The House passed a second Iran war powers resolution on Thursday following the resumption of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, with a handful of Republicans who have argued that continued operations violate the War Powers Act again siding with Democrats on the measure.

But hours later, the Senate blocked a separate resolution, also along narrow margins.

Reps. Tom Barrett (R-MI), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) again sided with all House Democrats to pass the resolution by a 214-208 vote.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said prior to the vote that she planned to support the war powers resolution but ultimately did not.

The Senate resolution was blocked by a 49-47 vote, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voting with most Democrats in support of the resolution and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting against it.

The House and Senate previously passed a similar resolution attempting to end the war, which Democrats have cited to describe the renewed hostilities as illegal.

The measure passed in the House on Thursday was in the form of a concurrent resolution — as was the previous resolution passed by Congress — which is not presented to the president and is generally not seen as carrying the force of law, though Democrats have been working to explore avenues to enforce it.

Also on Thursday, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution demanding that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) initiate civil action in federal courts to enforce the previously passed war powers resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from the Iran war.

Alexander Vindman, a former Army officer who became nationally known as a National Security Council whistleblower during the first Trump administration and is now running for Senate in Florida as a Democrat, called out rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on the left in a Zoom meeting with the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus on Tuesday.

Vindman, who is Jewish and who fled the Soviet Union as a child, said he felt protected from antisemitism during his career in the military in the occasional times he experienced it, but faced a wave of antisemitic hatred from the right when he became a whistleblower during the first Trump administration.

He said that he had experienced a significant rise in antisemitic harassment when he declared his Senate campaign, in large part from the left.

“I’ve become used to the right-wing, nationalist, nativist, antisemitic tone, but I’m really shocked about what I’m seeing from the far left — the DSA wing, that is deeply troubling,” Vindman said. “It is not simply criticism of Israel but a conflation of Israel and Judaism, and a rise of antisemitism within what should be a portion of our own big tent.”

He said that leaders have not done enough to address the issue or hold the perpetrators accountable, on all sides of the political spectrum.

“When we fail to do that, we breed impunity and we encourage that kind of behavior,” Vindman said. 

He said that challenging antisemitism is a personal issue for him, including protecting his own daughter — whom he said has felt the need to hide her Star of David necklace.

“That is not the world that I grew up in,” Vindmans said. “That is not the world that my daughter should be living in, and that is absolutely something I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that she feels comfortable living her Jewish American life.”

The Senate candidate, whose twin brother, Eugene, represents a Virginia district in the House, also said he believes that Israel has a right to exist, and that as a Jewish refugee from the FSU he feels personally close to the Jewish state. He’s faced attacks on the campaign trail for refusing to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide.

“I’m pretty deeply disturbed by the trend lines that we’re hearing on both sides of the political spectrum, but frankly, to be fair, from the far left that takes up a cry for Palestine, not a two-state solution, which I’m very much in favor of,” Vindman said. “A path that advocates for Palestine and that completely dismisses a safe homeland for the Jewish people … that’s the part that’s deeply troubling to me.”

Vindman, citing his military, intelligence and diplomatic background, said that he would seek a position on the Senate Foreign Relations, Intelligence or Armed Services Committees if he’s elected.

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is slated to appear at a campaign fundraiser this weekend that is co-hosted by Kelly Neumann, a controversial Democratic fundraiser in Michigan who faced scrutiny earlier this year for a 2024 Facebook post on Veterans Day that praised her grandfather, who fought for the Nazis in World War II. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who endorsed El-Sayed on Monday, was initially listed as a speaker at the Saturday event hosted by Neumann, though Neumann and the campaign removed Warren from their promotional materials after Jewish Insider inquired about the senator’s role. Warren is speaking at a rally for El-Sayed later that day.

A spokesperson for El-Sayed said Warren’s “inclusion on the flier was a clerical error by our campaign” and that she was never scheduled to speak at the fundraiser. A spokesperson for Warren declined to comment.

In Neumann’s November 2024 post, which was previously reported by JI, she said her grandfather, Albert Neumann, fought “on the German side in WWI & WWII.” She noted that he “was one of the first people in my life that accepted me as gay” and described him as “a true testament that people can change and love indeed can win.” 

Neumann, a Michigan attorney, has since deleted the post after it resurfaced earlier this year. In a March 2026 Facebook post, she apologized “to anyone who was hurt by [my] post from years ago, as that was certainly never my intention,” but blamed Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) Senate campaign for unearthing the original post. 

Neumann had endorsed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, but after McMorrow dropped out early this month, Neumann backed El-Sayed. Neumann hosted a fundraiser for Stevens’ House reelection campaign last year. 

A spokesperson for Stevens told JI in January that Stevens would not have invited Neumann to host the event if Stevens had “seen the post celebrating Ms. Neumann’s grandfather’s service to the SS.” (The Daily Mail reported later that Neumann’s grandfather was likely in the German Wehrmacht, or armed forces, rather than the Nazi SS.) 

“The host in question has hosted or donated to several democratic senators, congresspeople, statewide elected officials and candidates, including Abdul’s opponent, Congresswoman Stevens,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed told JI. “All of us, including the host, condemn Nazi ideology.”

Neumann defended her grandfather even as she apologized for the original post. “To be clear, my grandfather was a german soldier, not a nazi,” Neumann wrote in March. In a phone call with JI on Monday, Neumann stood by this assertion and claimed that a representative from Germany’s Ministry of Defense told her the same thing.

“All I know is that I’ve been informed as a child, in growing up, and then recently again, is that they said he wasn’t a Nazi,” Neumann said. “I believe there is a distinction between a young German soldier and a Nazi in the actual regime close to Hitler.”

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum calls the idea that German soldiers were not part of the Nazi regime a “myth.”

“This belief is untrue. The German military participated in many aspects of the Holocaust: in supporting Hitler, in the use of forced labor, and in the mass murder of Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis,” the museum states on its website. 

