of electric bike parts bound for Israel’s Ashdod port that were seized in mid-August; earlier in August, Malaysia seized a shipment from the Philippines that was bound for Israeli defense manufacturer Elbit Systems…
Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said that Israel’s continued settlement expansion efforts were incompatible with a two-state solution and undermined the prospects of Palestinian statehood…
Jon Gambrell is joining The Wall Street Journal as deputy Middle East bureau chief…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Question Mark: Colossus magazine’s Jeremy Stern profiles Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Unlike the Boomers and Gen X, he is the only trillion-dollar founder of his generation, and Millennials are cringe. He is Jewish and uncool, yet impervious to humiliation. He is, in one man, the personification of responsibility for alt-right populism; leftwing authoritarianism; the death of journalism; polarization; political propaganda; political censorship; the dangers of free speech; human rights violations; teenage depression; body dysmorphia; and male loneliness. He is an emperor for life. He is, in a word, an easy mark.” [Colossus]
No Choice: Politico’s Daniella Cheslow looks at the challenges facing the U.S. as the Iran-backed Houthis scale up their attacks in the Gulf. “The administration could join the fray after Yemeni forces, supported by Saudi Arabia, failed to repel the Houthis’ capture of the Red Sea port of Mokha and three islands key to controlling the waterway. Or the White House could leave the region to sort out the Houthis alone, and bear the pain of oil prices that spiraled up to $109 a barrel Monday. … Neither policy choice for the U.S. is terribly appealing, and one Arab diplomat in the region sensed inaction from the U.S., or ‘a kind of disregard.’” [Politico]
How Not to Teach Your Children: In The Washington Post, Dana Stangel-Plowe, the chief program officer of the North American Values Institute, raises concerns about the increasing politicization of the National Education Association under the leadership of its new president, Princess Moss, who has promoted teacher activism. “In saying so, the president of the nation’s largest teachers union advanced a specific vision for her profession: activism all the way down, no matter how much students struggle to keep up. Her union colleagues are citizens, too, free to have and act on their own political views. But Moss’s vision has no place in the classroom. A teacher’s job isn’t political organizing; it is to educate the nation’s youth.” [WashPost]
Picture of the Day
Noah Wyle celebrated his second consecutive Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series on Monday night for playing Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch in “The Pitt,” which also won outstanding drama series for the second year in a row.
Birthdays
Josh Charles, actor, best known for his roles on “Sports Night” and “The Good Wife,” turns 55
Jac Holzman, founder and former CEO of Elektra Records, he is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, turns 95
Emanuel Tov, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University and a leading scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, turns 85
Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, chief rabbi of Migdal HaEmek, in northern Israel, known as the “Disco Rabbi,” turns 80
Diane Levin, professor emerita of counseling psychology at Boston University’s Wheelock College, turns 79
Ned Rothenberg, composer and multi-instrument musician, turns 70
Michael L. Reiss, television comedy writer, he served as a showrunner, writer and producer for “The Simpsons” and co-created the animated series “The Critic,” turns 67
Aron Uri Raskas, shareholder of law firm Gunster, turns 64
Nina Jacobson, film executive, she produced “The Hunger Games” film series, turns 61
David Magerman, managing partner and chief technology officer at Differential Ventures in Philadelphia, he is also the founder of a series of kosher restaurants, turns 58
David Folkenflik, NPR’s media correspondent, turns 57
Kira Soltanovich, comedian, writer and actor, turns 53
Deborah Leipzig, former VP of leadership at the Anti-Defamation League
Shayla Rosen, customer success manager at Screencastify, event organizer and fundraiser
Anya Kamenetz, author and longtime education correspondent at NPR, turns 46
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, data scientist, economist and author of the 2017 New York Times bestseller Everybody Lies, turns 44
Evan D. Goldberg, screenwriter, film producer and director, often in collaboration with his childhood friend Seth Rogen, turns 44
Yael Markovich, model and Israeli beauty pageant winner, turns 42
Jonah Raskas, CEO of Harmon Face Values
Josh Gruenbaum, senior advisor to the Board of Peace, he was the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, turns 41
Amanda Bresler, chief strategy officer at PW Communications
Eliza Shapiro, reporter at The New York Times covering NYC affordability issues
Roni Dalumi, singer and actor, she was the 2009 winner of the Israeli version of “A Star is Born,” turns 35
Shani Hazan, beauty pageant titleholder, she was crowned Miss Israel 2012, turns 34
Jeff Lewis, Arizona philanthropist and founder of the Froth and Bubble Foundation
Plus, Bibi's Big Apple trip tests Mamdani
Philip Dulian/picture alliance via Getty Images
Several AI applications can be seen on a smartphone screen, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Grok and DeepSeek.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the political and logistical challenges facing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the NYPD ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the city for the U.N. General Assembly, spotlight a new report from Anthropic that revealed that Iran-linked actors used AI tools to target Jews and develop weapons, and talk to GOP Reps. David Kustoff and Craig Goldman about their party’s position on U.S. aid to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Kraft, Stuart Zimmer and Judge Judith Sheindlin.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve.
Today’s Agenda
Members of Congress are back in Washington today for the final week before the House goes on recess until the November midterms. The Senate is also back in session today, and is slated to remain so until early October.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is holding its general conference in Vienna today, where Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to deliver a speech in which he will reiterate U.S. opposition to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Mohammad Eslami, Iran’s vice president for nuclear affairs, had been slated to address the gathering convened by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, but was denied entry to Austria, Bloomberg reports, following pressure from the Trump administration. In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Austrian envoy over Vienna’s move to bar the Iranian nuclear chief.
We’re also keeping an eye on tensions in the Middle East as the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen scale up their attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government launches its own attacks on the Houthis. The escalation comes after the Houthis’ capture last week of the Yemeni port city of Mokha and an island on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, as well as Riyadh’s shutdown on Friday of its East-West pipeline amid the escalation.
Elsewhere in the region, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said on Sunday that a meeting between Iran and Gulf countries over the Strait of Hormuz — intended to be held in Oman today — had been indefinitely postponed, citing “the interests of consensus.”
U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon in Rome that had been slated for this week have been postponed to October, with an Israeli official saying that the rescheduled meeting was due to scheduling conflicts. The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors in Washington are still slated to meet in Foggy Bottom ahead of the October talks to discuss the implementation of a framework agreement to wind down the conflict in Lebanon and disarm Hezbollah.
One Thing To Know
Analysis
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to New York City for the U.N. General Assembly next week is expected to set up political and logistical challenges for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one of Netanyahu’s foremost U.S. critics, experts tell Jewish Insider — a challenge that protests, which Mamdani has tacitly encouraged, may only exacerbate.
The Israeli leader is scheduled to arrive in New York on Sept. 23 and address the annual gathering the following day, during which time the NYPD’s dignitary protection detail will help ensure Netanyahu’s personal protection, its intelligence and counterterrorism teams will work to secure the gathering as a whole and an array of its officers will manage the Manhattan streets. The department reports to the mayor’s office.
The various law enforcement veterans who spoke to JI all underscored the scale of the department’s annual efforts to head off potential threats to the diplomatic summit, even without this year’s furor around Netanyahu’s attendance, the ongoing conflict with Iran and the proximity to both the Jewish High Holy Days and the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
The Big Reads
CLAUDE CONTROLS
Anthropic disclosed in a new report released on Thursday that it had over the past eight months disrupted efforts by Iran and other state-aligned groups and actors to use the AI giant’s artificial intelligence tools for “malicious activity” such as tracking U.S. forces, developing weapons guidance software and waging “cognitive warfare” to spread propaganda, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. The 154-page report also said it had identified an “Iran-nexus threat actor” using Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, to target “hundreds of individuals in Israel and the Jewish diaspora.” The report did not specify the purpose of the activity or confirm whether it had been disabled.
AI alert: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay on Saturday, calling on the AI industry to slow down and was met with agreement by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind Chairman Demis Hassabis and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
SELF SCRUTINY
A new survey of 470 Middle East scholars finds that nearly three-quarters believe American academia is less equipped to pursue truth than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks, while two-thirds lack confidence that their students understand the attacks and say American academia has provided cover for ideologies, regimes or groups hostile to the United States, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The findings, released last week by the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, reflect what ASMEA’s executive director, Asaf Romirowsky, described as a broader failure by American universities to maintain objectivity and intellectual rigor in the quarter century since the attacks.
AID CONVERSATION
Jewish House Republicans said during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership summit in Las Vegas earlier this month that there’s little appetite among Republicans to end U.S. aid to Israel as the two sides look toward the end of the current memorandum of understanding on military aid, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. “I think the message is that the majority of the members of the House want to see the aid continue, want to see this alliance continue, but elections have consequences, and we don’t know what the makeup of the next House is going to be on the Republican side and on the Democrat side,” Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN) told JI. Rep. Craig Goldman (R-TX) emphasized that Israel and the United States are facing threats not only from Iran and its nuclear program but also from the terrorist groups that Iran has spent decades funding. “I certainly will fight tooth and nail as long as I’m a member of [the] U.S. Congress to continue aid to Israel,” Goldman said.
The Rundown
NUCLEAR NEWS
EXCLUSIVE
Doha Dealings
FLAGGING FICTION
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump, speaking in Ireland on Sunday, suggested that the U.S. “ultimately get out” of Iran “unless we decide to stay and keep the oil, like Venezuela,” adding that Iran “wants to make a deal so badly, and is calling constantly”…
Jared Kushner said in virtual remarks to the Yalta European Strategy conference on Friday that the U.S. used Israel’s September 2025 “errant strike” targeting Hamas officials in Qatar to pressure Jerusalem to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza, saying that the strike “led to Israel being globally isolated,” creating a dynamic the U.S. “used … in order to push them into a deal that now, today, they’re quite happy with.” Watch the conversation here.
In response to Kushner’s comments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party issued a statement pushing back on the remarks, saying that Netanyahu’s “decision to send the IDF into Gaza City and to strike the Hamas leadership in Qatar, together with the intense pressure exerted by President Trump” led to Hamas dropping its demands as well as the release of the remaining hostages.
The New Yorker does a deep dive into Kushner’s approach to diplomacy as he represents the Trump administration in a voluntary capacity in negotiations to end a number of conflicts around the world while continuing to manage his own business interests, finding that “as [Kushner] has traversed the globe for Trump, he has grown more entangled in the commercial affairs of countries where he works”…
France and Lebanon are pushing to extend the mandate of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which is slated to expire at the end of this year, calling the move to end the decades-long U.N. presence in southern Lebanon “premature”…
The National Security Agency is planning a massive internal restructuring that will see the creation of five organizations within the agency that will focus on artificial intelligence, China, cybersecurity, combat support and global intelligence…
Front Line Action, a group linked to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), released an AI-generated ad titled “Family Values” that spotlights relatives of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed who have made anti-Israel and anti-America statements…
Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-OH) reelection campaign fired its political director following a Washington Post report last week that he had in 2018 used an image of Nazi SS soldiers as his Facebook profile picture…
The Boulder Valley School District in Colorado settled a federal civil rights complaint with the Anti-Defamation League and the family of a Jewish middle schooler in the district who faced what the ADL described as years of “persistent, escalating, and severe antisemitic harassment” that went unaddressed by administrators in the district…
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft donated $10 million to Brandeis University to name a new 28,000-square-foot facility for Jewish life, expected to open in spring 2028, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports…
Philanthropist Stuart Zimmer, who with his wife in 2018 had pledged $100 million to Harvard University but froze the gift in response to the school’s handling of campus anti-Israel activity in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks while their daughter studied at the school, quietly resumed funding; the gift will help expand kosher dining options on campus and will include the renaming of the school’s Science Center to honor Zimmer’s father…
CBS’ “60 Minutes” premiered its 59th season with an interview with the U.S. Air Force officer who was shot down over Iran and stranded in the Islamic Republic for two days before being rescued during the conflict earlier this year…
The Hollywood Reporter spotlights SHOOQ, a new online platform designed to boost Jewish filmmakers and help connect them to funding streams and financial backers; among those backing the initiative are former NBC Co-chair Ben Silverman, 30 West CEO Micah Green, Made by Us Co-CEO Tanya Cohen, actress Emmanuelle Chriqui and producer Anthony Bregman…
Singer-songwriter Pink published a lengthy statement explaining her criticism of rapper Macklemore, who led “Free Palestine” chants while opening for Ed Sheeran at a concert earlier this month, saying that the artist “stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them”…
Judge Judith Sheindlin — known as Judge Judy — is stepping back from the cameras after a decades-long television career as Amazon Prime stops releasing new episodes of her “Judy Justice” show; Sheindlin will serve as an executive producer for a new show starring her son, attorney Adam Levy…
Germany’s federal prosecutor said in an indictment filed last week that Hamas had planned terror attacks in Berlin and Vienna on the second anniversary of its Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel; authorities in Germany made several arrests last year in connection with the alleged plots…
A Jewish Iranian-American man from New York who had been held in Tehran’s Evin prison was released from the notorious facility after serving approximately half of a two-year sentence but remains banned from leaving the Islamic Republic…
The New York Times spotlights the wedding of Adriana Fernandez, who has gained an internet following as “Now-Jewish Nanny,” and Jordan Langer…
Kimberly Colchamiro was announced as the new chief development officer of the Jewish Broadcasting Service…
Israeli planetary scientist Adi Ninio Greenberg died at 50… Longtime political columnist Roger Simon died at 78… Rachel Rabin Yaakov, the sister of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, died at 101… Luthier Jonathan Cooper, who designed a quartet of string instruments to honor slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, died at 76… Photographer Jay Maisel died at 95… Yehuda Widawski, believed to be the oldest Holocaust survivor in Israel, died at 107…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Hard-liners in Charge: The New York Times’ Farnaz Fassihi does a deep dive into the effort by Iranian hard-liners earlier this year to derail the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran. “The hard-liners succeeded in part because the only figure with the authority to resolve such disputes — the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei — has been a phantom since taking office in March. … Three Iranian officials said inquiries by the government and security forces traced the decision to strike the three commercial ships in July to the cleric Hossein Taeb, an influential spymaster who had opposed the peace deal with the United States from the outset.” [NYTimes]
Definition Debate: In The Wall Street Journal, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Orde Kittrie and Andres Munoz-Mosquera, a former NATO chief legal advisor, warn of an effort tied to an International Court of Justice case involving Gambia and Myanmar that would change the definition of genocide. “The Myanmar judgment, expected in October, would establish the lower threshold before the ICJ judgment on Israel. It would change the rule first in the less-watched case against Myanmar rather than seemingly invent it for Israel. … ICJ judges who vote to lower the genocide threshold will damage the court’s credibility, invite an avalanche of politicized cases, and undercut democracies’ ability to fight terrorists and autocrats.” [WSJ]
Lambasting London: In Haaretz, Peter Lerner, director general of international relations at the Histadrut and a former IDF spokesperson, argues that Britain’s move to impose sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank may prove to be politically counterproductive. “Britain has handed Netanyahu and his coalition an electoral gift. Extremists in the current government will present the sanctions as proof that the world is hostile to Israel and Israelis. … At the very moment Israelis must decide whether to replace the most extreme government in the country’s history, London has provided that government with an external enemy.” [Haaretz]
Picture of the Day
Birthdays
Walter Koenig, actor, writer and director, first known for his role as Chekov in the original “Star Trek” television series, turns 90
Lawrence Harvey “Larry” Brown, the only basketball head coach to have won both an NCAA national championship and an NBA championship, turns 86
Larry A. Mizel, founder of MDC Holdings (parent company to Richmond American Homes), CEO of the Mizel-Mandarich Foundation and the primary supporter of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, turns 84
Frederick A. Schenk, San Diego-based attorney, a specialist in mass torts, turns 73
Daniella Levine Cava, mayor of Miami-Dade County, turns 71
Pope Leo XIV, born in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost, turns 71
Dr. Terry Dubrow, plastic surgeon and television personality, turns 68
Thomas Scott Kaplan, chairman and chief investment officer of The Electrum Group, he is the world’s largest private collector of Rembrandt’s works, turns 64
Amy Kauffman, founder of Mindchat Research
Paul Budnitz, founder of Vermont-based Kidrobot, a retailer of art toys, apparel and accessories, and Ello, an ad-free social network, turns 59
Sir Grant Shapps, British secretary of state for defence until 2024 and knighted in 2025, he was a national president of BBYO, turns 58
Richard Strauss, president of Strauss Media Strategies, during the Clinton administration he became the first-ever White House radio director, turns 57
Ketanji Brown Jackson, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, turns 56
Mark A. Semer, managing director at Gasthalter & Co., he is a past president of the Young Israel of New Rochelle
Elon Gold, comedian, television actor, writer and producer, turns 56
Elliot S. Berke, managing partner of Berke Farah LLP, his clients include Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter for CBS News
Dana Sheanin, CEO of San Francisco-based Jewish LearningWorks
Courtney Cohen Flantzer, senior booking producer at CNN’s “Inside Politics with Dana Bash”
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and former 2024 POTUS candidate, turns 48
Hani Furstenberg, Israeli-American Actor, turns 47
Marisa Scheinfeld, artist, photographer and educator, turns 46
Russell Berman, staff writer at The Atlantic since 2014
Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive Indivisible movement
Roxana Pourshalimi, Los Angeles-based attorney working as a contracts supervisor at MarketCast
Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times reporter since 2011, now focused on in-depth profiles
Jeremy Moskowitz, EVP at Voyager Global Mobility
Arkadiy Abramovich, founder and owner of ARA Capital, a British firm with holdings in e-commerce and energy, he is the son of Roman Abramovich, turns 33
Julia Savel, MSW graduate at Yeshiva University
Lihie Raz, artistic gymnast, she represented Israel at the 2020 (Tokyo) and 2024 (Paris) Summer Olympics, turns 23
Plus, Tom Barrack's Israel bypass
(Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks during a demonstration outside of a federal immigration office after a man was fatally shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, on July 14, 2026 in Scarborough, Maine.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how pro-Israel advocates are adjusting their approaches to Democratic lawmakers following last week’s failed vote to cut U.S. aid to Israel that garnered the support of 103 House Democrats, and report on antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker’s surprise appearance at a College Democrats of America convention over the weekend. We talk to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro about Israel’s ability to repair its relationships in the U.S., and look at U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack’s effort to create a Middle East trade alignment that excludes Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, Michael Rubin and Judit Polgar.
