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. 

In a statement on her hiring, Klepach said she was enthusiastic to join an effort focused on preventing Republicans from mimicking what she described as Democrats’ embrace of anti-Israel sentiment.

“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.”

TFL’s mission statement describes the group as “an issue advocacy organization aligned with the positions of Ted Cruz dedicated to countering right-wing antisemitism, by making antisemitism disqualifying in the Republican Party and conservative movement, through activities across political, policy, and digital spaces.”

On the political front, the group “seeks to defeat antisemitic candidates at all levels of the Republican Party, first by mapping federal, state, and local primaries, and then by running effective messaging campaigns to ensure that they lose, highlighting and ensuring that antisemitism is an electoral liability for Republican candidates.”

TFL will also “engage in issue advocacy related to a cluster of policies which have emerged in the battle over right-wing antisemitism.”

“Ted Cruz and other lawmakers seek to counter Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamism, and the global persecution of Christians by Islamist extremists, while boosting the U.S.-Israel relationship and efforts to address antisemitism,” the statement reads. “Right-wing antisemites take and advocate for the opposite position on each of these issues, and related ones.”

Regarding their digital efforts, the group says in its mission statement that it also plans to “create and utilize infrastructure for real-time monitoring and response to right-wing antisemitism, including and especially to the extent that it is being driven by foreign adversaries. It will deploy defensive measures, including the identification and deactivation of inauthentic accounts, as well as measures meant to elevate clarity about antisemitism in the conservative movement and Republican Party.”

The effort has been in the works since late last summer, as Cruz was growing more vocal with his concerns about rising antisemitism within the conservative movement and the need to insulate the GOP from fringe figures who espouse antisemitic views, according to a source familiar with the Texas senator’s concerns.

It’s the latest development in the divide in the GOP over how to approach the outgrowth of antisemitism on the party’s far right, especially if those close to Cruz, who is considering a 2028 presidential bid, use the group to put their thumb on the scale in heated primary contests.

The Texas senator, one of the GOP’s pro-Israel champions, has led the charge in urging the Republican Party to disavow antisemitic figures within the conservative movement as commentators Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and others grow their influence, particularly with young conservatives. 

Cruz has criticized Republicans who refuse to disavow prominent antisemites in the party or avoid weighing in on the issue as “cowards,” and has argued that young Christians were turning away from supporting Israel because leading voices in the America First movement were maligning Jewish conservatives and pro-Israel Christians.

President Donald Trump’s declaration that the U.S. “must, of necessity, respond” to Iran’s downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter off the coast of Oman on Monday evening received support from GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill, several of whom called for a powerful military retaliation.

U.S. officials confirmed to CNN that the attack helicopter — whose pilots Trump said were successfully rescued — was brought down by an Iranian one-way attack drone. The high-stakes incident marks the most serious uptick in direct hostilities between Washington and Tehran in weeks, occurring amid diplomatic efforts to end the regional war and begin negotiations to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

“I agree with the president, there should be significant consequences,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Jewish Insider.

“Enough is enough,” Cruz later wrote on X. “President Trump and our Armed Forces decimated Iran militarily, but the Iranian regime has been trying to rebuild and now they’ve taken down an American Apache. President Trump is absolutely right. There is a pressing necessity for the U.S. to respond to this attack.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, also called for a powerful response, urging Trump to look at “meaningful options.”

“We need to vigorously respond,” Rogers said. “We can’t let anybody shoot down one of our helicopters and it not be responded to.”

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) similarly pushed for “decisive action” in order to put the looming Iranian threat “behind us.”

“I think America would be in a better place if we had this behind us and clear, decisive action that would bring an absolute end to this so we don’t have to do it again,” Budd told JI. “They [Iran] cannot persist to threaten us and then develop nuclear weapons. … They should never ever have a nuclear weapon.”

While some regional experts agreed that the Iranian attack necessitates a firm U.S. military reaction, they argued that any such response is likely to be limited in scope and is not anticipated to trigger a return to full combat operations, nor is it expected to derail ongoing negotiations given the president’s focus on a diplomatic exit.

“If information is correct, that Iran shot down a U.S. helicopter, then the president is correct, the United States does need to respond,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who later served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration. “That’s a very serious attack, which thankfully did not seem to take the lives of the two aviators, but it needs a response.”