Neumann’s political resume is lengthy. She served as a co-chair of the finance committee for McMorrow’s Senate campaign. She also previously worked to support gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, though Neumann has since endorsed Chris Swanson, a long-shot challenger to Benson. 

Neumann told JI that she is “not antisemitic in any sort of way,” and that she regularly hosts events for Jewish politicians. Last year she hosted a fundraiser for Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat who is running for Congress.

“I’m not proud of my grandfather being in World War II as a young German soldier,” said Neumann. “What I am proud about is how he was so kind to me and accepted me as a minority in the ‘90s.”

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said that she will run in next month’s special election to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on the ballot as the GOP nominee for Senate in November. 

Graham, who was appointed last week to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term in the Senate, announced her decision to run for a full term in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday. 

“I’ve made a decision,” Graham said. “I’m in.”

Graham told Hannity, a friend of her late brother’s, that she had been “praying a lot” and “talking to my family” about the decision, which she acknowledged she needed to make at an expedited pace due to the week-long filing period for candidates beginning on Tuesday. 

“With the love of my family, with the support of his staff, I know I’m a hard worker. I learned that from Lindsey. He cared about the people of this state. I’ve worked for almost 30 years for the people of this state,” Graham said. “I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely.”

President Donald Trump publicly called on her to run in the special election after meeting her at the White House last week, promising his endorsement if she got in the race.

“These are just the laws of South Carolina. The filing begins tomorrow. I think you have a week, and by that time, the funerals won’t even have taken place,” Hannity said. “Then the president putting an ask on you — well, put it that way, it’s a lot of pressure.”

“It’s a tremendous amount of pressure,” Graham acknowledged in response. 

Two sources familiar with Graham’s thinking told Jewish Insider on Friday that she was not interested in running for a full term when she initially agreed to accept the appointment last Sunday. The South Carolina senator began considering a bid over the course of last week, the sources said.

Reps. Russell Fry (R-SC) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) have also entered the contest, as has Mark Lynch, who lost to Graham in last month’s primary by 30 points and has committed $5 million of his own money to his campaign for the special election. Lynch ignored Lindsey Graham’s repeated calls during the primary to fire his political director despite the staffer’s record of making antisemitic statements, including posting a photo to social media last June of a boot stepping on the Talmud and calling it a “hate filled book” and “what drives today’s Judaism.”

Norman has been endorsed by Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who expressed interest in the Senate race, announced Monday that she won’t be running for Graham’s seat. 

After Graham’s announcement on Hannity began circulating on social media, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) quickly endorsed her bid. 

“Darline Graham is an excellent senator. She’ll continue to be an excellent senator,” Barrasso said in a statement. “She has my full support.”

“I’m proud to join President Trump and endorse Darline Graham,” Cotton wrote on X. “She’ll be a principled conservative leader and a strong advocate for South Carolina families.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), meanwhile, said on Monday that while Graham was a “strong candidate” who “obviously carries on Lindsey’s legacy,” he was not endorsing any candidates in the race “at the moment.”

“She’s a strong candidate. Sounds like the field is taking shape, and we’ll let the voters in South Carolina decide it,” Thune told reporters. “She obviously carries on Lindsey’s legacy and I think she’s a very accomplished person in her own right.”

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.

Jackson was the candidate whom Platner preferred to replace him on the general election ballot. Indeed, the Platner camp’s reported demands that the party choose someone who shares his values — even as his own campaign was sinking — caused such a backlash that the Maine Democratic Party’s executive director put out a video rebuking Platner for trying to influence the selection of his own successor.

If Jackson is the nominee, he’ll have to answer why he continued to support Platner even as the candidate’s other scandals piled up around him. Jackson finished in third place in June’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, only winning 21% of the vote in the five-candidate field.

In a sign of where the Democratic Party is headed, most of the leading candidates to challenge Collins sought to underscore their anti-Israel bona fides in the race, even the more-moderate Democrat Nirav Shah, who called Israel’s war against Hamas a “genocide” in a candidate questionnaire. 

Meanwhile in South Carolina, there are growing indications that appointed Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), who was tapped to fill the remainder of her late brother’s term, is seriously considering running for the seat herself, and has the president’s endorsement to do so. 

That would greatly scramble the internal politics for next month’s primary, which was seen as a wide-open contest between several politically established South Carolina lawmakers. An endorsement of Graham from President Donald Trump would immediately make her the front-runner — given his near-perfect track record in congressional primary endorsements — even as she’d still likely face credible primary opposition. 

It’s impossible to guarantee how Graham will end up voting in the Senate, but it’s safe to assume she’ll continue her brother’s hawkish record, maintaining strong support for Israel and Ukraine. Some of the other candidates for the seat — namely Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) — have been less enthusiastic supporters of military spending, and more reticent in aiding Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.

These two unexpected nomination fights are serving as a microcosm of both parties’ ideological directions. Democrats are accommodating their populist left flank, even at the risk of damaging the party’s midterm prospects. Republicans, meanwhile, continue to march to the beat of Trump’s drum, and are fine maintaining the party’s conservative status quo even with rumblings from the isolationist right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Those lawmakers were Reps. Derek Tran (D-CA) and Gabe Vasquez (D-NM). Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) was absent, but would have opposed the amendment.

Expand that out to include “Likely Democratic” districts, and only two of those 10 lawmakers voted for the amendment: Goodlander and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV). Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR) voted present.

And nearly all of the Democratic candidates facing challenges from their left over their support for Israel stood their ground, even those running in deep-blue districts. That list includes Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Angie Craig (D-MN), who are both running for the Senate and facing fierce challenges from anti-Israel challengers. It also includes Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who have faced strong pushback from their opponents over their pro-Israel stances, but held firm on the issue.

The results mark a significant setback for AIPAC, which is struggling to maintain influence within the Democratic Party as support for Israel becomes a more partisan issue. More than a dozen of its endorsed candidates voted against its most central policy priority, including lawmakers like Ivey who won their House seats with significant AIPAC backing and had been seen as close to the group. A handful of others voted present.