We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Tensions in the Middle East continue to rise following the deaths of four U.S. service members resulting from Iranian attacks targeting U.S. bases in Jordan and Iraq. As the White House considers a broader offensive against Iran, it is moving dozens of military refueling planes to Israel.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, told reporters before departing for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines on Sunday that the U.S. was still open to diplomacy with Tehran. “We’ve tried multiple times with Iran, and we’ll continue to try. If that door opens, we’ll be happy to see it open,” Rubio said. “Their behavior has to change in order for ours to change.”
- Before departing for Manila, Rubio met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who is in Washington this week, where he’s slated to meet with President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
- Support is growing for former Maine state Sen. Troy Jackson to succeed Graham Platner as the Democratic Party’s nominee to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), with most of Jackson’s rivals dropping their bids ahead of the state party’s nominating convention set for Saturday. More below.
- Keir Starmer delivered his final address as U.K. prime minister today before formally submitting his resignation to King Charles III. Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham then separately traveled to Buckingham Palace to meet with the king and accept his request to form a new government.
- In Israel, Yair Golan’s Democrats party is holding its primary today to determine its slate for the upcoming election.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
July was scheduled to offer a break from primary politics, but two seismic developments this month — the collapse of scandal-plagued Graham Platner’s campaign in Maine and the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — are forcing both parties to deal with messy internal conflicts as they choose replacements in these key races.
The outcome of the July 25 Maine Democratic convention choosing an alternative candidate to run against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and the Aug. 11 special election primary to choose a GOP nominee for Graham’s seat are offering clarity on the ideological directions of the two parties as the November midterm elections approach.
Already, we’re seeing that Democrats want to nominate a candidate as ideologically similar to Platner as possible, with most of the convention delegates chosen this weekend gravitating towards former state Senate President Troy Jackson, an anti-Israel progressive who unsuccessfully ran for governor this year as a champion of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
As Maine counties completed the process of choosing delegates for the nominating convention, Jackson’s campaign expressed confidence that he rallied enough backers to secure a victory. Most of his leading rivals dropped out of the race on Sunday, indicating that the state party is clearly intent on pushing forward a candidate that shares Platner’s anti-establishment, left-wing worldview but without the personal baggage he brought to the table.
TRUST FALL
After 104 members of the House voted last week in favor of an amendment to eliminate all $3.3 billion in annual military aid to Israel, pro-Israel activists across the country who have spent years building ties with lawmakers are now wondering how to approach those relationships following a vote that some see as a betrayal, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Looking ahead: Several friends and backers of the members of Congress who voted for the amendment told JI that a single vote on a measure that was sure to fail should not spell the end of years of friendship. But even as they acknowledged the seismic reverberations of the vote, many also spoke of the need to tread carefully at a politically uncertain moment. “Our issues are too important to not hold onto the ability to have a conversation with the person, because the votes are not going to end. It’s not going to all of a sudden stop,” Sam Lauter, a major Democratic donor and pro-Israel activist, said. He talked to several members of Congress in the days before the vote, urging them to vote no.
Silent rebuke: AIPAC will no longer allow donations through its political action committee to 18 lawmakers it endorsed who voted in favor of the legislation. The group did not announce the change. But the endorsement page on AIPAC’s political giving portal — where supporters can donate to candidates who have been endorsed by AIPAC — removed the option for individuals to route money to those lawmakers.
SPEAKER SCRUTINY
J Street’s college group sponsored the College Democrats of America convention over the weekend that featured far-left, antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker. J Street U, the student organizing arm of J Street, “is proud to sponsor and participate in the College Democrats Convention,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, told Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen on Friday, hours after Piker was announced as the convention’s “surprise speaker.”
J Street’s position: “We had no role in the selection of speakers and we’re sure there will be speakers — including Hasan Piker — with whom we disagree,” said Ben-Ami. “Being in venues like this is even more important when there are participants with whom we disagree. Failing to show up would be an abdication of our responsibility to make the case for our pro-Israel views.”
Turning tides: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) told CNN he left the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year — and decided not to run for reelection this year — in part because of the rise of socialist leadership in the caucus. The Democrat said there’s now a growing contingent of anti-Israel Democrats as well within the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he said was not present when he first came to the Hill, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
TRADE ROUTES
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack on Friday promoted a new regional trade and security alignment in the Middle East centered around Iraq, Turkey and neighboring Arab states, appearing to sideline a similar regional project including Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
What he said: Speaking at the U.S.-Iraq Business Summit, Barrack told attendees that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who visited with President Donald Trump at the White House last week, is considering a transformative agreement. “What this young leader [al-Zaidi] has in mind — aligned with Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt — is a program that will make the Strait of Hormuz an afterthought in two years,” Barrack said. “We’re going from just-in-time delivery on boats through these minor straits to just-in-case delivery going the other way.”
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
As the Trump administration moves to end the diplomatic isolation of Syria, dismantling decades of U.S. sanctions in the process, lawmakers are offering mixed assessments of whether Washington should have conditioned that relief on steps toward normalizing relations with Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
What they said: Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said the Trump administration “should be urging” Damascus to improve economic and political relations with Jerusalem in exchange for sanctions relief, “but I would say that you’ve got to have a consistent standard.” Sherman noted he would “like to see Syria move in that direction,” toward joining the Abraham Accords, “even if they can’t join the accords yet.” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) agreed that the Trump administration should be pursuing normalization as part of its efforts with Damascus, but said the current focus on prioritizing stability is a “worthwhile objective” and “positive” effort. “I think a stable, democratic [Syria] may be too much of a hope, but a stable and non-terrorist-supporting Syria is important to the Middle East and to the United States of America and to some type of global stability,” Hoyer told JI.
Read the full story here, with additional comments from Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Troy Nehls (R-TX) and Tim Burchett (R-TN).
HEARD AT ASPEN
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum last week that without new leadership in Israel — meaning a defeat for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections — he does not know how Israel can repair its reputation in the United States.
Notable quotable: “I don’t see a path to repairing Israel’s deteriorating standing in the United States on both sides of the aisle without a change of leadership in Israel,” Shapiro told JI, a sentiment he repeated during a panel on Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship at the conference. Speaking to JI shortly after more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel, Shapiro said that, while there’s “legitimate ground for concern and for criticism” of Israel’s operations in Gaza, cutting off all $3.3 billion wholesale is not “a very thoughtful way” to address concerns about civilian harm and that maintaining the U.S.-Israel relationship remains in America’s interests.
IRAN ADD-ON
President Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to incorporate sanctions against Iran into the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) bipartisan legislation sanctioning Russia and countries that buy Russian oil was met with confusion by some of the Democrats supporting the bill, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Dem dismay: “Our Russia sanctions bill was meticulously crafted during painstaking, sometimes painful negotiations over many months,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who spearheaded the effort alongside Graham for over a year, told JI in a statement. “This bill should move forward as quickly as possible — as is — without additional provisions, which can be done separately.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Bloomberg’s “This Weekend” on Sunday that, “Sen. Graham never raised the concern about putting Iranian sanctions on the bill.”
Institution clash: Annalena Baerbock, the president of the United Nations General Assembly and former foreign minister of Germany, on Friday criticized the Board of Peace, the U.S.-led body responsible for managing the ceasefire in Gaza, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Worthy Reads
Swamp Creatures: In his Substack, Erick Erickson examines “self-dealing” among Trump administration officials who have personally financially benefited from their professional roles, despite President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” “It does not matter whether each arrangement is technically legal. The swamp was never a legal problem; it was a trust problem. When the party that promised to end influence-peddling instead perfects it — when access to the president can be bought with a memecoin and a black-tie ticket — the lesson every ambitious operator learns is that the spoils go to whoever holds power, and restraint is for suckers. That is the real cost.” [Substack]
Taking on Tehran Together: In the Arab News, former White House Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt posits that unified Gulf states — which over the last six months have all sustained attacks from Iran — can push back against the Islamic Republic’s malign behavior in the region. “The scale and consequences differed by country. The decision behind them did not. Six governments. One regime deciding, each time, that Gulf territory was a legitimate target. … The differing intensity of Iran’s attacks reflects Tehran’s country-by-country calibration of pressure. Iran weighs its own exposure, the relationships it still hopes to preserve, how much pressure it mistakenly believes it can place on Washington, and how much pressure it wants to place directly on each Gulf government.” [ArabNews]
The Future of Faith: In The Washington Post, David DeSteno considers how religiously engaged people are interacting with AI on issues of moral guidance. “As of yet, the data don’t show that people of faith are forsaking the moral teachings and advice of clergy in favor of that offered by AI; they’re utilizing both. But that might soon change. … According to Anthropic’s own research, its AI chatbot Claude just happens to be most sycophantic when it discusses spiritual themes, meaning that it could be especially persuasive while dispensing moral and religious advice.” [WashPost]
A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.
Word on the Street
Joining President Donald Trump in his suite at MetLife Stadium for Spain’s 1-0 win over Argentina in Sunday’s World Cup final were Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, First Lady Melania Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Andrew Giuliani, Barron and Eric Trump and Robert Kraft…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) rejected claims, including those made recently by Vice President JD Vance, of Israeli influence over Trump’s decision-making on Iran, calling it “a fool’s run to place blame on him supposedly being dictated by others”…
Abdul El-Sayed, who is up against Stevens in next month’s Michigan Democratic Senate primary, deflected a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday’s “State of the Union” about audio in which El-Sayed was heard telling staff there were “a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad” over the death of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; in response, El-Sayed criticized the war with Iran and the recent deaths of U.S. service members…
Iran reportedly moved $6 billion in oil out of the country during the roughly four weeks that the Strait of Hormuz was open in accordance with the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran…
The Wall Street Journal looks at Iranian efforts to make Jordan a flashpoint in its war with the U.S., which stations thousands of soldiers at a base in the country — three of whom were killed in an Iranian ballistic missile attack last week…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told The New York Times he was in “an active conversation” with legal officials regarding the potential arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to travel to New York in September for the U.N. General Assembly; Mamdani had said during his campaign for mayor that he would order the arrest of Netanyahu should the Israeli leader travel to New York, despite doubts from experts over the legality of such a move…
Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, who leads the Boca Raton Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation in South Florida, is urging members of his congregation to register as Democrats ahead of the upcoming Florida primary in order to help Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) fend off a far-left primary challenger, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin wrapped tefillin — reportedly for the first time — at Fanatics Fest in New York over the weekend…
eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross talks to Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, about the group’s engagement with education associations and unions on efforts to address antisemitism…
The Wall Street Journal profiles Emily Austin, a sports and pro-Israel influencer with deep ties to the Trump administration who leveraged her relationships in Washington to score a gig as a content creator for FIFA during the World Cup…
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced the nomination of Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgar, who is Jewish, to serve as the country’s interim president…
An Israir plane slated to depart from London’s Luton Airport last week was damaged by an aircraft tug — the third such incident involving an Israir flight at that airport in the last year — prompting concerns that the airline is being targeted by ground workers…
The Wall Street Journal does a deep dive into a $700 million effort by Israel to help improve its global public image, including a $45 million contract with Trump ally Brad Parscale, as well as through influencers and AI-generated texting campaigns…
Cisco is in advanced talks with Zafran Security to purchase the Israeli cybersecurity startup for between $150-200 million…
The Associated Press reports on how a conflict between the Bank of Israel and the Palestinian Monetary Authority as Israel caps the amount of shekels it takes back from the West Bank is causing cash surpluses in the territory…
Fortune compares and contrasts the power of the Israeli shekel and the Japanese yen as the former gains strength and the yen, once one of the world’s strongest currencies, drops in value…
NPR looks at efforts by Israeli paraglider Amnonn Hahn to help swifts during their migration to Israel for the spring nesting season as the global population of the birds faces a steep decline…
The New York Times spotlights the wedding of Pamela Soberman and Rabbi Beni Summers, who met at a Jewish singing retreat in upstate New York…
Simone Kanter, who previously worked for Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), is joining Tusk Strategies as a vice president in the group’s public affairs practice…
Israeli actor and singer Shoshik Shani died at 91…
Shoshana Bryen, the senior policy director at the Jewish Policy Center, died last week…
Pic of the Day
Birthdays
Actor and comedian, Joey Bragg turns 30…
Retired U.S. senator (D-MD), Barbara Mikulski turns 90… Professor emeritus of mathematics at Penn State University, Paul Baum turns 90… Retired president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman turns 83… Long-time Israeli diplomat, he served as Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Yoram Ben-Zeev turns 82… Former commissioner on the Civil Rights Commission, assistant secretary of HUD in the Clinton administration, presently vice chair of the Bank of San Francisco, Roberta Achtenberg turns 76… Senior U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts, Judge Patti B. Saris turns 75… New York Times weekly columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Thomas Loren Friedman turns 73… Molecular geneticist at NYC-based Rockefeller University and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Jeffrey M. Friedman turns 72… Broadcast and digital media consultant, Farrell Meisel… Professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Barbara Risman turns 70… Past president of the Women’s Department at the Jewish Federation of Detroit, she is the mother of fashion designers Matthew and Alex, Marcie Hermelin Orley… Head of a women-led political network for the U.S.-Israel relationship, also a mahjong instructor, Linleigh Ayn Richker… Public policy expert and author, Jane S. Hoffman turns 62… Former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, she is a brigadier general in the IDF (res.), Nira Shpak turns 60… Member of Knesset for the United Torah Judaism party, Yitzhak Ze’ev Pindros turns 55… Attorney, Jack Achiezer Guggenheim… SVP, Washington bureau chief and political director of CNN, where he oversees the political coverage across all of CNN’s platforms, David Marc Chalian turns 53… Author of World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, he is a staff writer at The Atlantic, Franklin Foer turns 52… Miami-based EVP at AIPAC, David Fox… Singer who came on the scene as a finalist on the fifth season of “American Idol,” Efraym Elliott Yamin turns 48… Assistant commissioner in the Community Affairs Bureau at the NYPD, Fred Kreizman… Co-founder and managing partner of the communications and branding firm of Main+Rose, Beth Doane… Co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive Indivisible movement, Ezra Levin turns 41… Former MLB player, he was a shortstop for Team Israel in 2023, Ty Kelly turns 38… Comedian and former regular player on “Saturday Night Live,” Chloe Fineman turns 38… Software engineer at Home Chef, Ashley Abramowicz Gibbs… Anesthesiologist, Dr. Sheila Ganjian Navi… VP of business development and operations at Thyme Care, Etan Raskas… Principal at Blackstone, Jonathan Tamir Alden… Intellectual property attorney at Ballard Spahr, Goldie Fields…
Plus, Jeffries vows change to Israel policy under Dems
(Photo by Nathan Howard - Pool/Getty Images)
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance arrives at Ben Gurion airport on October 21, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Good Thursday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) vowed today that should Democrats regain control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, the party will adopt a “broadly inclusive” but fundamentally new approach to policy on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
“The situation relative to the United States’ relationship with Israel, the Palestinian people and policy in the Middle East has to change because the current status quo is unsustainable,” Jeffries said at a press conference, following yesterday’s vote by more than 100 House Democrats to cut aid to Israel…
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement about his “very close” vote in support of the amendment to end aid to Israel that he’s “deeply concerned” about hostile actions taken by those on the far left to pressure him to support such a measure, including having his home vandalized, a staff member assaulted and a fire set in his driveway.