Shapiro noted that while U.S. action is necessary, the retaliation will likely be calibrated to avoid escalation, as Trump remains intensely “motivated” to secure a broader deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“U.S. Central Command will be able to give [Trump] options that will include a meaningful response against an Iranian military target, but one that does not necessarily produce a strong Iranian response that leads to an escalatory cycle,” Shapiro explained. “If he wants to succeed in negotiations, say, on the war, he needs to respond, but do it in a way that leads to a de-escalation.”

Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council during Trump’s first administration, also anticipates a precise, “proportional blow against key Iranian targets.”

“The president has responsibly maintained considerable American military power in the vicinity of Iran, both conducting the U.S. Navy’s successful blockade, but also being held in reserve should the need arise to continue kinetic military operations,” Gray said. “The president will likely strike a proportional blow against key Iranian targets, while keeping in mind the broader American strategic imperative of concluding this conflict with a diplomatic solution that advances American interests in the region.”

Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that failing to respond would be a political and strategic impossibility for the White House.

“It would be hard for the president not to respond, though I suspect that this is not a return to combat,” Cook observed. “Trump will likely direct CENTCOM to take out one or several high-value targets.”

Analysts noted that the exchange is unlikely to impact the high-level talks or alter the calculations of either side, as negotiators continue to work out an agreement.

“It doesn’t necessarily push a deal further off the table,” Shapiro said. “It sounds like negotiators are close to a deal. Until there is a deal, though, exchanges in a ceasefire that has seen numerous violations of it are not surprising, but if both sides are motivated to get a deal, this will not prevent it from happening.”

Cook said that a minor strike could solidify Tehran’s perception of American vulnerability.

“I don’t believe that a tit-for-tat exchange will significantly alter Iran’s view that it has time on its hands and that the president is desperate for a deal,” Cook said. “It seems clear that the president does not want anything to upset negotiations and the chances of a negotiated way out of the conflict. The Iranians do not seem willing to give him anything that he could call a victory, however. The result is likely to be a continued stalemate.”

Iran has similarly appeared to prefer a diplomatic exit over renewed escalation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday said that Iranian leaders “prefer language of diplomacy but speak other languages too.”

“Foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire,” Araghchi posted on X following the incident. “To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave.”

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department negotiator, said the incident reflects a “manifestation of how emboldened [the Iranians] are and how willing they are to take risks.”

While Miller warned against a heightened response, he noted that even restrained exchanges could lead to eventual escalation if a final diplomatic breakthrough is not reached soon. 

“If [Trump] doesn’t [limit the response], then what he’s going to trip into is a very hard response if he goes after directly Iranian targets on the mainland,” Miller warned. “The longer this goes on without having an agreement, it’s inevitable that this is going to escalate.”

The core parameters of a potential deal have been “evident for quite some time,” Miller added, but concluded it will ultimately require a painful political calculation from both Washington and Tehran. 

“Both sides must be prepared to accept a situation in which they’re going to perceive to have given something up,” Miller said. 

Senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has for months been raising the alarm about the growing threat of antisemitism on the American right. During a visit to Los Angeles for the Milken Institute Global Conference, he called for elected officials — including in his own party — to take a clear stand on the issue. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find ourselves in a country where both major political parties are unequivocally anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic. And I think that is a very real threat,” Cruz told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday at the Milken conference. 

Among populist young conservatives, where the MAGA ideology of President Donald Trump has given way to an isolationist, America First worldview, Cruz sees a big shift on Israel. 

“Every elected official is going to have to decide where he or she stands, and what you believe,” said Cruz. “As Ronald Reagan said more than 50 years ago, this is a time for choosing, and each person can decide where he or she stands.”

When pressed about Vice President JD Vance — who, through his choice of staffers and comments suggesting skepticism of interventionist policies, is increasingly seen as sympathetic to younger conservatives’ worldviews — Cruz did not come to the vice president’s defense. 

“You got my answer,” Cruz told JI.

The Texas Republican was at Milken to speak on a panel about economic mobility. But Cruz was also eager to talk about what he saw as exciting developments in the war with Iran. He called for what he described as “regime collapse” in Iran: the U.S. working to free Iran from authoritarian religious leaders without necessarily sticking around to replace them with a new leader. 

He called for a more muscular U.S. approach to Iran; he wants to see the U.S. arming the Iranians, the Kurds and the Peshmerga — whatever it takes to bring down the Islamic Republic. 

“Removing that regime from power is unambiguously in America’s national security interest. Now, that does not mean we should engage in nation-building, and I have no delusions that we’re going to go transform Iran into some democratic utopia [or] we’re going to turn Iran into Switzerland. That’s not our job,” said Cruz. “For 25 years, Republican foreign policy has operated under what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell described as the Pottery Barn rule: ‘You break it, you buy it.’ I think that’s nonsense.” 