Ryan, a onetime moderate who has drifted toward the left, also publicly went on the attack against AIPAC, engaging with the anti-Israel account TrackAIPAC, which has faced accusations of antisemitism, to declare that he no longer wants AIPAC’s support and plans to return donations from the group.

“We are deeply appreciative of the 314 Republicans and Democrats who voted to reject Thomas Massie’s latest anti-Israel effort and are disappointed by the 103 Democrats who voted with Massie to weaken America and our ally Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement.

AIPAC also warned that it and its members aren’t backing down and “will be actively engaged throughout this election cycle, and future election cycles, to support members of Congress of both parties who support a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and oppose those who don’t.”

It’s important to keep in mind that lawmakers’ stated rationale for supporting the amendment varies: some do seek to cut off any U.S. support for Israel and sever the relationship as we know it; some seek changes to how the relationship functions; and others sought to send a signal of their frustration with the current Israeli government and its prosecution of the war in Gaza with a largely symbolic vote they knew would not pass.

By the same token, many Democrats who voted against the amendment made clear that their votes were in part a reflection of their concerns with Massie’s approach, rather than a full-throated endorsement of the U.S.-Israel relationship as it currently exists. That was the position held by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), whose opposition to the amendment belied his overall concerns about the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Many Democrats called for changes in the relationship going forward, with Jeffries and other party leaders indicating they want direct military aid to end at the expiration of the current memorandum of understanding.

Observers also noted that the Congressional Black Caucus, which has traditionally held strong relationships with the Jewish community and pro-Israel world, was closely divided on the vote. Many of the caucus’ older or longer-tenured members voted to preserve aid to Israel, while newer and younger members for the most part voted against it.

The vote also underscored just how much of a role extreme voices have played within both parties in undermining relationships with allies under military threat. The right-wing grassroots hostility to Ukraine led to a number of party leaders — including a few Senate hawks — to vote against a 2024 funding bill for aid to Ukraine and Israel.

But even as there has been a strain of GOP opposition to Ukraine assistance, the Democrats’ turn against Israel has been more widespread. The fact that relatively few of the Democratic lawmakers who voted against the amendment offered a clear-throated defense of U.S. aid to Israel is a sign of just how politically toxic Israel has become within the party. 

“This vote should serve as a wake-up call [to Israel] that significant work is needed to repair its relationship with Democrats — not only to preserve bipartisan support in the United States, but also to protect Israel’s long-term security and prosperity,” Democratic Majority For Israel CEO Brian Romick said in a statement.

Darline Graham Nordone, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday to serve out the remainder of her older brother’s Senate term through January 2027.

McMaster, a Republican, announced his decision to appoint Graham’s sister to fill the vacancy caused by his sudden passing over the weekend at a press conference from the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., alongside Nordone and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a close ally of both Graham and President Donald Trump. 

After hailing Graham, who had been running for a fifth Senate term in November, as “one of South Carolina’s greatest sons,” McMaster explained that he was selecting Nordone to succeed him because he wanted the work that Graham started to be completed by the sister he adored.

“Lindsey took care of his little sister in years long departed,” McMaster said. “It is my honor to ask his little sister, Darlene Graham, to finish his work for him now.”

A source familiar told Jewish Insider that Nordone, who now uses her married name, will be sworn in at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. ET.

In brief remarks, Nordone thanked those who had reached out with well wishes or to share memories and funny stories about Graham before expressing gratitude to McMaster for appointing her to fill her brother’s Senate seat.

“Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him,” Nordone said. “I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted, and I plan to honor him in this way. Now, to Lindsey, I miss you more than I can ever put into words, but I’m going to do this. I got it.”

Republicans expect Nordone to serve as a caretaker for her brother’s seat for the remainder of the year. Among the top contenders for the upcoming special election for the full six-year term include Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), a close ally of Trump’s, and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who unsuccessfully ran for governor this year with Trump’s endorsement.  

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has publicly expressed interest in the seat after finishing fifth in last month’s gubernatorial primary, and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) are also prospective candidates. A special election candidate filing period is scheduled to begin July 21, and will last for a week.

Graham died at 71 on Saturday evening following what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness,” which the Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office, in a preliminary autopsy report, attributed to aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. 

Graham and Nordone were raised above a local pool hall and liquor store in Central, S.C. Graham adopted his younger sister when he was 22 and she was 13, after their parents died within 15 months of one another. Graham, who was a senior in college at the time, moved himself and Nordone into a relative’s house and took over raising her, eventually becoming her legal guardian. He joined the Army Reserves, allowing him to stay close to his sister and attend college. 

Nordone remained Graham’s closest confidante throughout his life and was one of the most ardent supporters of his political ambitions, campaigning for him in his House and Senate bids and during his 2016 presidential run. 

Speaking from the press conference on Monday, Nordone described her late brother as “the most amazing person, outstanding leader, and just a genuinely good man. He was kind and considerate and loved by his family dearly.”

Monday’s announcement came hours after Trump publicly declared that Nordone was his preferred choice to represent South Carolina on Graham’s behalf until the conclusion of his Senate term. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social of the idea.

Scott and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also voiced support for Trump’s suggestion to appoint Nordone in the hours before the official announcement.

McMaster said on Monday he had asked Nordone to serve out the remaining six months of Graham’s term after the senator’s passing was announced early Sunday morning, prior to consulting the president.

“After we spoke on the phone in the wee hours of Sunday morning, you agreed to serve through tears. Earlier, I had wondered what you would say, and I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster told Nordone from the podium. “I called the president afterwards and he thought it was a great idea, and I’m sure everyone here does as well.”

Scott, who a source familiar confirmed to JI had “spoken multiple times with Darline in the last 24 hours” leading up to her appointment, did not speak at the press conference, though he said in a post on X that “The appointment of Darline Graham Nordone to the U.S. Senate is an incredible way to honor the legacy of Lindsey Graham.”