He insisted he still supports the Jewish state but said he voted in favor “to try once more to get the attention of the Israeli government,” with which he disagrees…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) again insisted that he has no plans to leave the Democratic Party, but said he would do so if it “officially” becomes “the anti-Israel party,” during an appearance at the Hill Nation Summit in Washington yesterday…
Even as CENTCOM initiated a sixth straight day of strikes on Iran this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Tehran “very much continues to talk to the United States of America and express that they want to make a deal with us”…
Leavitt declined to address directly if President Donald Trump agrees with the assessment shared by Vice President JD Vance on a podcast yesterday that Israeli actors are engaged in influence campaigns to change U.S. public opinion on the Iran war: “The president would certainly agree that foreign countries certainly try to persuade American public opinion. There’s no doubt about that. I think it’s just a basic fact,” she said, without addressing Israel…
Israel’s Foreign Ministry denounced as “defamatory” a story in Time magazine referenced by Vance as evidenceof his allegations about Israeli influence campaigns: “All of our activities are transparent and are conducted in strict compliance with U.S. law. … We certainly do not interfere in any U.S. foreign or domestic policy,” the Foreign Ministry stated, without referring to Vance by name.
The ministry said it had “lawfully contracted with an experienced digital agency” to work to combat antisemitism and strengthen support for the U.S.-Israel relationship…
David Alan Scheer II, the son-in-law of U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), has built a following as a pro-white nationalist social media influencer and has shared antisemitic and pro-Nazi material online, CNN reports.
Scheer has promoted conspiracies that Jews are responsible for the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 terror attacks, among other claims, and said one antisemitic graphic he shared was made by his wife, Collins’ daughter. It’s the latest incident of Collins being closely tied to far-right figures as he attempts to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)…
Ossoff called on Collins to “apologize immediately for his and his office’s disqualifying ties to neo-Nazi ideology and notorious white supremacists,” calling him a “known bigot and antisemite.” Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Jewish Democrat, said of Collins, “Being pro-Israel is not a hall pass for antisemitism”…
The Wall Street Journal examines what is known about Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, amid reports that Trump is looking into striking the highly fortified underground facility. Experts believe the site could be large enough to “hold a centrifuge enrichment plant capable of producing weapon-grade uranium” and potentially manufacture nuclear weapon delivery components…
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis in Yemen, warned today that the terror group will target “all Saudi oil installations and highly vital facilities” with drone and missile attacks if Saudi Arabia escalates its operations in Yemen, the latest sign of a potential breakdown in the yearslong truce between the Houthis and Riyadh…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for a look at the gaps left in the Republican Party by the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the jockeying in the Senate to fill them.
The Aspen Security Forum wraps up in Colorado tomorrow with a live taping of the “Pod Save the World” podcast with former Obama administration staffers Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, in conversation with Annalena Baerbock, president of the U.N. General Assembly.
American Friends of Magen David Adom is hosting a summer conversation series across the country with “Fauda” star Lior Raz, kicking off tomorrow in Long Branch, N.J.
We’ll be back with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
Stories You May Have Missed
SEAT SHAKE-UP
The president called Fry, who defeated a Republican backing his impeachment in 2021, a ‘very, very talented person’ in an interview this week
exclusive
Robert Kraft’s antisemitism awareness group found 30% of the public now holds antisemitic attitudes — the highest level since it began tracking in 2023
Vance dances with Israel conspiracy theories
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
U.S. Capitol building on July 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on yesterday’s House vote in which 103 Democrats backed an amendment from GOP Rep. Thomas Massie calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, and cover Vice President JD Vance’s comments to Joe Rogan alleging an Israeli influence campaign that was “manipulating” U.S. opinion on the Iran war. We have the scoop on a series of meetings this week between Board of Peace officials and congressional offices as the Trump-backed group seeks to raise $200 million for a peacekeeping force, and look at the race in South Carolina to succeed Sen. Lindsey Graham. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Kraft, Robert O’Brien and Harry Stebbings.
We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is slated to meet with Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) today at 9:30 a.m. ET in the Oval Office, two days after she was sworn in to her late brother’s seat. Tonight, Trump will give a prime-time address at 9 p.m. that is expected to include allegations that China meddled in the 2020 elections.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not planning to travel to Washington next week, following reports that Lindsey Graham‘s funeral, which had been rumored to be scheduled for Tuesday, will take place later in July. The Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu will now travel to Washington at the end of the month.
- This morning at the Aspen Security Forum, Jordanian Foreign Affairs Minister Ayman Safadi is slated to sit for a fireside chat with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
- Following their conversation, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), American Global Strategies’ Rob Greenway and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Karim Sadjadpour will join a panel on Iran, followed by a panel on Israel featuring American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and Israeli pollster Dahlia Scheindlin.
- The forum’s afternoon sessions will focus on geopolitics and emerging technologies, with Andreessen Horowitz partner Anne Neuberger, who served as the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology in the Biden administration, set to join a panel on AI’s impact on national security.
- Immediately after, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel — newly returned from his trip to Israel last week — will speak on a panel on the Indo-Pacific. Focus then shifts to the Middle East, with former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad joining a panel on finding middle ground in the region.
- The American Federation of Teachers’ biennial convention kicks off this morning in Washington.
- In Maine, local news outlet News Center Maine is hosting a debate for eight of the Democrats seeking to replace former Senate candidate Graham Platner on the ballot following his withdrawal from the race. The debate comes as Maine Democrats find themselves split over whom to support at the party’s nominating convention later this month, in which hundreds of yet-to-be-selected state party delegates will choose a candidate to replace Platner, who withdrew earlier this month after a former romantic partner accused him of rape.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Marc rOD
More than 100 House Democrats — just under half of the party’s caucus — voted to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel on Wednesday, marking another flashpoint in the party’s growing disillusionment with the Jewish state. It’s a result that would have been almost unimaginable even a year ago.
The fact that the number of anti-Israel votes included several longtime pro-Israel Democrats who had previously been endorsed by AIPAC — like Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Pat Ryan (D-NY) — is a sign that even some members in the mainstream wing of the party are running scared of a potential primary threat from the left.
Combined with the Senate vote earlier this year in which 40 Democrats voted for a measure led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to block shipments of some weapons to the Jewish state, the message is clear: Israel can no longer count on reliable support from the Democratic Party.
And voting for the equivalent of a wrecking ball to the U.S.-Israel relationship — an amendment that even vocal critics of Israel described as flawed and a calculated political stunt by Republicans — is no longer a nonstarter for congressional Democrats. With a more carefully crafted amendment presented by a member without Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) baggage, the margin in support could have been greater.
Despite the significance of the Democratic defections on Israel, it’s also notable that nearly all of the Democrats in swing districts or running in closely watched battleground Senate races stood by their support of Israel and voted against the amendment.
Only two of the 16 House Democrats facing the most competitive races — districts the Cook Political Report rates as “Lean Democratic,” “Toss Up” or favoring Republicans — voted for the Massie amendment.
vance’s view
Vice President JD Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan on Wednesday that he is worried American politicians are being swayed by Israeli “influence campaigns.” In the three-hour interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance warned of a “very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign” to derail negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
What he said: “[Israel is] a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people. And so, of course, they’re going to try to persuade Americans. They’re going to try to move Americans in one direction or another,” Vance told Rogan. He noted that Israel’s efforts to influence American foreign policy are not themselves suspect — “a lot of other countries do [it],” Vance said — but, rather, that American officials will act in ways that do not serve the American public as a result of Israel’s urging.
HEARD AT ASPEN
Robert O’Brien, who served as national security advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, said on Wednesday that the U.S. should target Iran’s oil infrastructure with the goal of choking off its economy — and predicted that the president is moving in that direction, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports from the Aspen Security Forum.
Security strategy: The former national security advisor said on a panel that Trump had been “very, very generous” with Iran but he believes that Trump’s “patience” with Iran is running thin. The next steps, he predicted, would be for the U.S. to “hit them hard” and “finish the job” by targeting sites connected with Iran’s oil infrastructure, including the facilities at Kharg Island, in order to deprive Iran of its ability to produce and export oil.
SCOOP
Three senior U.S. officials connected to the Board of Peace, the Trump-led body created to resolve the conflict in Gaza, have been meeting with congressional offices this week to request $200 million for a peacekeeping force, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings. The meetings mark the first time that Board of Peace representatives have approached Congress with a funding request, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Who’s involved: Jasper Jeffers, an American military officer serving as commander of the International Stabilization Force, the United Nations-mandated peacekeeping force created in last year’s ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas; Board of Peace senior advisor Josh Gruenbaum; and retired Gen. Mark Schwartz, a former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority who is now the Board of Peace’s security lead, spoke at the Capitol Hill meetings.
SEAT SHAKE-UP
In the wake of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) sudden death, the candidates vying to succeed him have absorbed a central lesson of his career: the most decisive factor in the Republican primary will almost certainly be who wins President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), who ousted a sitting GOP lawmaker with Trump’s endorsement in 2022, is emerging as one of the leading contenders and someone who has an inside track to receive the president’s blessing, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Laying the groundwork: Fry’s defeat of former Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), who was one of the few Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment in 2021, allowed him to build early relationships with Trump’s political circle. Fry has been making calls to White House officials about a possible run this week, a source familiar with the matter told JI. Asked on Monday evening about the possibility of endorsing Fry if he launched a bid for a full term in Graham’s seat, Trump told Newsmax that Fry is “somebody you can watch out for” as a rising Republican star and did not deny he was considering backing the House lawmaker if he enters the race.
EXCLUSIVE
Most Americans say they are concerned about antisemitism in the country, yet more than half are unaware of recent major attacks targeting Jews, such as last December’s Bondi Beach terror attack in Sydney, Australia, a new survey from Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate found, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Survey says: Underscoring this lack of awareness, the number of Americans who identify as allies of the Jewish community continued to shrink, according to the anti-hate group’s semiannual survey on U.S. antisemitism. The report, drawn from a survey of more than 7,000 online respondents from March 4 to April 3, is titled “Worse Than Before: Antisemitic Attitudes Reach New Levels Across the U.S.,” and indicates that responses to antisemitism among the American public are less forceful than they were in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.