Following a Republican convening this week focused on combating right-wing antisemitism, a prominent moderate Democratic group urged fellow Democrats to follow the lead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in calling out antisemitism within their own party. 

“We certainly believe that Cruz was right and our side has a real antisemitism problem too that too many Democrats are failing to face squarely,” Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the center-left think tank Third Way, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

His comments came after Lily Cohen, a press advisor at the organization, shared a post highlighting Cruz’s comments at the Republican Jewish Coalition confab and said she “would love to see more Dems calling out antisemitism on their own side with the same fervor.” 

Cohen specifically mentioned Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the far-left, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. 

“We do believe that Platner has not remotely done enough to explain why he had a Nazi tattoo for 20 years,” said Bennett.

Cohen’s comments inadvertently spotlighted — and even ignited — the growing feud within the Democratic Party over Israel and antisemitism. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a progressive lawmaker who has been a frequent critic of Israel and pro-Israel activists in the U.S., responded to Cohen’s post by saying he stands with Platner, Mamdani and even Piker.

“The problem is with the neocons in our party who blundered into Iraq, 20 years in Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, & now support the Iran war. Out with the old guard. We need a new moral direction,” Khanna wrote — prompting Bennett to call on Khanna directly to do more to oppose antisemitism. 

“We do not support the Iran War — we have publicly and strenuously opposed it. But we do stand against antisemitism. It would be good if you did, too,” Bennett wrote. 

When Khanna posted a message on X condemning Thursday’s active shooter attack at a suburban Detroit synagogue, Jim Kessler, another senior Third Way official, offered a verbal eye-roll. 

“Yadda, yadda, yadda…” Kessler wrote.

Antisemitism is rising on the American right, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned on Tuesday, expressing concern that efforts to combat it are not doing so quickly or effectively enough. 

“I want us to be winning, but I’m not sure it is accurate as a descriptive manner that we are winning right now,” Cruz said at an antisemitism symposium in Washington organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Review. 

Cruz has emerged in recent months as one of the Republican Party’s most vocal critics of right-wing antisemitism. He has targeted influential commentator Tucker Carlson and his strain of isolationist, anti-Israel politics that has in recent months crossed over into overt antisemitism, though Cruz has bemoaned other Republicans’ wariness to criticize Carlson by name. 

At the RJC event, Cruz called Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.”

But he said that not enough of his colleagues and allies on the right are aware of the extent of the problem. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find myself in a country where both major political parties are unambiguously anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic, and I think that is a real possibility. If Tucker and his minions prevail, that will happen,” Cruz argued. 

Cruz expressed fear that this attitude is not just present but popular among young people on the right, as evidenced by two viral Turning Point USA events last fall where students at Auburn and Ole Miss cheered after deeply anti-Israel questions were asked.  

“I worry about the 19-year-olds who say, ‘Oh, that’s what our team believes. That’s who we are.’ Let’s be clear, if you are a young, ambitious Democrat, it is obvious what you should do. You should be viciously anti-Israel,” said Cruz. 

He applauded the people who came out to the Museum of the Bible on Tuesday to discuss antisemitism but pointed out that their concern does not reflect how the rest of the country thinks about the issue.

“The fact that this room is persuaded does not mean that the college campus is. It does not mean that the Capitol Hill interns are. It does not mean that the interns at Heritage, at [Conservative Partnership Institute] and every other conservative institution in this country, that they’re persuaded,” said Cruz. “We need to fight and engage it and take on the core premises, because if we lose the next generation, we lose the country.” 

Cruz posited that Carlson and other anti-Israel influencers are being paid by foreign nations like Qatar, China and Russia, though he acknowledged that he lacks proof for that theory. 

“I don’t believe all of these voices who have suddenly discovered that Israel is the source of all evil, that everything bad in the world was done by the Jews, that America is controlled by the Jews and that radical Islamic terrorists are really nice, wonderful people — I don’t think these people just arrived on this view organically and magically,” said Cruz. 

“I think many of these influencers are cashing a check,” he added. “The people in this room could do an enormous service by documenting that. I don’t have the evidence right now to prove it, but Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one.” 

Facing a heated primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused his right-wing challenger on Thursday of associating with antisemitic and anti-Israel voices within the MAGA movement. 