“Nobody understands Lindsey Graham’s heart for faith, family, and South Carolina the way she does,” Scott wrote. “I look forward to working alongside her to continue Sen. Graham’s commitment to keeping Americans safe and secure.”

Others that were reportedly under consideration for the role in the event that Nordone turned down the appointment included former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a close friend of Scott’s from their time in Congress who now hosts a Fox News program; former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Scott’s predecessor in the Senate who has led several conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation and the Conservative Partnership Institute; and Evette, who lost the state’s gubernatorial GOP primary in a runoff last month. 

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who was also reportedly floated as a possible appointment option, said on Sunday that he was committed to staying in the House to protect Republicans’ slim majority in the lower chamber. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/sKzQc2XnmT

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mad dash to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine is coming together so quickly and haphazardly that one potential replacement, Nirav Shah, is taking stickers from his failed gubernatorial campaign and cutting off the “for governor” line below his name before handing them to supporters. 

Much is still in flux about the process to replace Platner, who dropped out of the race on Wednesday two days after being accused of rape by a former romantic partner. His potential successors aren’t jockeying for the public’s approval — they’re angling for the support of the Maine Democratic Party, which voted on Wednesday, before Platner even announced his resignation, to hold a statewide nominating convention to tap his replacement. The MDP said it would share more in the days to come about the process, which according to state law would have to be completed by July 27. 

Many of the candidates now seeking to succeed Platner on the general election ballot are commending the populist movement he built and looking to capitalize on it. Less than 24 hours into the contest, some had already made clear they will adopt a platform much like Platner’s when it comes to Israel — seeking to end U.S. weapons sales to the country and shunning donations from AIPAC — while others are remaining mum on that topic. 

Shah, who served as the director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic, said this week that he would support a full arms embargo against Israel, that he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide and that he would refuse AIPAC support. He finished second in the gubernatorial primary last month.

One contender who seems poised to rack up support from the party’s left flank is Troy Jackson, the former president of the Maine Senate. He placed third in last month’s gubernatorial primary, and earned the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the Maine chapter of Democratic Socialists of America in that race. Jackson was one of Platner’s biggest boosters and appeared with him at several campaign rallies. 

Our Revolution, the Sanders-aligned advocacy organization, has already endorsed Jackson’s Senate campaign, along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and far-left, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker.

In a post on X on Thursday, Jackson accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, saying that “anybody with eyes” would agree, and pledged to “never vote in favor of U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel.” His team did not respond to a request for comment.  

Jordan Wood, a former chief of staff to Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) who placed third in last month’s congressional primary to replace retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), said in a Thursday statement announcing his Senate run that he would not accept money from “corporate PACs and AIPAC.” He said in a post on X that the U.S. “can’t continue to fund Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” and that he would support the Block the Bombs Act.

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Thursday, Wood added some nuance to his views: “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East,” Wood said via a spokesperson. “But there’s a difference between the Israeli people and the Netanyahu government, and nothing about self-defense justifies waging a war without limits. Starving children and flattened hospitals don’t make Israel safer, and they don’t make America safer.” He also stated that “Hamas must disarm, and it can never be allowed to govern Gaza again.”  

Wood reiterated that he will not accept support from AIPAC but said AIPAC supporters are still welcome in the Democratic Party.

“Jewish Democrats, and Democrats who care deeply about Israel’s security, are part of this party and always will be,” he said. “What’s not welcome is AIPAC’s agenda, which demands unconditional support for the Netanyahu government’s genocide in Gaza no matter the cost in innocent lives.”

Paige Loud, a 29-year-old social worker who placed fourth in the same congressional primary as Wood, ran an anti-Israel campaign and claimed that Democrats lost the presidency in 2024 “because of our lackluster stance on the genocide that’s happening in Gaza right now.” Her campaign website says she is committed “to human rights, sovereignty, and self-determination everywhere — from Palestine to Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Greenland.”

Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state and a former state senator, entered the race on Thursday afternoon. She espoused a similarly populist message to Platner, pledging to take on billionaires and corporations, but stayed away from mentioning the Middle East or AIPAC in her opening salvo. A spokesperson for Bellows, who also ran for governor in last month’s primary and placed fourth, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Bellows served as executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine from 2018 to 2020, an experience that she still refers to regularly. In a campaign video from International Holocaust Remembrance Day, she said one way to remember the Holocaust is as a story of “resistance, of communities coming together to say no to antisemitism, xenophobia, racism, homophobia,” and said that Americans must speak out “against any othering and dehumanization of our friends and neighbors.” 

One unorthodox candidate is Dan Kleban, the founder of Maine Beer Company, a brewery in Freeport. He was briefly a candidate in the Senate primary last year, but dropped out early and endorsed Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment favorite who dropped out of the race in April. He reentered the race on Wednesday and said in a Substack post that he’s “had enough meddling from Washington establishment insiders and New York City consultants trying to dictate who represents us,” ostensibly a dig at Platner’s own political consultants. 

Asked on CNN this week if he considered Israel guilty of genocide, Kleban called the situation in Gaza an “absolute tragedy” and said he would support placing conditions on U.S. arms sales to Israel, but did not use the term genocide. Kleban told Politico in October that he would not have supported Sanders’ resolution to block arms sales to Israel. 

“I believe Israel has a right to defend itself. I don’t think that we solve the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza by disarming Israel and exposing them to harm,” Kleban said at the time. 

While Platner and Mills were the main candidates running for Senate, a third, David Costello — a former senior official in Maryland’sMaine’s Department of the Environment who got 8% of the vote in last month’s primary — is now running again. He said during the campaign that Israel, after the Oct. 7 attacks, “not only had a right but an obligation to attempt to crush Hamas.” But, he argued, they did not do so surgically, and said Israel’s conduct has been “indefensible.” He said he would oppose offensive weapons sales to Israel. 