Worthy Reads
Hungary For Change: The Financial Times’ Ben Hall and Marton Dunai look at how Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who defeated Viktor Orbán earlier this year, and his Tisza party are rapidly enacting an array of legislative and governing changes since coming to power. “It is strengthening anti-corruption bodies, reinforcing judicial independence, dismantling agencies and foundations controlled by the Fidesz party and removing Orbán-era appointees from state energy companies, banks and regulators. The new administration is also turning around Hungary’s foreign policy by restoring co-operation with Brussels after years of obstructionism, mending relations with Ukraine and no longer doing Moscow’s bidding.” [FT]
Brother’s Keeper?: The New York Times’ Andrew Zucker explores the role that WME Group CEO Ari Emanuel — and his Rolodex — could play in the 2028 presidential bid being teased by his brother, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel. “There is no guarantee that Ari Emanuel would tip anything in the direction of his brother if he does in fact run for president, which, of course, he has not said he is. Plus, multiple likely Democratic candidates have existing ties to podcasters and influencers, and the bro vote could stay largely in the Republican camp. But with plenty of 2028 hopefuls jockeying for cultural cachet, names in Ari Emanuel’s blue checkmark-filled network will be in high demand.” [NYTimes]
Klee’s Craft: Puck’s Marion Maneker spotlights an exhibition of artist Paul Klee’s work — including pieces inspired by the rise of Nazism across Europe during Klee’s final years — at New York’s Jewish Museum. “The Jewish Museum’s show is a rare opportunity to see the sweep of Klee’s varied, inventive, and nearly indescribable output as an artist, even though the exhibition focuses on the artist’s late work as he struggled with increasing persecution. … Central to the show is a rarely seen suite of drawings that Klee made in direct response to the rise of the Nazis in German life. The stark, delicate, and vulnerable drawings lack the colorful ingenuity and coded criticism of Klee’s best work — but they are, in many ways, the reason for the show.” [Puck]
A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump announced that Iran freed dual U.S.-Iranian citizen Dena Karari, who had been forbidden to leave the Islamic Republic since December 2024, as a goodwill gesture…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke overnight about American military activity in Iran and Israeli military actions in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, according to a readout from Katz’s office…
The leadership of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations met with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Wednesday in Washington; the Israeli diplomat also met with Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…
A State Department official said that U.S.-brokered Israel-Lebanon talks in Rome ended after two days of “productive and positive discussions” during which the parties “agreed on the structure and guidelines for the pilot zone process, to be finalized and implemented in the coming days” as officials move to technical talks…
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who is in Washington this week and met with Trump on Tuesday, reportedly rebuffed pressure from Iranian officials last week — while the Iraqi leader was in Iran attending the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — not to make the U.S. his first overseas trip as prime minister…
The New York Times reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, before and during the recent war with Tehran, provided Iranian officials in Washington with information about Iranian detainees in ICE custody who were slated for deportation to the Islamic Republic; the Department of Homeland Security denied the allegations, which were laid out in a lawsuit filed this week by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund…
Iran signaled that it was considering pressuring its Houthi proxies in Yemen to shutter the Bab el-Mandeb waterway that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a second pressure point amid Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz…
An Iranian national living in Hawaii pleaded guilty to having sent more than $100,000 to Iranians in violation of U.S. sanctions…
Former President Joe Biden announced the upcoming release, slated for Nov. 17, of Promise Me, America, about his time in the White House; Biden had previously teased the memoir during a book event for his wife, who released her own memoir earlier this year…
Former senior White House official Brett McGurk, who during the Biden administration played a key role in efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, will release a book about his time in the administration a day before the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks; in the book, McGurk will reveal details about pre-Oct. 7 normalization efforts between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as his working relationship with White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff as McGurk handed over the portfolio at the end of Biden’s term…
The House Budget Committee released its blueprint for a third reconciliation bill, including $73 billion for defense and Iran-related matters; the move suggests that congressional Republicans aim to incorporate the Iran-related defense supplemental into the reconciliation package and may let the administration’s request for a separate, additional $330 billion in defense funding go by the wayside…
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him against efforts to remove Israel from the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, following reports that Saudi officials are seeking to cut Israel out of the arrangement…
A GOP-aligned super PAC is boosting Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, ahead of next month’s primary in the Badger State; read more about Hong’s recent appearances with far-left commentators who have espoused antisemitic rhetoric here…
The New York Republican Party is launching a campaign to pull in disaffected Jewish Democrats in the state, accusing the Democratic Party of “spiral[ing] into that ugliest and oldest hatred, anti-Semitism” and citing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent comments in which he referred to AIPAC as “monsters”…
The New York Yankees are in advanced talks with Marc Rowan’s Apollo Global Management that would see the baseball team receive some $3 billion in financing, some of which would go to refinance existing debt…
More than two dozen Jewish camps will be auctioned off after Simad Holdings, which owns or co-owns 30 across the East Coast, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…
A new poll commissioned by the Council for a Secure America found that a majority of Israelis support normalization agreements with Saudi Arabia (78%), Lebanon (74%) and Syria (62%); the survey, conducted last month, found 81% support among Israelis for the Abraham Accords…
Israeli NeuroAI company Hemispheric, founded by Hagai Lalazar and Gidi Littwin, emerged from six years of stealth with $52 million as it launches its new medical AI model Descartes…
20VC founder Harry Stebbings announced the London firm’s first lead investment in an Israeli company, saying that 20VC acquired a 15% ownership stake in the unnamed company that Stebbings said was led by “two of Israel’s greatest operators”…
Town & Country spotlights the nuptials of Julia Allison and Noah Feldman, who first held a small ceremony at Harvard University, where he works, followed by a five-day celebration in Bali; Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) co-officiated the ceremony alongside Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer…
Jamie Kirchick is joining The Atlantic as a contributing writer…
Pic of the Day
Birthdays
Israeli former professional tennis player, in 2003 she was ranked 15th in the world, Anna Smashnova turns 50…
One of the three co-founders of Comcast Corporation, he served as its chief financial officer and vice chairman, Julian A. Brodsky turns 93… Senior U.S. district court judge for the Southern District of New York, Judge Sidney H. Stein turns 81… World-renowned violinist, violist and conductor, Pinchas Zukerman turns 78… President of an eponymous communications firm, public speaker and coach, Betsy R. Sheerr… Co-creator of the first-ever spreadsheet program (VisiCalc), he currently serves as the chief technology officer of Alpha Software, Daniel Singer “Dan” Bricklin turns 75… Former high-ranking civilian official in the Pentagon during the Bush 43 administration, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Douglas J. Feith turns 73… Senior rabbi since 1997 at Temple Beth Avodah in Newton Centre, Mass., Rabbi Keith Stern… Los Angeles-based attorney, she is the president emerita of the LA chapter of the Jewish National Fund, Alyse Golden Berkley… Past vice chair of the board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America, Cynthia D. Shapira… British solicitor, he represented Princess Diana in her divorce and Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt in a libel case, Anthony Julius turns 70… Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Tony Kushner turns 70… U.S. ambassador to the EU in the Trump 45 administration, Gordon David Sondland turns 69… Former airline executive at Northwest and Delta, Andrea Fischer Newman… Former president of Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, Douglas Alan Herzog turns 67… Businessman and philanthropist, owner of interests in many Israeli firms including IKEA Israel, Matthew Bronfman turns 67… Canadian journalist, he worked for CNN International for 30 years, Jonathan Mann turns 66… Former Israeli minister of science and technology, now a venture capitalist, Yizhar Nitzan Shai turns 63… Chief of staff of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Jim Rosenberg… Chicago-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, Victoria Rivka Zell… Former NFL offensive lineman, Ariel Mace Solomon turns 58… Senior scholar at the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center Yeshiva, Rabbi Joshua Kulp turns 56… Founder of Pinkitzel, a cupcake cafe, candy boutique and gift store, Jonathan Jantz… U.S. senator (R-IN), Jim Banks turns 47… National political correspondent for The New York Times, Shane Goldmacher… Co-founder of Los Angeles-based Meteorite and Health Action Alliance, Steven Max Levine… White House liaison to the Jewish community in the Bush 43 administration, now managing partner at Arogeti Endeavors, Scott Raymond Arogeti… Features reporter for Jewish Insider, Matthew Kassel… Founder and managing partner at Vine Ventures, Eric M. Reiner… Registered nurse and an internationally board-certified lactation consultant, Chantal Low Katz… Executive producer of “Blind Spot,” a documentary on campus antisemitism, Leonard Gold…
Robert Kraft’s antisemitism awareness group found 30% of the public now holds antisemitic attitudes — the highest level since it began tracking in 2023
Beth Israel Congregation
Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., targeted in an arson attack on Jan. 10, 2026.
Most Americans say they are concerned about antisemitism in the country, yet more than half are unaware of recent major attacks targeting Jews, such as last December’s Bondi Beach terror attack in Sydney, Australia, a new survey from Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate found.
Underscoring this lack of awareness, the number of Americans who identify as allies of the Jewish community continued to shrink, according to the anti-hate group’s semiannual survey on U.S. antisemitism.
The report, drawn from a survey of more than 7,000 online respondents from March 4 to April 3, is titled “Worse Than Before: Antisemitic Attitudes Reach New Levels Across the U.S.,” and indicates that responses to antisemitism among the American public are less forceful than they were in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.
After the Hamas attacks and the onset of the ensuing Gaza war, antisemitic attitudes surged in the U.S., peaking in mid-2024, the Blue Square Alliance found. These numbers have again worsened since August 2025, with negative stereotypes about Jewish people growing most sharply among younger Americans, according to the survey. Additionally, the survey found an uptick in the share of Americans who say they don’t consider Holocaust denial to be antisemitic.
Further, the survey reveals a decline in the public’s desire to combat antisemitism. A plurality of Americans (47%) are now considered “unengaged” in combating anti-Jewish hate, and the share of those characterized as “active allies” has fallen to 23%, down from 30% in August 2025.
According to the group’s typology categorizing Americans according to whether they believe in anti-Jewish tropes, 30% of the population now holds antisemitic attitudes — the highest level recorded by the nonprofit since it began tracking in 2023 and a noticeable increase from 24% in August 2025.
While most Americans say antisemitism is a serious problem, they are often blind to its proximity. The survey found a sharp disconnect — 61% said they would be highly concerned if a Jewish individual or business in their community were harassed, yet only 23% view it as a clear and present threat.
A 53% majority of Americans were unfamiliar with the December 2025 attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, in which 15 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration, and 66% were unaware of the arson of the largest synagogue in Jackson, Miss., in January.
Fifty-five percent of Americans now believe Jewish people can handle antisemitism on their own — up 15 percentage points from June 2023. Gen Z and millennials are more than twice as likely as baby boomers (29% versus 13%) to view Jewish people as a threat to the unity of society.
Meanwhile, nearly one-third (32%) of Americans do not consider Holocaust denial to be antisemitic, up 13 percentage points since June 2023.
The Blue Square Alliance renamed itself from the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism last year, an effort designed to awaken the broader public to anti-Jewish hate. The group’s new name is a reference to its blue square pins that have been distributed to interfaith communities nationwide and posted online as a symbol in the fight against antisemitism.
Adam Katz, the group’s president, told Jewish Insider that the Blue Square Alliance’s ongoing campaigns, including its rebrand, are succeeding in making Americans more aware of antisemitism than they would be otherwise.
“We’ve seen a significant lift in awareness of our brand [and] recognition of our brand [as people] wear or share the blue square and tend to be familiar with the work we’re doing,” said Katz.
Responding to the survey results, Katz said he doesn’t think the solution is “a massive change in our programming, I think it’s continuing to push our programming as fast and as hard as we can.”
He said the group’s Super Bowl ad earlier this year that raised awareness of antisemitic bullying resulted in “nearly half of viewers [taking] action based on seeing the ad, they talked about hate and antisemitism with friends and family, they got more educated on it.”
“That tells us that the messaging works. We need to make sure that we are distributing it as targeted and precisely as we can,” said Katz.
Still, he asserted that getting Americans consistently engaged in antisemitism remains “a real challenge.”
“It’s a function of an extremely fragmented media landscape where everyone is consuming information from different sources and getting personalized feeds, so you have to work that much harder for things like antisemitism to feel proximate,” Katz said. “That’s why we see an almost dichotomous trend — a significant increase in people recognizing antisemitism as a major problem, and simultaneously a significant increase in people saying Jews can handle it on their own. They see it as something that is growing but not something close to them on their street, in their neighborhood. Therefore, they can allow themselves to be on the sidelines.”
Addressing the data that shows antisemitism is significantly higher among Gen Z and millennials compared to older generations, Katz said his organization “needs to focus there.”
“We need even more intense focus on young Americans and making sure we are really meeting them where they are as media consumption evolves.”
Plus, Maine Dems back to square one
Meg Kinnard/AP
Former U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel speaks to voters as he participates in the South Carolina Democratic Party's "On the Road" series on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Abbeville, S.C.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s remarks yesterday in Tel Aviv on Israel and the Democratic Party, and have the scoop on a new 501(c)(4) launched by allies of Sen. Ted Cruz with the goal of combating antisemitism among Republicans. We report on the influx of cash from the United Democracy Project and another super PAC boosting Rep. Wesley Bell ahead of his rematch against former Rep. Cori Bush in Missouri, and spotlight the media moguls and tech titans attending the annual Sun Valley conference in Idaho this week. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Ed Case, Jillian Segal and Sen. Lindsey Graham.
We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is back in Washington today following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The president, who traveled to Ankara earlier this week aboard the plane recently gifted to him by Qatar for use as a new Air Force One, told reporters before he departed that he would be traveling on one of the older aircraft, while the new plane will be flown to a U.S. airbase in the U.K. The change-up came amid questions about the plane’s security features, as well heightened concerns regarding Iran following the resumption of strikes between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic.
- Before departing Turkey, Trump reiterated his threat to Iran that he would “finish the job,” telling reporters that he was no longer sure if he was interested in a peace deal with Iran and was questioning if the country’s leadership was rational enough to work with. The comments came as the U.S. and Iran traded strikes in the region, with CENTCOM saying it struck approximately 90 new military targets across Iran on Wednesday night — including air-defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities and military logistics infrastructure. Iranian media reported additional explosions in the Bushehr province this morning. Read more here.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio is slated to meet at noon today at the White House with Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud.
- Elsewhere stateside, we’re keeping an eye on Maine Democrats as the party looks to pick a new candidate to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) following Graham Platner’s announcement last night that he was suspending his campaign after a former girlfriend accused him earlier this week of having raped her. More below.
- The Contemporary Antisemitism conference at the University of Haifa wraps up today with a keynote speech from philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S emily jacobs
Allies of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are launching a new political organization aimed at countering antisemitism within the Republican Party, Jewish Insider has learned, led by Arielle F. Klepach, a former assistant U.S. attorney and senior counsel for the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
The Front Line (TFL) will operate as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, meaning the group will not have to disclose its donors and can spend unlimited sums toward political activity, provided campaign finance is not its primary purpose and it does not contribute directly to campaigns.
A source familiar with the matter told JI that those behind the organization, which Cruz is not directly involved with, raised several million dollars to fund the operation. Klepach will run the operation as executive director.
“There has been a surge of antisemitism across America, which first engulfed the left and is now threatening the moral integrity and political unity of the conservative movement and the Republican Party,” Klepach said. “I am excited to lead The Front Line’s efforts to defeat right-wing antisemitism before it takes conservatives down the same path of anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and pro-Sharia advocacy that has taken the left.”
RAHM’S RHETORIC
Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, speaking in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, criticized the “moral bankruptcy” of “those that paraded, celebrated and cheered” in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff from 2009 to 2010 in the Obama administration, made the comments as part of a broader address on his vision for the future of U.S.-Israel relations as he mulls a potential presidential bid, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
What he said: Speaking to JI prior to his speech at Tel Aviv University, Emanuel responded to a question about Democrats, including Darializa Avila Chevalier, the presumptive winner in New York’s 13th Congressional District, who attended a Times Square rally the day after Hamas launched its attacks on southern Israel. “I have no place for the moral bankruptcy of those that found Oct. 8 as the day to cheer 1,200 people not only killed but sexually abused, and for taking hostage 250 people. They’re morally bankrupt.”
Tough talk: In his speech, Emanuel called for a reassessment of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. “American policy towards Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem is to blindly, to silently stand behind your government without conditions, without demands, without consequences, even when we disagree,” Emanuel said. “That has been our mistake, and it’s been not a favor to you.”
In the room: In his Substack, Michael Granoff, who attended Emanuel’s talk at TAU, said he was “disappointed” by Emanuel’s remarks. “You spoke of Israel’s growing isolation. As someone who runs a venture capital fund based here, with investors from the US, Europe and Asia, I would contend that you did so in a greatly exaggerated way. But worse, you said this: ‘Your scientists face exclusion from international conferences and research networks. Your artists and academics are shut out of exhibits and meetings.’ Rahm, you are describing discriminatory boycotts by anti-Zionists. And your implication is that we are to be blamed. You think those trying to exclude Israeli performers from Eurovision are protesting building homes in East Jerusalem?”
CALLING IT QUITS
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, the scandal-plagued progressive insurgent, announced on Wednesday evening that he plans to drop out of the race amid intense pressure, two days after a former romantic partner accused him of rape. Even as he announced his withdrawal, Platner remained defiant, claiming that the allegations against him were a conspiracy aimed at forcing him out of the race, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Marc Rod report.
Blame game: “We live in a political system that is not built for normal people,” Platner asserted. “It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed. … We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change, and we won, and now they are not going to let us have it, not if it’s me.”
Bonus: The New York Times does a deep dive into the slow unraveling of Platner’s campaign, finding it “was messy, disorganized and ultimately doomed by a steady drip of scandal.”