Cornyn told Jewish Insider in a wide-ranging interview that Texas Republican voters should view Paxton’s associations with figures such as former Trump advisor Steve Bannon as “alarming” — while urging Republicans to call out antisemitic and anti-Israel voices within the party, along the lines of his outspoken Texas GOP colleague Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“There’s this interesting, and troubling, tendency of some folks who claim the MAGA mantle to associate with antisemites like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and Steve Bannon. I know Ken Paxton regularly goes on Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast, and it’s something that should be alarming to Texas voters. People like that I don’t think are what I would call conservatives,” Cornyn said. 

“Once they “get their foot in the door, they have a way of corrupting the whole party and the whole movement,” he continued. “I just think allowing somebody like Ken Paxton inside the tent will end up being the destruction of the Republican Party.”

Paxton has been a guest on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast on numerous occasions in recent years, even as Bannon has made a number of controversial comments, most notably labeling popular Jewish conservative podcast host Ben Shapiro as a “cancer” on the party after he spoke out against Tucker Carlson and Owens’ antisemitism at a Turning Point USA conference last year.

Bannon has also ramped up attacks on Israel, calling the Jewish state a “protectorate” of the United States — while speaking out against President Donald Trump’s decision last year to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

A spokesperson for Paxton defended the Texas attorney general’s record on Israel and fighting antisemitism in a statement to JI. 

“AG Paxton has been a fierce friend of Israel,” the spokesperson said. “After spending $70 million and still being double digits behind in the polls, Sen. Cornyn has nothing else left but to throw random attacks at the wall and see if they stick. AG Paxton has a STRONG and unquestionable record standing against antisemitism.”

Cornyn is facing a tough reelection battle against Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), both of whom are running to his right in next month’s Republican primary.

The senator, a fixture in Texas politics for nearly four decades who served at the top levels of Senate leadership, argued that his primary contest would help determine what it means to be an electable Republican at a time when the party’s principles and values are being debated internally. 

“A lot of it [the GOP primary election] is going to boil down to a question of character. I think character still matters and the attorney general doesn’t believe it matters at all,” Cornyn said. “I just can’t in good conscience turn over this job representing 32 million people and a state that I love and a party that I helped build over my career, I can’t turn it over to a corrupt and unprincipled individual like the attorney general.”

Cornyn warned that the GOP is at risk of being overrun by extremists if prominent conservatives continue to align themselves with fringe figures who espouse antisemitic views, drawing a comparison to his assessment of the current ideological trajectory of the Democratic Party. 

“It starts out with the old saying: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. A lot of these folks were opposed to a lot of the worst excesses of the Democratic Party and the leftists. They began to corrode that movement with things like antisemitism and graft and greed. I think that’s how credibility of the opposition was eroded, by failing to call out people like that,” Cornyn said. 

“To maintain the integrity of conservatives, that’s why it’s so important to call out and to cut out some of these cancers that I think ultimately would result in the failure of the conservative movement,” he continued. “Because people could point to the corruption that was allowed to develop and thus undermine the credibility and integrity of the whole movement.”

Cornyn praised Cruz for “being one of the first to stand up and call out some of the fringe characters,” and criticized Republicans who associate themselves with far-right figures. 

“I’ve tried to do my part, initially through an editorial in the Dallas Morning News. I know this is a cancer, because antisemitism is just another way of dehumanizing people, and then using that behavior to justify in some people’s minds acts of violence,” the GOP senator said. “Obviously, the history of the Jewish people, dating back to the Holocaust, has been one of opponents trying to dehumanize them and make them seem to be something less than equal in terms of their dignity and their right to exist.”

Asked whether Trump would back him before the March primary, Cornyn told JI that he did not expect an endorsement, adding that he was dealing with “a lot of misinformation and lies.”

“I’ve been supportive of the president and his policies. Unfortunately, you always have to contend with a lot of misinformation and lies in modern elections,” Cornyn explained. “He [Trump] said he considers all three of us [GOP candidates] to be friends. If your base is divided among three people, choosing one out of those three people and disappointing the supporters of the other two, I can understand [that being] not something he would want to necessarily embrace unless he felt like it’s worth the cost.”

Cornyn argued that he would be the strongest general election candidate between himself, Paxton and Hunt, whereas Paxton would “ultimately provide the Democrats the best opportunity they’ve had since 1994 to turn Texas blue.”

“President Trump desperately wants to maintain the majority in the House, and we’ve got five new congressional seats in Texas,” he said. “If I’m the nominee, I will provide some help to those downballot races since I’ll be at the top of the ballot. I won by 10 [points] in 2020. If Paxton is the nominee, he’ll either lose or win by the skin of his teeth.”