One possible wild card is state Rep. Valli Geiger, who has said she is considering entering the race. Geiger, who in the past defended Platner’s treatment of women, stuck by him until the end. “I will not throw Graham under the bus, but neither will I slander or accuse Ms. [Jenny] Racicot [Platner’s accuser] of anything more than telling the truth as she experienced it. I acknowledge the pain on all sides and offer compassion on all sides,” Geiger wrote on Facebook. 

She has said little publicly about Gaza, but shared Facebook posts criticizing Israel, including one in April that listed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as someone who, like President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, harbors “delusions of grandeur.” 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday joined the swelling chorus of Democratic voices demanding the party’s nominee for Senate in Maine, Graham Platner, abandon his campaign in the aftermath of a rape allegation revealed in a Politico report on Monday — a campaign the mayor’s own top political advisor helped start and steer.

Mamdani’s remarks came shortly after an unrelated event at City Hall, a day after a former romantic partner of Platner’s accused him of drunkenly entering her home and sexually assaulting her in 2021. The mayor’s nearest political aide, Morris Katz, was one of the architects of Platner’s Senate run and one of his fiercest public defenders amid prior allegations of personal misconduct and the discovery that the candidate had a tattoo of a Nazi symbol.

But Mamdani made no remarks on Katz’s role in Platner’s rise, and declined to comment on the long-term consequences for the insurgent left-wing movement the two have championed.

“I believe that it’s time for him to drop out of the race,” the mayor said of Platner. “I think the focus of today should be on the campaign coming to a close. And I think there will be many more days to have conversations for what it means beyond that.”

The 27-year-old Katz reportedly talked up congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier to Mamdani, leading the mayor to endorse her in the final days of her ultimately successful challenge to Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY).

It soon emerged that Avila Chevalier had bragged online about wiping her hands on the American flag, praised Soviet despots, pushed Russian government talking points and spread a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 — creating uncomfortable questions for Democratic leaders after she won the primary in the deep-blue district. 

Katz also advised Democratic candidates Clare Valdez, Micah Lasher and Brad Lander in their successful primary bids elsewhere in New York City.

Democratic leaders coalesced around calls for Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner to withdraw from the race on Monday following a Politico report in which an ex-girlfriend of Platner’s accused the Democrat of sexual assault, an account the outlet backed up with her correspondence and other interviews.

Platner denied the allegation outright but said in a video statement that he’s “mindful of the political reality it will inflict” and would be “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.” If Platner voluntarily drops out by July 13, the Maine Democratic Party would have until July 27 to pick a replacement to appear on the ballot. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a joint statement that Platner should withdraw, and that the DSCC would not invest financially in the Maine Senate race if Platner remained the nominee.

“The allegations reported today are incredibly disturbing — violence, abuse and sexual assault are absolutely unacceptable,” Schumer and Gillibrand said. “Graham Platner needs to immediately withdraw as the Democratic nominee for Senate and allow Maine Democrats the opportunity to choose a new candidate who can defeat Susan Collins.”

Schumer and Gillibrand had offered tepid support for Platner in the wake of previous scandals he has weathered on the campaign trail.

Senate Majority PAC, the Senate Democratic super PAC, said in a statement that Platner should withdraw and that the PAC would be “redirecting resources away from the Maine Senate race.” The group said the race would be winnable “if Platner is not on the ballot.”

The Maine Democratic Party’s leadership also called on Platner to end his candidacy.

“Over the past several weeks, multiple women have made serious, credible allegations against Graham Platner. Today’s statements take those allegations even further,” party leaders said in a statement. “Maine Democratic Party leadership is calling on Graham Platner to withdraw as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.”

The party leaders said it’s “essential that we refocus this campaign” on defeating Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and the Trump administration.

Maine Statehouse Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat, also called on Platner to drop out, saying it’s clear that he cannot win the seat.

Several prominent progressives who had previously defended and supported Platner, even through his previous scandals and controversies — including his now-covered Nazi tattoo and domestic abuse allegations — also said that the latest sexual assault allegations were a breaking point.

Sen. Elizbeth Warren (D-MA) said that there can be “no tolerance for sexual assault” and that “the best path forward is for Graham Platner to step aside.”

“I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said on Monday evening.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) called the allegations “troubling and deeply serious” and likewise rescinded his endorsement.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said, “The allegations reported against Graham Platner are deeply disturbing and must be taken seriously. I cannot support his candidacy.”

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) similarly rescinded his endorsement and called for Platner to step aside.

Some of Platner’s prominent media boosters also said that they wanted to see him pull out of the race or otherwise criticized him.

“Platner needs to drop out ASAP — these are awful, credible allegations,” said Jon Favreau, co-host of “Pod Save America.” “It’s now abundantly clear that he just hasn’t been honest about his past and can’t be trusted as a candidate for office.”

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), one of Platner’s most prominent progressive backers, has not yet addressed the latest allegations.

The End Citizens United PAC also pulled its support for Platner, as did the Sanders-linked Our Revolution, though the group warned “the Democratic establishment: this is not your opening.” TrackAIPAC also pulled its endorsement of Platner.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, also condemned Platner, who campaigned alongside her primary rival, Abdul El-Sayed. 

“The allegations against Graham Platner are extremely troubling and completely unacceptable,” Stevens said. “There should be no room for this conduct in the U.S. Senate or any public office. Graham Platner must step aside.”

Numerous other Democratic Senate candidates followed her. El-Sayed, in a statement, did not unequivocally call for Platner to withdraw.

Speculation has already turned to who might replace Platner on the ballot, with many pointing to logger and former state Senate President Troy Jackson, a former gubernatorial candidate who finished third in the 2026 primary, as an alternative choice with a similar background and politics to Platner.

Jackson also campaigned alongside and supported Platner, something that could hinder his electoral prospects.

Jackson was endorsed by the Maine Democratic Socialists of America in his gubernatorial bid.