BELL BUOY
A month ahead of Missouri’s primary elections, Rep. Wesley Bell’s (D-MO) campaign is being buoyed by an influx of outside spending from the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC and another super PAC affiliated with the moderate New Democrat Coalition, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Money matters: As of this week, UDP has reserved $865,000 in ad time for the race, while New Democrat Majority has reserved $500,000 ahead of the Aug. 4 primary. In at least one advertisement, UDP is taking a similar approach as it did in its attacks against Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) in 2024 when the group helped Bell unseat her, hitting her as an absentee and ineffective lawmaker and for voting against the bipartisan infrastructure package in 2021. UDP’s ad features clips accusing Bush of having betrayed and disappointed organized labor and workers who supported her in her initial campaign.
CASE STUDY
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), a longtime pro-Israel moderate in the House, is facing his first serious primary challenge in years from state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, arguing — as other insurgent Democrats around the country have — that the district needs a new generation of leadership, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Israel record: Keohokalole’s campaign site makes little mention of Middle East policy, broadly calling for “reimagining the United States’ role on the world stage as a global peace leader by working to end unnecessary and costly conflicts, including opposing escalation toward war with Iran, and strengthening congressional oversight over military action and executive war powers.” But the state senator, who is 42, said in late 2025 he supported efforts led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to stop U.S. military sales to Israel, arguing that the small size of Gaza “all but guarantees that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s campaign of ‘targeted’ airstrikes will kill innocent adults, children, and infants. Hamas was wrong. So is this.”
ADVOCACY OUTCOMES
Major Jewish organizations expressed “reason for optimism” that the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, is taking meaningful steps to address rising antisemitism following its annual Representative Assembly, which concluded in Denver on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Noted progress: The Jewish groups noted a safer and more inclusive environment for Jewish members at this year’s gathering, marking a stark contrast from last year, when delegates voted to boycott Anti-Defamation League materials in a measure Jewish groups condemned as antisemitic, among other disruptive events. The changes also come following the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission opening an investigation into NEA in June over alleged failure to address antisemitism.
Curriculum wars: With summer break offering teachers a chance to level up their skills for the year ahead, Illinois educators will be able to spend three days in Chicago this month learning about “the dangers of the ADL’s influence in our schools” — and earn credit toward the professional development needed to renew their teaching licenses, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports.
MOGUL ROLLCALL
More than 300 of the world’s most powerful executives have trickled into Idaho for Allen & Co’s invite-only, closed-door Sun Valley conference, where media moguls, tech titans and financiers gather every year, Jewish Insider’s Christina Sher reports.
Spotted: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), former CIA Director David Petraeus, former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), Dina Powell McCormick, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Joshua Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Robert Kraft, Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Bari Weiss, Sheryl Sandberg, David Zaslav, Bob Iger, Michael Eisner, Barry Diller, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Evan Spiegel, Josh Silverman, Marne Levine, Brian Grazer, Reid Hoffman, Adam Silver, Mitch Rales, Andy Jassy and Bobby Kotick were among those seen in Sun Valley this week.
Read the full story and see photos of Sun Valley attendees here.
Dinner dish: Puck’s Dylan Byers reports that Jassy and Kraft were seen dining at Enoteca in nearby Ketchum on Tuesday night.
Worthy Reads
Battlefield Blues: Bloomberg’s Max Hastings looks at the challenges facing the U.S. as other countries more quickly evolve their weapons production systems and increasingly rely on AI to quickly produce advanced weaponry. “Warfare, strategy and weapons systems are morphing at extraordinary speed. The US still possesses by far the most capable military. But its ability to dominate a battlefield, never mind an entire region, is under threat in a fashion that military men and women understand better than do many national leaders.” [Bloomberg]
F-35 Fears: In the Greek daily Ekathimerini, Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), the co-chairs of the Congressional Hellenic Israel Alliance, warn of the risks to the alliance formed by Greece, Cyprus and Israel posed by the potential sale of advanced U.S. weaponry to Ankara. “Turkey’s expansive maritime claims, continued tensions in the Aegean, military overflights and provocations affecting Greece, Turkey’s continued occupation of Cyprus, and increasing demonization of Israel have contributed to instability at a time when the region has an opportunity to move in a different direction. … Advanced military capabilities should strengthen alliances and regional stability – not create uncertainty among the partners who have worked alongside the United States to build a more secure Eastern Mediterranean.” [Ekathimerini]
Forgetting ‘Never Forget’: The Wall Street Journal’s Bertrand Benoit observes that Germany is at an “inflection point” some eight decades after the Holocaust, as memory of the Shoah fades and both the far right and the far left are on the ascendance. “Can a democracy that was built on a sense of responsibility for the Holocaust survive without it? What does it mean for Europe if the country that set the modern standard for combating antisemitism across the continent chooses to move on at a time of rising Jew-hatred? And last, can a country that twice set the world ablaze — and is now engaged in the largest rearmament effort in decades as Russia threatens the continent — be trusted by neighbors if it abandons what has for eight decades served as its moral compass?” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
In a change of tone, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Wednesday that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa deserves a chance to rebuild the war-torn country, arguing that his efforts to curb Iran’s influence in Syria should prompt Israel to reassess its approach to the new government, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
Axios looks at how the U.S.-Iran war has increasingly shifted to focus on the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that the White House “is preparing for what could become a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire”…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights how Jewish Democrats mulling 2028 presidential bids are navigating the party’s leftward shift on Israel…
The governing body of the Football Association of Ireland voted 75-32 to proceed with the national team’s upcoming matches against Israel, following calls for the FAI to boycott the games, slated to take place in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium…
The hate crimes unit of Montreal’s police department is investigating a series of attacks targeting members of the city’s Hasidic community last Friday night in which the attackers drove through a heavily Jewish neighborhood, shouting antisemitic slurs and throwing cans at people walking home from Shabbat services…
Australia’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, testifying before the government’s royal commission into antisemitism, called for the creation of an independent oversight committee to monitor the Australian public broadcaster’s compliance with its charter obligations; her comments came after numerous complaints over the broadcaster’s airing of falsities around the Israel-Hamas war and slowness to issue corrections…
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz pushed back against President Donald Trump’s suggestion this week that Israel would withdraw from Lebanon, saying, “We didn’t ask for anyone’s approval to enter Lebanon, and we don’t need approval to stay in Lebanon”…
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency downgraded its risk classification for Israel and the Gulf, opting against extending its high-risk conflict zone advisory for the region when the warning expired on Wednesday…
Attorney William Zabel, a prolific celebrity divorce lawyer who was instrumental in distributing some $2.2 billion to the victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, died at 89…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Agudath Israel held a meet-and-greet event with New York officials on Wednesday in Manhattan. The group presented Julie Menin and Mark Levine, respectively the speaker of the City Council and the city’s comptroller, with mezuzot.
Menin decried what she called the “shameful and unconscionable” crisis of antisemitic incidents in New York. She touted the council’s passage of buffer zone bills for religious institutions and schools, asking rhetorically, “What could be controversial about that?” to a crowd that included Jason Binderman, the deputy director for the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism — an apparent dig at Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who opposed the bills.
Pictured from left: Assemblymember David Weprin, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse, Menin, Levine, Councilmember Chris Banks, Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Rabbi Ephraim Gurell and state Sen. Lester Chang.
Birthdays
Co-founder of Netscape and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, he is celebrating his birthday at the Sun Valley conference, Marc Lowell Andreessen turns 55…
Former Soviet refusenik, prisoner of conscience, human rights activist, author and translator, Iosif Begun turns 94… Constitutional law expert focused on the First Amendment and free speech, senior counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel where he has practiced since 1963, Floyd Abrams turns 90… Retired conductor and music director of symphony orchestras in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Rochester, N.Y., Baltimore and Zurich, David Zinman turns 90… Huntington Woods, Mich., resident, Robert Morris Rubin… Arizona resident, Howard Cohen… Play-by-play announcer for the MLB’s San Diego Padres from 1980 to 2020, Theodore “Ted” Leitner turns 79… Tikvah “Tiki” Stern Lyons… Rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob of Atlanta, Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman turns 72… U.S. senator (R-SC) since 2003, Lindsey Graham turns 71… Author, motivational speaker and former stockbroker, his autobiographical memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street, was adapted into a film and released in 2013, Jordan Ross Belfort turns 64… Mortgage professional and owner of D.C.’s Char Bar, Michael Alan Chelst… Public radio personality, former producer of “This American Life” and the host and executive producer of the “Serial” podcast, Sarah Koenig turns 57… Activist short seller, author and editor of the online investment newsletter Citron Research, Andrew Edward Left turns 56… Actor, tour guide, poet, speaker, philosopher and author, Timothy “Speed” Levitch turns 56… Host of The Free Press’ “Breaking History” podcast, Eli Jon Lake turns 54… Anchor and reporter for Fox Business Network, Lori Rothman turns 53… Member of the URJ North American board of trustees, Peter Webb… Co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, Yehoshua Fass turns 53… Brigadier general (res.) in the IDF, he held many military leadership positions in digital transformation and computer science, Omer Dagan turns 50… Israeli documentary filmmaker, Guy Davidi turns 48… Retired poker player, now an options trader, she is the only woman to ever reach the No. 1 ranking on the Global Poker Index, Vanessa K. Selbst turns 42… Tony Award-winning theater, film and television actor, Brandon Uranowitz turns 40… Renewable energy and climate specialist, Samantha Hea Marks… Pitcher for Team Israel at the 2017 and 2023 World Baseball Classics, Jake Kalish turns 35… Pitcher in the Los Angeles Angels organization through 2024, now a free agent, Kenny Rosenberg turns 31… Spokeswoman and communications specialist for foreign media in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Shoshana Bedrosian turns 29…
A-listers from tech, media and finance joined in Idaho for the exclusive conference
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump attend the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference at the Sun Valley Lodge on July 8, 2026 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
More than 300 of the world’s most powerful executives have trickled into Idaho for Allen & Co’s invite-only, closed-door Sun Valley conference, where media moguls, tech titans and financiers gather every year.
Dina Powell McCormick, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Joshua Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Robert Kraft, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Bari Weiss, Sheryl Sandberg, David Zaslav, Bob Iger, Michael Eisner, Barry Diller, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Evan Spiegel, Josh Silverman, Marne Levine, Brian Grazer, Reid Hoffman, Adam Silver, Mitch Rales, Andy Jassy and Bobby Kotick were among those seen in Sun Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Washington figures also in attendance included Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh — who is making his first appearance in Sun Valley since being tapped for his role — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), former CIA Director David Petraeus and former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE).
Also spotted were Lachlan Murdoch, Nellie Bowles, David Ignatius and Jonathan Haidt.
Karp arrived at the four-day retreat days after unveiling a major partnership between Palantir and Nvidia to deploy advanced AI models for U.S. government agencies, as artificial intelligence dominates discussions among this year’s tech executives.
Weiss is at Sun Valley for the first time since Paramount tapped her to run CBS News last October.
Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery recently completed a $111 billion sale to Paramount Skydance after clearing a Department of Justice antitrust review in June. After he arrived and settled in, Zaslav changed into a baseball cap bearing the “WB” logo.
Iger arrives at Sun Valley after stepping down for the second time from his post as Walt Disney Company CEO in March. He’s since taken on an advisory role at Thrive Capital, the venture firm founded by Josh Kushner.
Diller, chairman and senior executive of People, Inc. and Expedia Group, rolled up to the conference on an electric-blue Trek bike.
Film producer Grazer came fresh off Aspen Ideas Festival, where he insisted that his films remain deliberately apolitical, aiming for “universal themes” instead.
Below, a visual rundown of notable attendees:
Jane Lauder, Kevin Warsh and Casey Wasserman
Dina Powell McCormick and Sen. Dave McCormick
Joshua Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Diane Von Furstenberg, Garrett Langley and Megan Langley
Alexandre Arnault and Alex Karp
Gayle King, Jonathan Haidt and Nellie Bowles
Sam Altman
Marne Levine, Phil Deutch and Sheryl Sandberg
David Petraeus
Plus, Rahm Emanuel says Israel support should come with strings
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour stop held by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus on May 24, 2026 in Orono, Maine.
Good Monday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
A woman who dated Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner alleged in a series of interviews with Politico that the Democrat sexually assaulted her in 2021, an account the outlet backed up with her correspondence and other interviews.The woman, Jenny Racicot, said Platner came into her home uninvited while intoxicated and forced himself on her despite her repeated objections.
In a video statement, Platner denied the accusation outright but said he’s “mindful of the political reality it will inflict” and would be “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love,” a different tone than Platner has struck in the aftermath of his previous controversies. The Maine Democratic Party can only choose a replacement nominee for the general election ballot if Platner voluntarily withdraws by July 13…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced opposition today to the Trump administration’s sale of jet engines and potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, hours before President Donald Trump was set to depart for the NATO summit in Ankara, Jewish Insider’s Christina Sher reports.
Netanyahu suggested on “Fox & Friends” that such moves “will upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority” and U.S. posture in the region. Axios reports that Netanyahu relayed the same message directly to Trump in a phone call last week and asked him to help address Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan‘s escalating anti-Israel rhetoric…
The percentage of Jewish Israelis who believe Israel’s security is a central consideration for Trump has reached a record low of 26%, according to a new survey from the Israel Democracy Institute, JI’s Matthew Shea reports. The figure marks a 15-point decrease from a month ago, during which time the Trump administration signed its memorandum of understanding with Iran…
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem announced at a press conference in Gaza today that the terror group’s Emergency Committee — the administrative body that has governed the enclave for more than two decades — is dissolving and that its civil servants, who will remain in their roles, stand ready to work under the new technocratic government established by the Board of Peace.
The BoP expressed skepticism about the announcement, JI’s Emily Jacobs and Matthew Shea report, saying its “assessment will be guided by actions, not promises” and calling for a “genuine transfer of authority” and for Hamas to disarm. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar dismissed the move outright, calling it a “trick … designed to prevent [Hamas’] own disarmament”…
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said both Israel and Lebanon see the agreement signed between Jerusalem, Beirut and Washington earlier this month as “superseding” the first clause of the U.S.-Iran MOU, which calls for the end of hostilities on all fronts. “Whether or not the United States does, you’ll have to ask an administration spokesman,” Leiter said at an event with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Leiter also said he “can’t imagine that any ultimate agreement with Iran would be absent a clause limiting the development of ballistic missiles,” though the MOU did not mention Iran’s ballistic missile program…
In a preview obtained by Politico of the speech former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel is set to deliver at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday, the prospective 2028 presidential candidate is set to say that the U.S. has spent too long “averting its eyes” from what he views as Israel’s misadventures, calling for “significant changes and a new direction” in the bilateral relationship.
“Going forward, Emanuel plans to say, Israelis should regard U.S. support as expressly contingent: On reviving a serious commitment to Palestinian sovereignty; On rejecting dreams of asserting dominion beyond official borders in pursuit of ‘Greater Israel’; On abandoning a security strategy that emphasizes brutally effective military force with scant attention to diplomacy or credible what-next plans in Gaza and Iran,” the outlet reported…
French President Emmanuel Macron became the first major Western head of state to visit Syria since the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024, landing in Damascus today for meetings with Syrian leaders. Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is also expected to meet with Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey this week…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
The two-day NATO summit begins in Turkey tomorrow with leaders of all 32 NATO countries expected to attend, as well as a congressional delegation comprised of Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH). At the top of the agenda are increasing defense investments, as Trump continues to press NATO allies to shoulder a greater share of the alliance’s defense burden and threatens to draw down U.S. troops from Europe, and continuing to support Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Abdul El-Sayed, now the only remaining candidates in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, will participate in a televised debate on local news tomorrow night, their first head-to-head matchup since state Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign yesterday.