Asked about Texas state Rep. James Talarico and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), the Democrats in the race, Cornyn suggested he would enjoy running against either in a general election.

“They should be running for Senate in California because they are totally out of step with where I think Texans are,” he said. 

Cornyn added that he would not underestimate Crockett.

“I wouldn’t count out Jasmine. Jasmine is smart, but I think she’s not running as good a campaign as Talarico,” Cornyn said. “Talarico is raising a lot of money, and he definitely has a better organization than Jasmine does.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Tuesday that he had drafted legislation designating the Polisario Front, the militant group that claims sovereignty over parts of the Western Sahara, as a foreign terrorist organization and will formally introduce it “if there’s no change in their behavior.”

Cruz made the comments at a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing focused on U.S. counterterrorism efforts in North Africa, after the hearing’s witnesses — the State Department’s Robert Palladino and Joel Borkert — both declined to agree with his statement that “the terrorist activity in the Sahel [region in Africa] is coming from the Polisario Front.”

“Iran is trying to turn the Polisario Front into the Houthis for West Africa, a proxy force capable of waging war to threaten regional stability and pressure U.S. partners whenever Iran wants leverage,” Cruz said. “The Polisario Front works with Iranian terrorist groups. It takes drones from the IRGC. It moves weapons and resources around the region, including to jihadists and much more.”

“I believe they should be designated as a terrorist group, and I’ve drafted a bill to do so if there’s no change in their behavior,” he added.

The Polisario Front is a separatist militant group founded in 1973 to fight against the Spanish occupation of parts of the Western Sahara. After Spain handed control of the territory to Mauritania and Morocco in 1975, splitting the land between the two countries, the PF waged war against both nations, hitting military and civilian targets while demanding recognition of Sahrawi ethnic group’s claims to the territory. The group declared in 1976 that all disputed territory in the region was part of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and currently controls an area east of the Moroccan Wall. 

Mauritania, now an Islamic republic, fell to the PF and formally recognized the SADR in 1979. While Morocco and the PF agreed to a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in 1991 that remains in effect today, the PF’s increasingly close ties to Algeria, Nigeria and Iran while governing the disputed Saharan territory have become a source of concern to those opposed to Tehran’s growing influence in the region. 

President Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara in late 2020 at the conclusion of his first administration, as part of the deal brokered for Morocco to join the Abraham Accords. 

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced legislation designating the PF as a foreign terrorist organization last June. The House bill has been co-sponsored by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Jefferson Shreve (R-IN) and Lance Gooden (R-TX). 

Speaking on his “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast on Tuesday evening, the Texas senator described Africa as a “major front for radical Islamic terrorism” and said the continent serves as “a major battleground” pitting Russia and China against the United States. 

Regarding the PF, Cruz noted that, “The best way to understand it is as a Cold War relic, analogous to the Palestinian Liberation Front, the PLO, but it was in West Africa, and there’s still a degree to which that framework is accurate.”

“It is a darling of the international left and the United Nations, and the group has continued its insurgency against Morocco,” Cruz explained. “The critical dynamic is that Iran has begun pouring resources into the group. … The Iranians have been providing money and weapons and directions.”

Palladino, a senior bureau official with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said in his opening remarks to the committee that the Trump administration was looking “to North African countries to provide critical support to ensuring terrorist activity in the Sahel does not spread west to the Gulf of Guinea or north to regain a foothold in North Africa, where they represent a more immediate threat to the United States and our interests.”

After Cruz pressed him on if he was referring to the PF, Palladino did not answer directly, instead telling the Texas senator that “President Trump has made clear his desire to achieve a lasting resolution to the problem in the Western Sahara, to that dispute, and as part of that American policy currently, we are engaging all parties.”

Cruz went on to ask Palladino if he believed the PF posed a threat to U.S. interests, to which the NEA official replied, “We’re actively engaging all parties in the Western Sahara dispute in the interest of achieving a lasting and durable peace. That’s the policy of the president. We’re seeking more time to continue to find a way to find common ground and to come to an agreement to stabilize the situation and allow there to be prosperity to follow based upon stability.”

The Texas senator told Palladino that his answers were “positively Shakespearean. It was full of sound and fury and yet signifying nothing.”

Cruz then turned to Borkert, the deputy coordinator for programs and military coordination at the Bureau of Counterterrorism, who similarly declined to single out the PF by name. 