Former acting Centers for Disease Control Director Nirav Shah, who finished second in the primary, has also been floated as a potential replacement and has reportedly expressed interest.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the favored candidate of the Democratic establishment who suspended her campaign for the seat before the primary, could also see a second wind.

A recent poll also tested “Grey’s Anatomy” star and Maine resident Patrick Dempsey’s popularity in the state, as well as Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who also ran in the gubernatorial primary;  state Sen. Joe Baldacci; former House candidate Jordan Wood; Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME); former state Rep. Sara Gideon, who lost to Collins in 2020; former Rep. John Baldacci (D-ME); Attorney General Aaron Frey; and former Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME).

State Sen. Baldacci said that the party “can’t handpick a replacement candidate without some process involving all Democrats” in the state.

Retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), who had been eyed by Democrats as a potential recruit for the seat, said last month that he was not interested in replacing Platner on the ballot.

In a bid to protect Jewish children from rampant antisemitism on the internet, the Jewish Federations of North America is pushing lawmakers to support the KIDS Act, a major bipartisan package of legislation focused on children’s safety online that passed the House late last month by a 267-117 vote.

Omer Yarden-Oppenheim, director of government relations at JFNA, told Jewish Insider that online antisemitism has been a major conversation and challenge for Jewish families, especially since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. He said the group identified four bills in the House’s online safety push that it felt could play a role in addressing online antisemitism, which were ultimately packaged into the KIDS Act.

“No single bill will solve these challenges right away, but we know that the KIDS Act is a meaningful bipartisan step towards making these platforms safer and more accountable for protecting young users, which includes Jewish users,” Yarden-Oppenheim said.

The four bills include the AWARE Act, which would develop educational resources on the safe and responsible use of AI chatbots; the Protecting a Safe Internet for Minors Act, which would create a public awareness campaign on safe internet use and best practices for minors; the Assessing Safety Tools for Parents and Minors Act, which would assess the effectiveness of existing safety tools; and the Kids Internet Safety Partnership Act, which would help identify online risks to children and develop recommendations for best practices.

The group endorsed the four pieces of legislation when they were first released several months ago and urged local federations to contact their members to support the bills, as well as advocate for them on fly-ins to Washington. Yarden-Oppenheim said he believes that work helped ensure the bills were included in the final KIDS Act package.

“There’s a lack of understanding of a lot of things that are happening online, and for Jewish families it’s the same. Parents feel like maybe they’re losing control a little bit of the things that their kids are being exposed to online,” Yarden-Oppenheim said. “These will give parents [and] educators the tools and more clarity and information on how to deal with these things in the future.”

Yet there’s still plenty of work ahead for supporters of the legislation, as Congress has struggled for years to reach a consensus on children’s online safety legislation, and the Senate and House have been advancing competing versions of the legislation.

“There’s still a meaningful divide on policy and approach between the House and the Senate, but we look forward to working with our partners, and we’ve already had those meetings, and we continue to have them,” Yarden-Oppenheim said. “We need to work with our partners in both chambers to elevate the importance of online safety and the need to ensure that Jewish families remain part of the national conversation, and be a willing partner along the way.”

JFNA and a coalition of other Jewish groups are also making a separate push to address online antisemitism through the Jewish American Security Act, which addresses online antisemitism, campus antisemitism and security threats to Jewish institutions.

Niv Elis, the associate vice president of external communications at JNFA, said that “there’s a huge question” of how society and the country should deal with social media, the internet and AI, and the KIDS Act is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“What we’re seeing is that this is an excellent entry point to make sure … that the antisemitism piece isn’t left out, and a recognition that the tools that we need to protect the children are going to have extra levels of meaning for Jewish children who are facing different kinds of harm online because they’re not just facing the same bullying as everybody but they’re also facing an additional level through through the antisemitism,” Elis said.

Yarden-Oppenheim added that there are other threats that the Jewish community also aims to counter, including foreign influence, AI deep fakes and other issues that have impacted the Jewish community. The group is working with lawmakers to introduce legislation next year to study how algorithms and other platform features can spread hate, harassment and radicalization.

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Sunday, without offering her support to either of her opponents in the hotly contested race.

“Here’s what we do next. Every day through November 3rd. We win this Senate seat and send Mike Rogers back to Florida for good,” McMorrow wrote in her announcement on X, referring to the expected GOP nominee.

“Whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support,” she continued, declining to endorse either Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) or Abdul El-Sayed. 

Fundraising figures released at the end of the first quarter of the year showed Stevens trailing El-Sayed in fundraising but having the most cash on hand, at $3.4 million to El-Sayed’s $2.5 million. El-Sayed has held a slight lead in the latest polls. 

Following McMorrow’s announcement, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, said the “choice is clear” and “wholeheartedly” issued her endorsement of Stevens. 

Stevens also has the backing of other Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). 

El-Sayed, meanwhile, is backed by leading progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Last week, the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC, which has boosted Stevens with more than $10 million, issued its first negative ad against El-Sayed.

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.

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.

“I am reassured. I had my briefing. My criteria is met,” Cassidy said. “As long as I’m reassured that there’s honesty and that, as they’re depicting events, it’s playing out appropriately, I’m reassured. But again, you want to trust but verify.”

Cassidy had said earlier in the day that he did not believe the administration’s prosecution of the war was on track to achieve the goals it laid out. Following that conversation, Cassidy changed his tune.

“I think it’s plausible that they are achieving the objectives, as they laid it out,” Cassidy told Jewish Insider. He added that he wants to “see events transpire the way they depict them, but they had plausible explanations for how they’re achieving those objectives.”

Cassidy said he had passed a note to Witkoff, who attended the Senate meeting with Trump, asking him for a briefing, and the White House had called within the hour to set it up.

The Louisiana senator has emerged as a key swing vote since losing his primary to Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA).