The annual Contemporary Antisemitism conference, which bills itself as the largest annual academic conference on contemporary antisemitism, will kick off tomorrow at the University of Haifa. The three-day summit will feature hundreds of academics and experts, with a keynote speech tomorrow from former State Department antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt and a lifetime achievement award presented to Tel Aviv University professor emerita Dina Porat.
Stories You May Have Missed
NO FLIGHT PLAN
Rep. Dina Titus is leading the Joint Resolution of Disapproval against the Trump administration’s $700 million sale of F110 jet engines to Turkey despite legal restrictions on U.S. military sales to the country
TEACHING MOMENT
Some Jewish Affairs Caucus leaders say they weren’t consulted about the changes, which are meant to prevent issues around antisemitism that occurred at last year’s assembly
Plus, Israel ally draws the line at Syria
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Good Thursday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
In their indirect talks in Doha this week, the U.S. offered Iran access to some of its$100 billion in frozen funds in exchange for Tehran not instituting a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, but Iranian officials have continued to signal they plan to proceed with the move. Continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon also caused tension during the discussions, The Wall Street Journal reports…
U.S. officials told The New York Times that Washington believed Israel was plotting to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators — Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — as they were engaged in recent talks with the U.S. over the memorandum of understanding…
Arizona Jewish and pro-Israel leaders told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel that they feel misled by Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), whom they supported in her contested 2024 primary but who has since turned away from the pro-Israel views she espoused during the campaign — including now rejecting support from Democratic Majority for Israel, which backed her with a surge of spending in 2024…
The AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC is up with its first negative ad against far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, JI’s Marc Rod reports, hitting the Democrat in the initial $2 million ad buy for his “long history of disrespecting women.” Meanwhile, El-Sayed picked up a high-profile endorsement today from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), her first in a contested Senate race this cycle.
UDP also made $400,000 in advertising reservations to support Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) as he faces a comeback primary challenge from former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), whom UDP helped Bell defeat in 2024…
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the Democratic nominee for governor, criticized his party’s socialist congressional nominee, Melat Kiros, for her refusal to describe the deadly firebombing of a Boulder, Colo., hostage awareness march last year as an act of antisemitism, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
New York City congressional nominee Brad Lander published a response to Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove’s letter earlier this week in which Cosgrove predicted that Lander’s hostility to Israel would not be enough to protect him from being targeted by the far left. Lander argued in his response that criticism of Israel — including describing its war in Gaza as a genocide — is consistent with Jewish values and that excluding anti-Zionist Jews weakens the Jewish community…
New polling data shows that a sizable majority of Jewish voters disapprove of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s job performance and fear he is pushing the Democratic Party too far to the left, in contrast with non-Jewish voters who hold a largely favorable view of the democratic socialist, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports…
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers, led by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA), wrote to President Donald Trump today to “express deep concern about any effort” to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, JI’s Marc Rod reports, after Trump and Vice President JD Vance indicated they were looking into it last week…
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), the founder of the Republican Israel Caucus and a reliable ally of the Jewish state, called Israel’s “continuing aggressive operations” in Syria “deeply disturbing,” “counterproductive” and “irresponsible.” Wilson accused Israel of “taking Syrian land and attacking Syrian cities,” saying the operations “need to end immediately”…
Wilson, along with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), also sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging the administration to remove Syriafrom the State Sponsor of Terrorism list…
Israel marked 1,000 days today since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, with memorials and protests taking place around the country…
Far-right commentator Tucker Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review that he plans to help start a new political party — after saying last month he was renouncing the Republican Party — but does not plan to run as a candidate. He repeatedly railed against Israel in the interview and accused it of “taking over my political system and destroying my country”…
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin hosted his annual White Party at his Hamptons estate yesterday featuring a host of high-profile attendees, including Ivanka Trump, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, former quarterback Tom Brady, actor Leonardo di Caprio and more…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for a look at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) contentious primary race in Florida’s 20th Congressional District.
Fourth of July celebrations in the nation’s capital are kicking off with a bang (literally — the fireworks show on the National Mall could break world records). President Donald Trump is slated to give a speech on the Mall ahead of the fireworks show on Saturday night, followed by a military flyover debuting the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet.
Iran is slated to hold a massive, dayslong funeral procession for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei beginning on Saturday in Tehran and including cities across Iran and Iraq. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a top mediator between the U.S. and Iran, will attend the memorial, alongside officials from dozens of other countries.
Christians United for Israel’s annual summit in Washington will begin on Sunday. Speakers over the three-day confab include State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun; former Auburn University basketball coach Bruce Pearl; Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch; and former Israeli hostage Yair Horn.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom and happy Fourth of July weekend!
Stories You May Have Missed
LAND OF THE FREE
Rabbis, historians and communal leaders told JI that the nation’s semiquincentennial offers an opportunity to celebrate America’s promise even as they confront the antisemitism and political currents challenging Jewish life today
CAMPAIGN CONTROVERSY
The same day Francesca Hong appeared on the livestream of antisemitic conspiracy theorist ‘Mike From PA,’ she also joined Hasan Piker’s Twitch show
Plus, how Ritchie Torres outplayed the far left
Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, in Washington.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to moderate and establishment Democrats who are raising alarms over the surge of socialists in Tuesday’s New York City congressional primaries and report on how Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) dodged the DSA wave in the city. We cover last night’s Senate vote to block a Democratic-led war powers resolution seeking to end military operations against Iran and report on the shouting match between President Donald Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) that preceded it. We also report on the Trump administration’s consideration of Turkey’s eligibility to receive F-35 fighter jets. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Dan Goldman, Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Judy Chu.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Jewish and Israeli aid and rescue organizations are preparing to send teams to Venezuela after the poverty-stricken South American country was hit by massive back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday night, representatives of the groups told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. At least 164 people have been pronounced dead so far, and the number is expected to rise considerably as search efforts get underway, with some projections putting the death toll into the tens of thousands. Read more here.
- Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg is hosting the State Department’s two-day Pax Silica Summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Attendees include representatives from the signatory countries to the strategic initiative — which include Israel, Qatar, the UAE, India, Germany and the U.K., among others — and senior business executives.
- On the Hill, acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules W. Hurst III will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing to be permanently appointed to the role — Hurst is likely to face questions about the Trump administration’s $88 billion supplemental funding request, largely to cover the cost of the Iran war, sent to Congress on Wednesday.
- The House Committee on Education and Workforce will mark up the No Antisemitism in Education Act, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is slated to testify at an oversight hearing in the House Appropriations Committee.
- The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship‘s third annual conference wraps up in London today. Speakers at the summit, which focused on the future of Western civilization at the 250th anniversary of the United States, included House Speaker Mike Johnson; Energy Secretary Chris Wright; former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers; and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.
- The Texas Democratic State Convention begins today: The three-day event will feature remarks from Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin. Activists are set to consider close to 20 resolutions critical of Israel.
- The annual Aspen Ideas Festival, which brings together leading figures from politics, business, media and academia, kicks off in Colorado with an opening session featuring Aspen Institute leaders and journalists Fareed Zakaria and David Brooks.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
There’s little doubt that socialism is on the march within the Democratic Party after the latest primaries, with extreme candidates who would have been dismissed as nonviable prevailing in numerous congressional primaries and mayoral contests from coast to coast.
Factor in the political resilience of far-left Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner despite numerous scandals and the momentum of anti-Israel Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in a contested Michigan primary despite facing well-funded opposition, and there’s the potential of radicals toppling mainstream candidates well outside the deep-blue confines of major urban centers.
Ultimately, that’s a major question looming for the Democratic Party’s future — and the health of our democracy. Is the rise of socialism primarily a product of urban angst and college-age naivete, or does it have staying power beyond the most-progressive precincts in the country? Can left-wing candidates prevail in swing districts, far away from the urban progressive centers that make up its base? Or will they end up being more of a noisy but powerless faction in Congress?
Either way, socialist candidates have gone from a curiosity that rarely won any congressional seats to riding a Democratic Socialists of America-organized grassroots wave that now has to be reckoned with. You could count the number of Squad members on one hand when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) and her like-minded allies were first elected in 2018 and 2020. Now their representation is poised to double from its previous peak — and AOC now counts as downright pragmatic, compared to several of her soon-to-be-colleagues.
SOCIALIST SWEEP
Some moderate and establishment Democrats are raising alarms over the surge of democratic socialists in New York City congressional primaries on Tuesday — which took down two Democratic incumbents. But others are dismissing the phenomenon as one localized to New York City and not applicable to the party at large, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod, Matthew Shea and Christina Sher report.
Wider view: Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), a longtime Democratic leader from Queens, lamented Tuesday’s results, particularly Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s (D-NY) loss. Meeks told reporters that the party as a whole is not a socialist party, and that socialist ideas are very much out of step with the country overall. “That’s not where America is, that only happens in certain parts — like New York City now, apparently — deep, deep, deep blue,” Meeks said. If the entire party follows the same path, “that means that all the other seats that are not [deep blue], we can never win, which means we will never be in the majority, and we [will] never get anything done.”
Read the full story here with additional comments from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Gary Peters (D-MI), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Eye on Washington: Having conquered New York City with a stunning primary night sweep on Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is wasting no time in moving on Capitol Hill. In an uncharacteristically long question-and-answer session at an unrelated announcement on Wednesday, the mayor announced he would sit down later in the day with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
TORRES TACTICS
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has long been a target of the far left in New York City, largely because of his outspoken support for Israel and his Jewish constituents. But Torres emerged with a commanding victory over a far-left challenger in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries, even as pro-Israel Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) were defeated by democratic socialist-aligned challengers, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Standout factors: Observers attribute Torres’ landslide win against former New York Assemblymember Michael Blake to a variety of factors, including the different demographics of his district — which includes the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Riverdale, as well as some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city — his strength as a member of Congress and as a campaigner and Blake’s own weaknesses as a candidate. Torres is popular in the district, has prioritized constituent services, has been a longtime presence in the district — as a city councilman from 2014 to 2020 before his time in the House — and maintains a strong reputation locally, Torres campaign spokesperson Benny Stanislawski said.
Concession speech: Goldman, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat who was unseated in a bitter primary on Tuesday, warned in his concession speech that antisemitism “will ultimately be the undoing of our democracy if we all don’t lean in and speak out,” JI’s Matthew Kassel reports.
ON THE HILL
The Senate voted on Wednesday night to block a Democratic-led war powers resolution seeking to end military operations against Iran, after a heated meeting between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans where he berated a handful of lawmakers over their votes in favor of a successful war powers resolution the previous day, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
How it happened: Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY), supporters of previous war powers efforts, changed their votes on the resolution on Wednesday, which had previously passed a procedural hurdle — Cassidy now voting no and Paul voting present. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) again voted yes, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted no. The final vote was 50-47. Cassidy, who engaged in a shouting match with Trump in the meeting over his recent war powers votes, told reporters after the meeting that he would not change his vote until he had been briefed on the war. Hours later, Cassidy received a private briefing on the war from Vice President JD Vance and White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Supplemental request: The Trump administration on Wednesday formally sent an $87.6 billion supplemental funding request to replenish stockpiles and otherwise cover the costs of the war with Iran to Congress, JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.
SHOWN THE DOOR
Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte forced out Will Ruger, the deputy director for mission integration, from the agency as part of a series of cuts said to be targeting the “deep state,” according to CBS News. Ruger previously held senior positions at groups tied to the libertarian Koch network, and had been affiliated with the isolationist Defense Priorities think tank, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Background: Ruger had been a vocal opponent, prior to his government service, of both the maximum pressure sanctions campaign against Iran and potential U.S. military operations against the regime. He was also a defender of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Ruger’s role included overseeing the president’s daily intelligence briefing.
ANKARA OPPORTUNITY
Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that the administration is “confirming” Turkey has fulfilled its obligations under U.S. law in order to receive advanced F-35 fighter jets, which Ankara has long sought but has been barred from purchasing since 2020 after it acquired the S-400 air-defense system from Russia, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Christina Sher report.
Legal requirement: U.S. law requires the secretaries of state and defense to certify to Congress in writing, prior to any F-35 transfer, that Turkey no longer possesses the S-400 system and has provided credible assurances it will not acquire similar Russian air-defense systems. Latest reports indicate the S-400 system is inactive but still intact in Turkey, which would not fulfill the obligations required under law to lift the sanctions.
Strait security: Lawmakers and Middle East analysts are expressing support for Washington’s reported agreement to help Oman strengthen its maritime intelligence and monitoring of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, saying the move could help secure free access to the critical waterway and deter Iranian influence, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.
SCHOOL CONTROVERSY
A Massachusetts middle school principal is receiving criticism from Jewish groups for apologizing to Arab students who he claimed “felt unseen” during a Holocaust education lesson, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Back and forth: In a message sent to seventh graders via a school portal, a screenshot of which was obtained by JI, Diamond Middle School Principal Johnny Cole said the lesson at the Lexington, Mass., school was aimed at teaching the students to recognize hate and to speak out against it, something he called “an important goal.” Cole then apologized after he said some students’ families had expressed that the lesson left them feeling “unseen.” Cole wrote, “Some of you felt like your own history, your identity, or your community was left out or erased. Some of you left that session feeling less safe, not more. We have heard this from families, and we believe you.”