“We continue to monitor activities throughout North Africa,” Borkert said. “We continue to see the IRGC and Hezbollah, their activities in that region and globally, and as we look at these activities, we will work with our partner countries in order to counter those threats, and where possible, designate or encourage those countries to designate the IRGC, Hezbollah and those terrorist groups.”

Both men told Cruz that they were not instructed to exclude mentions of the PF in their testimony. Cruz later revealed he did not believe their claims.

“I believe both witnesses were instructed: Do not say a negative word about the Polisario Front,” Cruz said on his podcast that evening. “They were instructed to say nothing about the Polisario Front.”

“The administration is trying to negotiate a big peace deal in Africa. There are folks in the administration who are trying to negotiate a deal in Western Africa, and right now, one of the consequences of that is that they’re reluctant to call out the Polisario Front,” he explained. “I think the Polisario Front is really dangerous. They’re funded by Iran, and so I’m working to call out people who are enemies of America and to impose real costs and consequences on those jihadists that are enemies of America.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the lead Senate sponsor of legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, criticized members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for voting to modify the House version of the bill, removing key provisions requiring the designation of Muslim Brotherhood branches and the organization as a whole as a terrorist group.

“Last week, frustratingly, the House version of my bill was advanced but terminally weakened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Cruz said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday. “They took out the ‘designation’ part of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act. The Senate should do better, and we should move the full bill on our side.”

Cruz suggested that some House lawmakers “did not believe that Congress should have a role in crafting sanctions, which are to be implemented by the executive.” He said he considers that argument “specious” and that most Senate colleagues agree.

A spokesperson for the House Foreign Affairs Committee insisted they remain aligned with both Cruz and the Trump administration, when asked about his comments. 

“We are in full support of the administration designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. That process is well underway. We are in lockstep with Sen. Cruz’s goal and look forward to reviewing his bill once it passes the Senate,” the spokesperson said.

Cruz’s remark came as he questioned Gregory LoGerfo, the acting coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, who has been nominated to fill that position in a permanent capacity. LoGerfo is a career State Department official who has filled the acting role since January.

LoGerfo affirmed his commitment to tackling the Muslim Brotherhood, explaining that the U.S. has had concerns about the group “over decades,” particularly following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, and said that it poses a threat to the United States.

Though the Trump administration’s executive order does not require designating the entire Muslim Brotherhood or require officials to assess every branch of the organization for terrorist activity — as Cruz’s bill does — Cruz described his bill and the executive order as pursuing the same goal.

“The president’s executive order is part of a broader ‘bottom-up’ strategy to designate Muslim Brotherhood chapters and then evaluate designating the global Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz asserted at the hearing, echoing comments he made in a statement to JI earlier this week.

LoGerfo affirmed that the specific branches that the executive order instructs the administration to evaluate are a “first step” toward taking broader action against the Muslim Brotherhood.

During his opening statement, LoGerfo also warned that, “in addition to the global jihadi network, antisemitism and anti-government animus have become significant motivating factors in today’s terrorist threat environment.”

And, he added, “although Iran has been greatly weakened, Tehran and its terror proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to destabilize the Middle East and show interest in expanding their reach to regions.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in Monsey, N.Y., on Thursday evening. 

Monsey, located in Rockland County, is home to one of the largest populations of Hasidic Jews in the country, second only to the Williamsburg, Borough Park and Crown Heights neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York. Lawler, who represents many of the Hasidic communities in Rockland County, relies on the heavily Republican Hasidic voting bloc to hold on to his swing district House seat. Lawler is one of only two House Republicans serving in districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris won last year, making him a leading target for Democrats.

Tickets to the event started at $250 for access to the general reception and went up to $7,000 for passes to a VIP roundtable with Cruz and Lawler. Guests could get a photo with Lawler for $500, and be named as a co-host of the event for $3,500. The gathering was organized by the Lawler Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee composed of Lawler’s campaign, his MVL PAC and the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm. 

Video obtained by the Monsey Scoop showed Cruz and Lawler arriving at the event and shaking hands with VIP guests. 

A spokesperson for Lawler did not respond to JI’s request for comment on the fundraiser. 

Lawler’s campaign reported a $1.1 million fundraising haul in the third quarter of this year, leaving him with $2.8 million in cash on hand. The campaign said the numbers marked his strongest ever third quarter performance in a non-election year. Year-to-date, the New York Republican has raised $3.9 million.

“Powered by nearly 10,000 donations, the campaign continues to build the broad, bipartisan coalition needed to win and deliver for the Hudson Valley,” Lawler’s campaign said in a statement earlier this month on his third-quarter numbers. 