Paul, the earliest GOP vote in favor of war powers efforts, said his present vote came in deference to the administration’s negotiating strategy.

“My opinion on the debate over war and executive power has not changed and I have voted that way several times. But since hostilities seem to be over and the president asked me to give consideration to his negotiating position, I will do so,” Paul said. “My vote of present is a way to give the president more space and leverage to negotiate a lasting peace.”

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.

Speaking at the OU luncheon, Collins called out Platner for his Nazi tattoo, pointing to accounts by former romantic partners that he had described it as a Nazi symbol despite later denying that he knew what it was. She said that even though he covered up the tattoo on the campaign trail, “the stain remains.”

Collins also referenced comments from a Platner supporter who said she did not find the Nazi tattoo disqualifying but would find an Israeli tattoo to be a deal-breaker, which Collins said she found “even more distressing.”

She also repeated  comments she made a day earlier on Fox News asserting that her support for Israel remains in spite of shifting political winds.

“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.”

She said that her father, a World War II veteran, taught her from childhood the need to stand against evil. Collins said that her mother also taught her to reject antisemitism, noting that her mother quit her sorority in college after it rejected a fellow student because she was Jewish.

“The friendship that I share with the people of Israel is that which our true nation shares, a friendship that is anchored by common principles, a love of liberty and the courage to defend [them],” Collins said.

The GOP senator, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, also said that a major priority for her this year is to make the U.S.’ defunding of UNRWA permanent. She said that it “should not have been a close call” to cut off U.S. funding to the agency after its employees were revealed to be involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, but that she had to “fight” to add and extend that provision in recent funding bills.

Collins said that the rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7 has “revealed … the oldest hatred is not only still alive, but sicker than ever. Tragically, the prognos   is has only worsened since then.”

She praised David Greene, the president of Colby College, in her home state, which she said had not seen the anti-Israel demonstrations and encampments that plagued other colleges. Greene told her that “the key is, you do not negotiate, you do not allow this to occur,” she recalled.

She said Greene had also told her that the protests at other schools were  directed by radical professors, graduate assistants and outside agitators, rather than grassroots activities.

Collins said a member of her own congressional staff was assaulted at an encampment at the University of Pittsburgh for carrying an American and an Israeli flag, and that no action was taken against his attacker — something she described as a pattern under the prior presidential administration.

“I think it shows how much we need to do to make sure that our students are [equipped] with the truth,” Collins said.

Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) also spoke at the OU event.

The Senate voted on Tuesday to pass a House-passed war powers resolution directing the administration to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran — a congressional rebuke of the administration over the war in Iran — though legally its effects are likely to be largely symbolic.

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.

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 — though a House Democratic aide argued to CNN that the measure would be binding.

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.”

Unlike previous efforts, however, the concurrent resolution did not require other procedural votes by the Senate, allowing Democrats to take advantage of the Republican absences and move directly toward final passage to deliver a message of rebuke to the administration.

The Senate still has other war powers resolutions pending, including one which passed an initial procedural hurdle, but currently lacks the support to pass through an additional procedural vote and final passage with full attendance. That legislation, which comes in a different form as joint resolutions, would be presented to the president if passed and set up a potential veto or other legal fight.

Republicans warned that adopting the resolution would send a further signal to Iran that it does not need to negotiate or make any compromises with the U.S. as part of ongoing talks.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a leading critic of Israel in the Senate, publicly confirmed for the first time this week, after visits to key primary states, that he is considering a 2028 presidential bid — and argued that criticism of Israel should be a key litmus test for the emerging field.

Van Hollen has become an increasingly outspoken and virulent voice against Israel in the Senate  and taken trips to states that will play a pivotal role in the 2028 presidential primary, fueling speculation that he is scoping out a presidential run. 

“I went to New Hampshire because I was invited, but I would say kind of kicking the tires a little bit,” Van Hollen said on the “On NOTUS” podcast this week.

Asked whether he thinks any Democratic presidential candidate will be viable without criticizing Israel and supporting conditioning aid to the Jewish state, Van Hollen responded, “I think a Democratic presidential candidate should believe in the United States’ foreign policy based on advancing our values and our interests. And if you want to advance our values, you cannot apply one set of standards just to our adversaries and another to our friends and be taken seriously in the world about it.”

“I think any credible Democratic presidential candidate has to be willing to hold the government of Israel accountable when it’s violating human rights and violating international law and violating US interests because the Israeli-Palestinian issue, conflict goes to the heart of so much of the instability that we’ve encountered and paid for in the United States over decades,” Van Hollen continued.

He also argued that any Biden-era officials who don’t “plainly acknowledge how wrong they were and make it clear that lessons have been learned and that they would follow a very different approach” toward Israel should not be able to serve in any future Democratic administration.

Van Hollen also defended Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee who has drawn controversy for his Nazi tattoo, far-left views and numerous scandals and controversies, as “the candidate in that race who is fighting for working people” and “somebody who’s going to shape things up and actually respond to the pocketbook issues of the people of Maine.”

Senate Republicans continued on Thursday to air concerns about the U.S. memorandum of understanding with Iran, in some cases fueled further by Vice President JD Vance’s comments dismissing the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions and lambasting Israeli government officials who have objected to the deal.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) — the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services — issued a statement ripping into the agreement, saying he’s “concerned [it] negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the president’s goals.” Wicker had for days told reporters he was “withholding comment” on the MOU.

He said that, even though the $300 billion reconstruction fund outlined in the deal is not coming from U.S. taxpayer money, it “would make Iran’s payoff under President [Barack] Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison” and that it “would be an error to force Israel to stand down against Hezbollah.”

He said he also opposes any sanctions relief or unfreezing of funds for Iran “in exchange for Iran’s mere agreement to negotiate for another 60 days. The Iranian regime has not renounced its ultimate goal — ‘Death to America, Death to Israel.’ The regime will invest every penny it receives to further that aim.”

But Wicker pointed ultimate blame for the final shape of the deal at the “intermediaries,” rather than Trump himself.