Worthy Reads
Radical Shift: Reason’s senior editor Robby Soave examines Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier’s record as she is set to become what he calls Congress’ “first campus radical.” “In 2019, when I published my first book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, I predicted that the era’s campus protesters would not shed their radicalism when they graduated college and moved out into the so-called real world — rather, they would force the world to conform to their quixotic expectations. This would be particularly felt in the areas of American life most susceptible to their influence: education, media, entertainment, and eventually, politics. Now that day has finally arrived. Welcome, congresswoman.” [Reason]
The Socratic AI Method: The Economist examines the rise in philosophers being hired by AI firms. “Some of the lessons that philosophy can offer AI researchers are ancient. The Socratic method — as described by Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher — uses feigned ignorance and sequential questioning to clarify meanings, spot contradictions and reveal ramifications. Many current AI systems tend towards sycophancy. Models trained in the Socratic method, says Jörg Noller, an expert on philosophy and AI at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, are less keen on people-pleasing and more willing to pursue the truth.” [Economist]
House Majority Math: Joel Wanger, DMFI PAC’s chief political officer, breaks down the results from Tuesday night’s primary elections. “Here’s the thing about House Majority math, and it’s something I’ve said before: it isn’t won in New York City or San Francisco. It’s won in places like San Diego and South Texas — and that’s exactly where pro-Israel Democrats had some of their best nights this cycle, nominating strong general-election candidates in competitive seats. … The pattern I’ve tracked all cycle keeps repeating: pro-Israel Democrats win decisively when they take primary challenges seriously and early, build broad coalitions rather than narrow ones, and talk about the kitchen-table issues — affordability, economic anxiety — that are actually driving voters right now. Where that didn’t happen, races were close. Where it did, they weren’t.” [Substack]
No Socialist Takeover: The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer argues that the Democratic Party is not being taken over by democratic socialists as a unified national force, but rather is becoming more ideologically diverse and locally shaped. “The modern Democratic Party, by virtue of its class and ethnic diversity, has always been ideologically heterodox. An approach that works for a Zohran Mamdani or a Janeese Lewis George will not necessarily work for a James Talarico in Texas or a Mary Peltola in Alaska. Many people outside of the democratic socialists’ cities and districts will focus on whether the candidates’ stances on Israel and Palestinian rights reflect a shift within the party (and they do) and the fact that they differ from more centrist Democrats (also correct). But whether they succeed as leaders and politicians will depend on much more local concerns — matters such as jobs, public safety, and affordability.” [Atlantic]
Word on the Street
Israeli and Lebanese officials have reportedly denied a claim by a State Department official, cited by Reuters, who said that Israel had withdrawn from some of the southern Lebanese territory it has held during its war against Hezbollah…
Saudi Arabia is planning to host reconciliation talks between Gulf countries and Iran, a diplomat with knowledge of the arrangements told Agence France Presse. The summit, aimed at mending ties between Gulf nations, Iran and possibly other regional neighbors in the aftermath of the war, will be independent of ongoing U.S.-Iran talks, the diplomat said…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday; pictured sitting next to the secretary of state in a working lunch with MBZ was Michael Boulos, Trump’s son-in-law, whose father serves as a senior advisor to the president on the Middle East…
Bahraini National Security Advisor Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa met separately with Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Lindsey Graham(R-SC) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Rep. Brian Mast(R-FL) during a visit to Washington…
FBI Director Kash Patel hosted Qatari Interior Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani in Washington…
CENTCOM announced that the U.S. killed senior ISIS leader Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi in an airstrike in northwest Syria last Friday…
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) introduced a resolution to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Americans and relief organizations involved in saving Jewish Holocaust refugees…
An intelligence report obtained by journalists from the Israeli public broadcaster Kan details how Qatar became a central channel of economic and military strength for Iran, helping it to circumvent sanctions after the 2018 cancellation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and also after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel…
A Kuwaiti air-defense officer shared a firsthand account of the opening moments of Iran’s missile and drone attacks on the Gulf country, describing at a conference in London the frantic five minutes as ballistic missiles filled the sky and the air-defense network scrambled to respond…
Vice President JD Vance and his allies are embracing his role as the public face of President Donald Trump’s Iran deal, Semafor reports, arguing that backing an end to the conflict distinguishes him from the GOP’s neoconservative wing and strengthens his standing with the MAGA base ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run…
The New York Times traces a generational and ideological shift on the American right toward viewing Iran as a pragmatic country the U.S. can learn to live with — a pivot led by Trump but driven by other factors that include younger Republicans’ war fatigue and waning support for Israel…
New Lines Magazine spotlights the unrest surrounding a resort project in Albania’s Vjosa-Narta protected area by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that has sparked unprecedented mass protests in the country; the demonstrations have evolved from an environmental campaign to a broad expression of frustration with long-serving Prime Minister Edi Rama…
Ari Emanuel, TKO CEO and Mari Group founder, is in advanced talks to buy theater group ATG for $6 billion…
Morris Dancyger, a child survivor of Auschwitz who built a successful pharmacy and real estate career and co-founded the first modern art gallery in Calgary, Canada, died at 86…
Pic of the Day
Haredi demonstrators blocked major highways in Israel on Wednesday, causing massive traffic disruptions, in a nationwide protest against the imprisonment of yeshiva students who fail to comply with military draft orders.
Birthdays
Free agent center fielder, formerly in the San Francisco Giants organization, he was the 10th overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft, Hunter David Bishop turns 28…
Music publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for Prince, Billy Joel and Styx, later an author on human behavior, Howard Bloom turns 83… Founder and CEO of Bel Air Partners, a financial advisory firm for automotive retailers, Sheldon J. Sandler turns 82… Real estate developer in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Las Vegas and Miami and founder of The Continuum Company, Ian Bruce Eichner turns 81… Florida resident, Joseph C. Goldberg… Southern California-based mentor, coach and consultant for business executives through Vistage International, Gary Brennglass… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Sonia Sotomayor turns 72… Former member of the Knesset for the Meretz party, Michal Rozin turns 57… Founder and CEO of The Agency, a high-end real estate brokerage, Mauricio Umansky turns 56… Managing director of A-Street, an investment fund focused on seeding and scaling innovative K-12 student learning, Mora Segal… Senior media and PR specialist at Hadassah, Helen Chernikoff… Israeli philosopher, writer and publicist, he teaches at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Midreshet Lindenbaum, Rabbi Chaim Navon turns 53… Founder and director of The Biblical Museum of Natural History in Beit Shemesh, Israel, popularly known as the “Zoo Rabbi,” Natan Slifkin turns 51… Former fashion model and television presenter, Michele Merkin turns 51… Deputy director of government relations at Bread for the World, Zachary Silberman… President of Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., Zev Eleff turns 41… One-half of the husband-and-wife duo known for their YouTube channel h3h3Productions with more than 1.3 billion views, Ethan Edward Klein turns 41… Organizational change management specialist at CACI International, Isaac Snyder… VP of strategy at Saint Paul Commodities and co-founder of Veriflux, Daniel “Dani” Charles turns 39… Family Medicine Residency Faculty at Jefferson Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa., Avital Mintz-Morgenthau, MD… Senior reporter and writer covering the White House for CNN, Betsy Klein…
Plus, Israeli alarm over Iran’s role in Lebanon
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, Congressional candidate Brad Lander, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rally at King's Theater on June 18, 2026 in New York City (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the results of yesterday’s primary elections in New York City and Maryland, and report on criticism by prospective 2028 Democratic presidential contenders of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. We also highlight Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter’s statement of concern over the U.S.-Iran agreement to establish a “deconfliction cell” to end military operations in Lebanon and over Tehran’s role in that, and examine the contrasting messaging Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have offered around Iran’s involvement in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Kraft, Gene Simmons and Sir Liam Fox.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Far-left, anti-Israel congressional candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept a trifecta of contested primaries Tuesday night. But pro-Israel stalwart Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) won renomination in a landslide with 72% of the vote, and state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, an ally of Israel who holds close relations with the Jewish community, won the Democratic nomination to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). (Read more below.)
- Outside of the deep-blue city, Democrats turned to pro-Israel moderates in key races. State Del. Adrian Boafo, who was the recipient of millions of dollars of supportive ads from AIPAC’s super PAC, easily prevailed in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). (Read more below.) Military veteran Cait Conley, meanwhile, won comfortably in a crowded Democratic primary, and will face Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in a swing suburban New York City seat. And in Utah, former Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT) easily defeated a challenger who campaigned on his anti-Israel bona fides.
- Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-MD) held off a well-funded challenge from former Rep. David Trone. Trone spent over $25 million of his own money on the race, but only won about 37% of the primary vote. And in Montgomery County, Md., progressive Councilmember Will Jawando is currently leading the more moderate Councilmember Andrew Friedson 41-33%in the Democratic primary for county executive with 70% of votes counted.
- President Donald Trump is expected to attend a GOP Senate luncheon as he remains at odds with his party over several legislative efforts. Later, he’ll hold a rally on the National Mall to kick off his 16-day Great American State Fair to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is slated to brief House Republicans as the Pentagon gears up for a contentious fight over an expected $80 billion supplemental funding request to replenish stockpiles and otherwise pay for the war in Iran, according to several reports. Read more here.
- The House Appropriations Committee is set to mark up the 2027 defense spending bill.
- Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) will speak in conversation with Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick as well as leaders from other religious groups, including the Union for Reform Judaism and Orthodox Union, about the Jewish American Security Act.
- Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s media site, The Daily Wire, is co-hosting alongside ad agency LSKR a day of programming at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in the south of France, marking the company’s debut at the advertising industry’s premier annual gathering.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S WILL BREDDERMAN
It’s New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s party now — even if not everybody in the Big Apple feels invited.
The mayor’s candidates for Congress jumped out to early leads Tuesday night, with former City Comptroller Brad Lander comfortably defeating Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a stalwart opponent of President Donald Trump who nonetheless lost support from his party’s base over his lukewarm support for the new mayor and longstanding pro-Israel record. Lander won 66% of the vote to Goldman’s 34%, with 90% of the vote counted as of Wednesday morning.
The shocks to the party establishment continued throughout the night, as Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez jumped to a commanding advantage over party favorite, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. Valdez easily defeated Reynoso, 56%-36%, with 92% of the vote counted.
And the capstone on the night for Mamdani’s anti-Israel congressional trifecta came when networks announced the ouster of Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, against radical doctoral student and Columbia encampment leader Darializa Avila Chevalier, whose inflammatory X feed — and attendance at an anti-Israel rally the day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — did little to derail her candidacy. In a much tighter race, Avila Chevalier beat the incumbent, 49%-46%, with 88% of the vote counted.
Signs of the ascendance of the far left within overwhelmingly Democratic big cities have been visible for months. Mamdani’s astounding mayoral victory in 2025 mobilized a slew of like-minded candidates to run for office — in New York City and beyond. In Philadelphia, DSA-endorsed candidate Chris Rabb won a Philadelphia-based congressional seat last month. Last week, DSA-backed Janeese Lewis George romped to victory in the race for mayor in the nation’s capital, and is on track to become the city’s next top executive.
ESTABLISHMENT WIN
New York state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a Jewish Democrat, claimed victory on Tuesday night in a hard-fought primary for a coveted House seat in the heart of Manhattan, according to the Associated Press. Lasher had won 39% with most of the vote tallied by the time his race had been called. He prevailed over a fellow assemblymember, Alex Bores, who pulled in 35%, as well as Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy scion, who came in third with just 10% — followed by Nina Schwalbe and George Conway, both in single digits, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Background: Lasher, 44, a longtime member of the Democratic establishment in New York, pitched himself as the most experienced candidate in the race, leaning into his identification as a policy wonk. He was backed by the district’s retiring congressman, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), as well as Gov. Kathy Hochul. He also drew a significant share of outside support from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent $10 million to help boost Lasher’s campaign.
MARYLAND MANDATE
Maryland state Del. Adrian Boafo prevailed on Tuesday in the crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who endorsed him, marking a legacy-burnishing victory for the veteran congressman and his pro-Israel allies, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Strong lead: The Associated Press called the race after Boafo had secured 32% of the vote with about one-half of ballots counted Tuesday night. His nearest competitor, businesswoman Quincy Bareebe, lagged well behind with 19%. Boafo’s win came after a forceful push by Hoyer, pro-Israel groups and establishment Democrats to help elevate the congressman’s hand-picked former campaign manager in a race that featured two dozen candidates vying to represent Maryland’s 5th Congressional District.
2028 WATCH
Among the Democrats mulling a presidential run in 2028, there was a unified reaction in February when President Donald Trump decided to attack Iran: opposition to a war they viewed as reckless and unconstitutional. As those Democrats respond to the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding that Trump announced last week, another consensus is emerging, holding that the deal is just another example of Trump’s ineffectual leadership — yet another instance, these Democrats argue, of Trump getting taken advantage of and undermining the American people, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Taking jabs: “They’re negotiating a deal that, truthfully, every single detail we continue to hear just looks like the Iranians continue to do better than us. I think they should have been the one to write The Art of the Deal, not Donald Trump,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a TV interview on Tuesday. Rahm Emanuel, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, member of Congress and chief of staff to President Barack Obama, offered a similar quip at a recent Financial Times event after describing the deal as “the memorandum of misunderstanding.” Emanuel said, “While the president thinks he wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, they’re going to teach him a lesson, which is the Persian lesson: the art of the negotiation. And he just got schooled, unbelievably.”
Deal defense: Breaking with many Senate Republicans who have expressed skepticism about various elements of the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended the deal on Tuesday, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
DAYLIGHT EMERGING
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter criticized the Trump administration on Tuesday for agreeing to establish a “deconfliction cell” to end military operations in Lebanon without Israel’s involvement as part of the ongoing peace talks with Iran, the first public statement from Jerusalem denouncing the move, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Ambassador’s alarm: Leiter released a pair of statements in English and Hebrew at the start of the fifth round of multi-day diplomatic talks at the U.S. State Department between Israel and Lebanon, in which he warned that both parties were “heading towards a train wreck.” The ambassador said that while the Israelis “support President Trump’s vision of ensuring that Iran no longer has nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles or the ability to funnel money to its proxies to threaten its neighbors and maintain its regional hegemony,” he worried “that the concept of ‘deconfliction’ is misplaced.”
Fault lines: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have offered different messaging around the issue of Lebanon and Hezbollah being subsumed into discussions with Tehran, JI’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports. Vance said on Monday that the U.S. will be counting on Iran to “rein in” its proxy Hezbollah. Rubio, meanwhile, arriving in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, said Iran’s sponsorship of Hezbollah “will be discussed as part of our conversation with the Iranians, but … the future of Lebanon belongs to the Lebanese people, through their sovereign, elected government, and that’s who we’re going to be working with.”
BLINKEN WEIGHS IN
Former Secretary of State Tony Blinken offered support for Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-CA) stance on the Iran war and the U.S. deal with Iran in a post on X on Tuesday. Blinken praised the “wise words from my friend [Khanna],” reposting a Fox News op-ed by the congressman making the case that “stopping the Iran war is good. But Trump’s deal is worse than the JCPOA,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Zoom out: He’s the second prominent former Biden administration official to draw closer to Khanna in the lead-up to the 2028 presidential primary, joining former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who has reportedly been advising Khanna behind the scenes as he prepares for a presidential run. The comments also come as some progressive presidential contenders call for the Democratic Party to purge its ranks of foreign policy advisors who served in the Biden administration, given its general support for Israel.
CONGRESSIONAL REBUKE
The Senate voted on Tuesday to pass a House-passed war powers resolution directing the administration to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The resolution passed by a 50-48 vote, with Republican Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) again voting in favor and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting against it. Ultimately, GOP absences enabled the resolution to go forward.
State of play: But the resolution, now passed by both chambers, came in the form of a concurrent resolution, which is not submitted to the president and, based on past court precedent, is not seen as carrying the force of law. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and lead Democratic sponsor of the war powers resolution, insisted in a statement, “Regardless of what President Trump says, this measure is binding under the War Powers Resolution, and I will explore all legal avenues to ensure the Executive complies with the will of Congress.”