Eight Democrats have jumped into the primary to challenge Lawler in next year’s general election contest, including Cait Conley, a decorated special ops combat veteran; Peter Chatzky, the former mayor of Briarcliff Manor; and Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson. Conley raised over $500,000, Chatzky raised more than $340,000 and Davidson raised over $370,000 in the last quarter.
Lawler and Cruz, a prolific fundraiser in his own right who began laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential bid this year, also appeared together on Thursday night at the New York State Conservative Party’s 2025 fall reception. Conservative commentator Joe Piscopo, a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, was honored with the Ronald Reagan Journalism Award at the event, which took place in nearby New Rochelle, N.Y., at the Glen Island Harbour Club and featured Cruz as the keynote speaker.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Tuesday proposed an amendment to Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) war powers resolution, which would block the U.S. from taking further military action against Iran, commending President Donald Trump for a “successful mission” in damaging the regime’s nuclear program. 

Cruz introduced the amendment in anticipation of a vote later this week on the resolution, which would curtail the president’s ability to take any additional action targeting Iran without congressional approval. The amendment, if adopted, would attach language to the resolution celebrating the very actions it seeks to block.

“Members of the United States Armed Forces and intelligence community, and all those involved in the planning and successful execution of Operation Midnight Hammer on June 21, 2025, including President Donald J. Trump, should be commended for their efforts in a successful mission,” the amendment reads.

The Texas senator offered an identical amendment praising the president’s actions when Kaine introduced a war powers act in 2020 in response to Trump’s decision to assassinate Quds Force head Gen. Qassem Soleimani. That amendment, which said that those involved in the operation “should be commended for their efforts in a successful mission,” passed 64-34. 

“The Senate routinely passes this language to applaud presidents for operations like these, which make all Americans immeasurably safer. We came together to congratulate President Obama for liquidating Osama bin Laden, and the Senate voted to applaud President Trump for doing the same to Soleimani. I intend to ensure we do the same for this weekend’s crucial operation, which eliminated the existential threat to America of a nuclear-armed Iran,” Cruz told Jewish Insider in a statement. 

Kaine told reporters on Monday that his resolution was likely to come up for a vote on Thursday or Friday.

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) interview on Tucker Carlson’s podcast published on Wednesday devolved into a shouting match at times between the two GOP heavyweights, with insults and charges of ignorance and antisemitism dominating the two-hour conversation between one of the Republican Party’s biggest pro-Israel champions and one of the most vocal critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The interview was relatively civil for the first hour, but began to devolve when Carlson and Cruz started debating the benefits of the U.S. relationship with Israel and the merits of Israel and the United States allegedly spying on one another. 

Carlson pressed Cruz to say that allies spying on one another was wrong, which Cruz responded to by asking why Carlson and others had an “obsession with Israel” while ignoring similar behavior from other allies. Carlson rejected that he was “obsessed with Israel” before noting that he has never taken money from AIPAC, which he referred to as “the Israel lobby.” 

The conversation started to become more animated as the two could not find common ground on the role and purpose of AIPAC, with Carlson insisting that the organization, which is made up of U.S. citizens advocating for the U.S.-Israel relationship, needed to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act — an argument sometimes used as an antisemitic dog whistle accusing Jewish supporters of Israel of dual loyalty — and Cruz vehemently disagreeing. 

The interview grew more tense after Cruz accused Carlson of having an “obsession with Israel” and asked why he was so focused on asking, “What about the Jews? What about the Jews?” without being critical of other foreign governments.

“Oh, I’m an antisemite now?” Carlson replied wryly. 

“You’re asking, ‘Why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?” Cruz told Carlson after the latter said he had accused him of antisemitism in a “sleazy feline way.”

Cruz told Carlson to give him “another reason why the obsession is Israel,” to which Carlson responded: “I am in no sense obsessed with Israel. We are on the brink of war with Iran, and so these are valid questions.”

“You asked me why I’m obsessed with Israel three minutes after telling me that when you first ran for Congress, you elucidated one of your main goals, which is to defend Israel. I’m the one who’s obsessed with Israel,” Carlson said, adding, “Shame on you for conflating” Jews and Israel.

“Israel and Jews have nothing to do with each other?” Cruz asked after Carlson claimed there was not a correlation.

Carlson said he was “totally opposed” to Iran’s desire to kill all Jews and Americans, which Cruz replied to by saying: “Except you don’t want to do anything about it.” 