Worthy Reads
Thin Air: Navy and Army National Guard veteran Brynn Tannehill argues in The Atlantic that the U.S. and Israel’s strategy toward Iran was flawed from the outset because it ignored historical lessons and relied primarily on airpower to force either regime change or surrender. “The U.S. plan for attacking Iran was doomed from the start because it relied on airpower without the benefit of external factors that would have made an air campaign successful. There was no credible threat of mass ground invasion to overthrow the Iranian regime. It was either internal revolution or nothing. The U.S. was also unwilling to inflict the sort of mass casualties and suffering that might have caused Iran to decide that capitulation was less damaging than continued resistance.” [TheAtlantic]
The Burgeoning Question about Burnham: The Jewish Chronicle’s Angela Epstein considers whether Labor MP Andy Burnham’s potential premiership in Britain will be “good for the Jews.” “Look to how recently, when asked for his views on the baseless allegations of genocide in Gaza, Burnham declined to take a clear position. Arguing he was too far removed from the situation to make such a judgement. Why not state plainly that no court has upheld the genocide claim [against Israel]? … So the rap sheet is troubling. Factor in the wider perception of Burnham as a weathervane politician, with an impressive number of U-turns under his belt, and there is justifiable cause for concern for British Jewry.” [JewishChronicle]
The Witkoff-Kushner Show: Journalist and editor Tina Brown, in her Substack “Fresh Hell,” reviews New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s new book about the first year of President Donald Trump’s second administration. “Surprising to me in these pages is how well the odd couple of global diplomacy, the ever-sunny real estate deal man Steve Witkoff and Trump’s effete-looking son-in-law Jared Kushner, come across. After bringing home the Abraham Accords in the first term and wrangling Bibi and Hamas to a Gaza ceasefire in the second, it’s time to acknowledge that Kushner is a skilled, pragmatic closer and the garrulous Witkoff, dispatched round the world to end three wars at once, never stops trying.” [Substack]
Word on the Street
International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday that inspectors would visit Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, after conflicting remarks on the matter by U.S. and Iranian officials. The parties’ agreement “says explicitly that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out with the regards to the nuclear material facilities will be supervised by the IAEA — in all letters,” Grossi told reporters.…
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke on the phone with senior Hamas official Basem Naim about the “latest developments” in the region, according to Iranian TV…
Victoria Coates, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, she said in an X post on Wednesday, noting that they discussed “Lebanon, Europe, the future of Western Civilization, and, of course, Iran”…
A U.S. fighter jet pilot who was shot down over Iran and rescued in April told intelligence officials he witnessed Iranian drones flying in a single swarm formation, CNN reports, which would mark a significant advancement in Tehran’s drone technology…
The Washington Post examines how President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran has impacted his popularity in the United Arab Emirates…
Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate announced the formation of its inaugural advisory board, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Dentons CEO Kate Barton, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports exclusively…
The House Rules Committee yesterday teed up amendment votes on the 2027 State Department funding bill on cutting $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel, cutting U.S. aid to Jordan, blocking funding for the United Nations and blocking funding for the Middle East Partnership for Peace initiative. The amendments are expected to come up for votes later this week…
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) reiterated her criticism of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and accused him and his supporters of antisemitism at an Orthodox Union event on Tuesday, JI’s Marc Rod reports. “Our support for Israel remains as strong as ever,” Collins said, to a standing ovation. “We must all stand with Israel. In my case, I learned that lesson at an early age”…
New York City’s First Lady Rama Duwaji posted an Instagram story Tuesday flashing an “I Voted” sticker and encouraging her followers to support the two congressional candidates endorsed by both her husband and the Democratic Socialists of America: Assemblymember Claire Valdez and doctoral student Darializa Avila Chevalier. The post excluded Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who alone among Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s candidates identifies as a Zionist, JI’s Will Bredderman reports…
A manifesto allegedly left by the gunman behind Monday’s rampage in Côte-des-Neiges, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Montreal, repeatedly targeted Jews and Zionists, specifically identifying “influential Zionists” among his intended victims, according to a copy of the document published by Rebel News, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
Jewish Democrats in Texas are gearing up for the state party’s convention, which starts Thursday, as delegates are set to consider nearly 20 resolutions condemning Israel…
Israeli officials are exploring listing Israel Aerospace Industries and defense manufacturer Rafael on U.S. stock exchanges rather than in Israel, where they may face more burdensome disclosure requirements, according to Bloomberg. The Israeli government is reportedly looking to sell up to a 30% stake in the companies, which manufacture the Arrow and Iron Dome missile-defense systems…
Around 50 career and political appointee intelligence officials have been removed from their roles at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence since Bill Pulte assumed the role of acting DNI last week, CBS reports, including six employees who were fired and 45 who were sent back to other agencies…
Top Senate Democrats sent a letter to Republican committee chairs on Tuesday calling for hearings into a $500 million deal that sold nearly half of World Liberty Financial — a crypto company founded by members of the Trump and Witkoff families — to a group led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor, The Wall Street Journal reports…
Gen. Chris Donahue, the highly regarded commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa who was seen as a rising star in the U.S. defense establishment, is expected to announce he is stepping down from his role in the coming days, adding to a growing list of senior military leaders who have departed or been pushed out during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure…
Netanyahu on Wednesday completed his testimony, after 98 hearings over the past year and a half, in his ongoing corruption trial…
Israeli-born KISS co-founder and bassist Gene Simmons tells The Wall Street Journal about the impact his mother, who was a Holocaust survivor, had on his worldview…
Breaker Media reports that New York Times columnist Bret Stephens was briefly mistaken by security for an intruder as he arrived at Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s annual Catskills BBQ wearing a fedora, which is usually worn by Breaker Media’s reporter when he stakes out media gatherings…
The Wall Street Journal reports on how Larry Ellison quietly donated $45 million to a pro-Trump political nonprofit in 2024 — one of the largest single injections of capital that cycle — and how his private friendship with Trump has since paid dividends for both his tech company Oracle and his son David‘s growing media empire…
The New York Times spotlights the annual Great Nosh picnic that took place on Governors Island on Sunday, calling it “a kind of New York-centric Coachella for Jewish food and culture”…
“SportsCenter” anchor Linda Cohn, who presented more episodes of the ESPN show than anyone else in its history, is set to retire at the end of the month…
Longtime New Yorker staff writer Mark Singer, who specialized in profiles, died on Friday at 75…
Pic of the Day
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), (left), and Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Eric Burlison (R-MO) spoke at a launch event on Tuesday for the Abraham Accords Prosperity Group in Washington hosted by Sir Liam Fox (second from left), a former British minister. The group aims to promote investment and collaboration across the Abraham Accords countries.
Birthdays
Actor and singer, Elizabeth Greer “Beanie” Feldstein turns 33…
Activist investor, he is a co-founder of Trian Partners, Nelson Peltz turns 84… Professor emeritus in the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University, Sam S. Gill turns 84… Former chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Company, Seymour “Sy” Sternberg turns 83… Professor of philosophy at American Jewish University and founding dean of its rabbinical program, Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff turns 83… Founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, he is also the founder of Yeshivat Maharat for Orthodox women, Rabbi Avraham Haim Yosef (Avi) Weiss turns 82… Former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, he is an author and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, his newest book came out in 2025, Robert Reich turns 80… Former member of Knesset and former chief of staff of the IDF, Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon turns 76… Early childhood specialist at Columbus City Schools and Columbus School for Girls in Columbus, Ohio, Carol Glassman… Former EVP at Edelman, he is the author of a book on the Saatchi & Saatchi ad firm, Kevin Goldman… President and CEO of public relations firm Steinreich Communications, Stanley Steinreich… U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida, Beth Francine Bloom turns 64… Principal from 2007 to 2023 of Mount Scopus Memorial College located in Melbourne, Australia, Rabbi James Kennard turns 62… The first on-air talent of the NFL Network when it debuted in 2003, he has become the face of the network, which merged with ESPN in 2025, Rich Eisen turns 57… Israeli businesswoman and owner of the soccer team, Hapoel Beer Sheva, her brother-in-law is Israel’s minister of economy, Nir Barkat, Alona Barkat turns 57… Author and columnist, he is the managing editor at Shtetl, Shulem Deen turns 52… Singer and songwriter known professionally as Ariel Pink, Ariel Marcus Rosenberg turns 48… Film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and cinematographer, Todd Strauss-Schulson turns 46… Director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, he is the son-in-law of political analyst and commentator Bill Kristol, Matthew Continetti turns 45… Digital marketing manager at Guardian Pharmacy Services, Brett Rosner… VP of Houston-based RIDA Development, a multi-national real estate development company, Steven C. Mitzner… A 2015 contestant on “Jeopardy!” who earned $413,612 by winning 13 consecutive episodes, he is a son of United States District Court Senior Judge Amy Berman Jackson, Matthew Barnett “Matt” Jackson turns 34… Director of legislative fiscal affairs at the Rockland County (N.Y.) legislature, Moshe Gruber… College basketball player for the Harvard Crimson until 2022, then a graduate transfer player at NYU until 2024, Spencer Freedman turns 28… Lois Charles…
The inaugural group includes former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
Chris Unger/Getty Images
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft
The Blue Square Alliance Against Hate announced on Tuesday the formation of its inaugural advisory board to help guide the organization.
The five board members of the organization, founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, includes former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan; Dentons CEO Kate Barton; Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff; and Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav.
The organization said the board will advise on strategy to combat antisemitism and help deepen institutional relationships.
“Their engagement sends a powerful message: combating antisemitism and hate is a shared responsibility, and one that needs leadership,” Kraft said in a statement. “This group embodies the values of the Blue Square Alliance, and we are deeply grateful that they are bringing their experience, perspective, and influence to our mission as we continue to build bridges.”
“Bank of America supports the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate because antisemitism and other forms of hate must be called out and addressed,” said Moynihan. “I look forward to working with the other members of the advisory group.”
Plus, Ms. Rachel’s Capitol cameo
(L/R) US producer DJ Khaled, US rapper Fat Joe, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and his wife Allison Lutnick watch Knicks guard Jalen Brunson during Game Three of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in New York on June 8, 2026. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)
PRESENTED BY
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Middle East experts about the dynamic between the U.S. and Israel on strategy in the region as President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu diverge on how to address Iran and its proxies, and have the scoop on the newest additions to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We report on the who’s who of notables at last night’s NBA Finals game in New York, and talk to friends and colleagues of Tisch family matriarch Billie Tisch, who died on Sunday. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sam Bankman-Fried, Ms. Rachel and Dan Loeb.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Voters in Maine head to the polls today to cast their ballots in the state’s primary races, including the Democratic primary for Senate, where embattled oyster farmer Graham Platner is expected to win the nomination following Gov. Janet Mills’ suspension of her campaign earlier this spring. We’ll be watching the margin by which Platner, who has been dogged by a series of scandals ranging from a Nazi tattoo to comments supporting Hamas tactics to past volatile romantic relationships, wins tonight — which will indicate his strength going into the general election against one of the Senate’s most moderate Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
- We’ll also be keeping an eye on primaries in Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina.
- In the Middle East, Lebanese media reported Israeli airstrikes near Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday morning after the IDF issued an evacuation order to residents of the city. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that, though Israel is “holding its fire” against Iran, Jerusalem has “a full right to self-defense” and is “exercising it to the extent necessary.” Two Israeli sources told CNN that Jerusalem planned to continue its operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
- The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center. The hearing comes two months after the Department of Justice charged the group with fraud in connection with now-defunct efforts to spend upwards of $3 million to pay informants at extremist groups.
- The House Appropriations Committee is holding markups this morning on the 2027 budgets for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor.
- Elsewhere in Washington, Chabad-Lubavitch’s Living Legacy International Conference, which kicked off last night, resumes this morning with a congressional leadership breakfast followed by events at the Library of Congress, a luncheon at the State Department, a roundtable with Jewish leaders from around the world this afternoon and a gala dinner in the evening.
- Agudath Israel of America is holding a dinner to dedicate its new Washington office and pay tribute to Rabbi Abba Cohen, the longtime head of the group’s DC operations.
- The Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum kicks off today in Washington. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Alan Armstrong (R-OK); Reps. Ami Bera (D-CA), Young Kim (R-CA); Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Development Finance Corporation CEO Ben Black and TWG Global’s Amos Hochstein are slated to speak at the two-day gathering.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Domestic politics isn’t always the best lens through which to evaluate foreign policy decisions.
But in assessing why President Donald Trump has gone to significant lengths to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from striking back against Iran’s attacks, and why Netanyahu went ahead with the first wave of military strikes before standing down, it’s instructive to understand how the domestic politics in the U.S. and Israel are diverging.
The joint U.S.-Israel military operation against Iran, which began on Feb. 28 and has evolved into a very tenuous ceasefire since April 8, has not achieved many of the military goals outlined by both sides. Iran’s extremist leadership is still in place, it still maintains its nuclear ambitions and retains its nuclear material, and its ballistic missile stockpiles, while damaged, still remain.
On the Lebanese front, Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel’s north and not abide by any of the diplomatic agreements recently negotiated between Israel and the Lebanese government.
As a result of the limited achievements so far, public support for renewing military action against Iran has been low among the American public, and the overall operation is receiving lukewarm backing from Republicans.
Over two-thirds of voters in a recent Economist/YouGov poll said the U.S. “should make a deal to end the war in Iran as quickly as possible,” with just 11% disagreeing. Over half of Republicans shared the same sentiment of ending the war, with just 21% opposing.
Support for the war itself was much higher among Republicans than Democrats or independents, but still less than typical partisan support for Trump’s actions, with 67% of GOP voters backing the war in Iran and 20% opposing. (Among all voters, just 28% said they supported the war against Iran, with 60% opposing.)
These polling numbers explain why Trump, ever cognizant of public opinion especially in the run-up to a consequential midterm election, is trying to avoid reengaging with Iran militarily — even as he desperately seeks for some diplomatic off-ramp that Iran isn’t giving him.
In fact, it’s Trump’s very transparent desperation for a deal with Iran — and apparent unwillingness to go back to war —that’s emboldening Iran to continue its rejectionism to the point where it launched ballistic missiles at Israel over the weekend, feeling confident Trump would constrain Israel from any sustained response (which he did).
WAR AND PEACE
Middle East experts warned on Monday that the Trump administration’s attempts to prevent Israel’s military retaliation against Iran and its pursuit of a swift diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran are exposing a fundamental breakdown in strategic alignment between Washington and Jerusalem. This dynamic is actively undermining American leverage and hardening Tehran’s resolve both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield, the analysts argued, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Trump and Tehran: Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, Amb. Eric Edelman, a distinguished fellow at JINSA and former White House official, said that the president’s behavior makes the U.S. appear “desperate for a deal.” Ari Cicurel, an assistant director of foreign policy at JINSA, agreed that the administration’s apparent urgency to reach a deal removes vital military deterrence to back up U.S. diplomacy. “The president has signaled that he is highly prioritizing reaching some deal, and is willing to restrain Israel in order to do that,” Cicurel told JI.
On the Hill: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Monday that he would support President Donald Trump abandoning diplomatic talks with Iran and resuming military operations, JI’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
MOUNTING SCRUTINY
Will Avila Chevalier’s ‘beyond the pale’ views sink the DSA challenger’s campaign against Espaillat?
As Darializa Avila Chevalier mounts an insurgent campaign against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) in Upper Manhattan, the democratic socialist has faced mounting scrutiny over past controversial posts that have surfaced in recent days, raising questions about whether the negative publicity will blunt her chances in the June 23 primary election. Some strategists suggested that her incendiary views could get overlooked amid a national political landscape favoring extreme, anti-establishment sentiments now fueling the rise of several far-left candidates in Democratic primaries around the country, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Sign of the times: “It seems to not matter in a way that it would have been a deal-breaker 15 or 20 years ago,” Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist in New York City who is not involved in the primary, told JI on Monday. “This race feels like our new outlier, where some of the things she’s said are so far beyond the pale.”
SCOOP
The Congressional Dads Caucus is hosting children’s influencer Rachel Griffin-Accurso, better known as Ms. Rachel, as a featured guest at a reception in Washington on Tuesday, according to an invitation obtained by Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. Griffin-Accurso has faced scrutiny and criticism over antisemitic activity and for hosting a pro-Hamas Palestinian journalist on her social media accounts.
Background: Griffin-Accurso is one of 10 “special guests,” including “leaders, advocates, creators, entertainers, and changemakers who are helping redefine fatherhood and caregiving in America,” at the Tuesday reception. The reception is co-hosted by the Dads Caucus, founded by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), to advocate for policies including childcare affordability and accessibility, paid family leave and the child tax credit, ahead of the group’s Dad Ambassador Awards. The event is co-hosted by Equimundo, which describes itself as a nonprofit focused on promoting gender equality and preventing violence.
SCOOP
House Democrats are set to name Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod has learned.
Lineup changes: Bell and Wasserman Schultz are both strong supporters of Israel, while Pocan is an outspoken critic, joining a panel that features outspoken voices on both sides of the Israel policy debate. None of the three offices responded to requests for comment. Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a Jewish Republican and strong supporter of Israel, also recently joined the panel.