The two then sparred over Carlson’s focus on Israel’s influence on U.S. foreign policy, with Cruz claiming Carlson was placing too much emphasis on the Jewish state while ignoring the malign influence of other governments. 

“I don’t even like talking about Israel. I never do because it’s not worth being called antisemites from AIPAC recipients,” Carlson said. “But now we are on the verge of joining a war and I just want to be clear about why we’re doing this.”

Carlson stated that anyone who criticized Israel’s actions were “instantly called an antisemite for asking questions” and said Israel was “the only government that no one will ever criticize.” Cruz said he rejected that assertion, pointing to statements from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a progressive House lawmaker and frequent critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Carlson scoffed at Cruz’s Tlaib reference, explaining that he was referring to the consequences for “Republicans that I would vote for, including you.” 

Regarding Iran, the two sparred over the regime’s apparent efforts to assassinate Trump, which Carlson denied had occurred.

“I voted for Donald Trump. I campaigned for Donald Trump. He’s our president, and we’re on the cusp of a war. So if there’s evidence that Iran paid a hitman to kill Donald Trump and is currently doing that, where is that? What are you even talking about? I’ve never heard that before. Where’s the evidence? Who are these people? Why haven’t they been arrested? Why are we not at war with Iran?” Carlson asked.

The Justice Department, in November 2024, did, in fact, indict multiple individuals in connection to the assassination plot, arresting two individuals involved in the scheme in the United States and issuing a warrant for a third, described as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps asset.

The plot had been extensively reported upon, both at the time and in the months since. Cruz criticized Carlson for his suspicions about the plot.

The former Fox host asked Cruz shortly after to explain why he’d be proud to say that he came to Washington with the goal of being the most pro-Israel member of Congress, to which Cruz responded by citing his Christian faith, after which the two sparred about Christian scripture. 

The senator subsequently argued that he does not solely cite his faith as his reason for supporting Israel in his professional capacity, telling Carlson that he had championed the Jewish state because of his belief that Israel is our best ally in the Middle East. 

“I think the most acute national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran. I think China is the biggest long-term threat, but acute in the near term is a nuclear Iran. And I think Israel is doing a massive favor to America right now by trying to take out Iran’s nuclear capacity,” he continued, later adding, “You want to ask: how does supporting Israel benefit us? Right now, this tiny little country the size of the state of New Jersey is fighting our enemies for us and taking out their top military leadership and trying to take out their nuclear capacity. That makes America much safer.”

Returning to the subject of Cruz’s faith, the Texas senator said that his support for Israel was also rooted in his Christian faith, citing the biblical phrase: “Those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed.”

Carlson mocked the fact that Cruz’s faith informed his pro-Israel views, and asked specifically the biblical citation. After Cruz acknowledged he didn’t know the exact verse, the podcast host then incorrectly answered his own question, mistakenly saying it was in Genesis.  (The verse is from Numbers 24:9.)

The interview again devolved into chaos after Cruz acknowledged that upon sharp questioning that he did not know the exact population size of Iran, prompting both men to question what the other knew, if anything, about the country. Carlson accused Cruz of being dismissive of the consequences of the military actions he was calling for, while Cruz accused Carlson of adopting the foreign policy platform of progressive Democrats. 

The first 60 minutes of the interview, which was released on Wednesday, was largely civil with Carlson asking Cruz to explain his support for Israel’s operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and regime change in Tehran.

The Texas senator argued that his recent comments in favor of toppling Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were not an endorsement of a U.S. military invasion of Iran but rather of the idea of a democratic Iran. 

The two initially agreed that it would be better for the U.S. without an Iranian regime that aspires to destroy Western civilization and that they were frustrated by the interventionist versus isolationist binary that has increasingly characterized Republican foreign policy.

“For a long time, people have perceived two different poles of Republican foreign policy. There have been interventionists, and those have been people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham George W. Bush, and there have been isolationists, and the most prominent of those have been Ron Paul and Rand Paul and there are others. People perceive those are the two choices, you’ve got to be one of the other. I’ve always thought both were wrong. I don’t agree with either one,” Cruz said.

“For whatever it’s worth, I agree with you. I don’t know who set up that binary, but there are lots of choices, actually,” Carlson responded. Carlson is seen by many, however, as one of the leading figures of the isolationist wing.

The two men described themselves as non-interventionist hawks, with each saying they believed in the principle that the “central touchpoint for U.S. foreign policy and for any question of military intervention should be the vital national security interests of the United States” before disagreeing on whether the situation in Middle East qualified as such. 

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.