Wicker told reporters he expects to hear from Vance about the deal but that no briefings have yet been arranged or scheduled.

Reiterating a stance he expressed a day prior, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “History demonstrates giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to kill you is an exceptionally bad idea. So I hope we don’t do that.”

Asked about the comments by Vance — a potential candidate in the 2028 GOP presidential primary — Cruz, who mounted his own presidential bid a decade ago and is rumored to be considering a 2028 run, said, “I think the vice president can speak for himself.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he plans to go through the agreement in detail to compare it to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action because “what we don’t want to do is repeat that mistake.”

Tillis rejected Vance’s comments that sanctions have not been effective. “You’ve seen all kinds of their behavior changes in reaction to sanctions,” Tillis told Jewish Insider. “To suggest it’s not working would suggest that broadly sanctions don’t work, and we all know that that’s just factually incorrect.”

He told JI that “clearly any sanctions that are subject to congressional approval, he needs to come to Congress. Pretty straightforward. They covered that on ‘Schoolhouse Rock.’”

Tillis, who is retiring, also called the deal a “very important moment” for Vance. “It’s definitely a two-edged sword. Coming up short’s probably not good for him, but it could be a great achievement for him.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI he hadn’t heard Vance’s comments on sanctions, but he said that “it seems to me that there are billions of dollars that have been held from Iran, which has not gone to terrorist activities, and I think that is a good thing. So, with regard to that, it clearly had an effect. Whether or not it was completely effective is debatable.”

Rounds said he was concerned that Israel was not a party to the negotiations but “there’s an expectation somehow that there would be a limitation on activity going on in Lebanon that we’re not involved with at all, but that Israel is.”

He emphasized that “the Israeli government has a right to defend its people” from the yearslong ongoing attacks from Hezbollah, “and I don’t see that necessarily correctly addressed within this original memorandum. Perhaps there’ll be more meat on it in an actual agreement.”

The senator said he’s unsure whether the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which blocks the lifting of sanctions or unfreezing of funds for a congressional review period on any deal pertaining to Iran’s nuclear program, would be applicable, or what legislative steps would be involved if it were.

“We need to learn more about what [Trump’s] intent is and how permanent the two parties expect this to be,” Rounds said. “There’s a lot of questions we don’t have answers to yet, but it’s early in the process.”

He raised concerns about how the agreement would be enforced “particularly if you release all of their funds immediately, they’re allowed to do with it whatever they want. In the past, they’ve used that to fund terrorist activities. The first one that comes to mind is Hezbollah, which sits in Lebanon right now and has been attacking Israel relentlessly for years.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that “everything I’ve heard about it causes me concern” and he believes the president agreed to the deal because he was “concerned about the midterm elections and gas prices and blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.”

“This gets that open, but I think he’s had to pay a very deal price to get that done, and I think we should be clear-eyed and realistic that this isn’t going to persuade the Iranian regime to go in peace,” Cornyn, who is retiring after being defeated by a Trump-backed primary challenger, said. 

He said that the steps taken by U.S. military operations to degrade Iran’s ballistic missile program and military-industrial base and delay its nuclear program were positive, but “I think we ought to be realistic about where we are. It’s temporary. It’s certainly not a permanent solution.”

Cornyn said he does not believe that Trump was joking when he said on Wednesday that he would blame Vance if the deal goes awry, and that the outcome of the deal might affect Vance’s prospects in the 2028 presidential race.

Cornyn said he expects that Congress, in its oversight role, will be examining the release of sanctions and whether the administration has the ability to lift those sanctions unilaterally.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Senate Intelligence Committee chair who also had not yet commented on the deal, said on Thursday that he has “concerns” over the MOU, warning that “certain aspects of this deal are a step in the wrong direction.”

The Arkansas senator told Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Trump “deserves enormous credit for making Iran weaker than it’s been in decades, and we need to make sure that we don’t squander the leverage that we’ve built.” Cotton said he wished that the president “had continued with Project Freedom when it was announced a couple months ago.” 

He also called on Trump to “use our military to force the Strait open and to keep it open, in addition to reimposing the blockade in the event that “Iran doesn’t keep its end of the bargain.”

Cotton pointed to the immediate lifting of sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, suggesting the funding would go toward malign activities, and raised concerns about the long-term control of the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s certain parts of this memorandum that are a bit vaguer about Iran’s ability to access up to $100 billion of frozen funds or whether Iran can impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz after two months,” Cotton said. “We’ll need more explanation there. I hope President Trump won’t allow those things to happen.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said that lawmakers had “very serious problems” with the JCPOA and the administration will need to come explain the deal because “I don’t want to see JCPOA 2.0.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told JI that she expects to find out “a lot more about the real details and particulars in these next 30 days.”

The Alaska senator said Congress needs “to make sure that the way that the president and the United States are interpreting this is in sync with how Iran is interpreting this, and I’m not certain yet that we’re at that place.”

Murkowski said “they can’t tell me” how the sanctions relief and reconstruction funding will work “so I certainly have a lot of questions that have yet to be resolved, but I also appreciate that the agreement allows for this next 30 days to work through reaching it.”

Asked about Trump’s suggestion on Wednesday that he wasn’t opposed to Iran possessing ballistic missiles, Murkowski replied, “That wasn’t helpful.”

Murkowski responded affirmatively when pressed on if those types of comments from the president and senior administration officials gave her pause about what the final agreement could look like. 

Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) said that “if we don’t have absolute assurances” that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon “then we lose,” though he said that “there’s still work to be done” in further negotiations.

“If it were to come to pass that we still have all kinds of concerns and no assurances and everything else, then it’s not good at all,” Justice said. “We have to have control one way or another” of Iran’s nuclear materials.

He said he couldn’t address disputes with Israel about the deal directly but said “the Israelis have been wonderful allies, and we’re going to stay arm-in-arm with them, period.”

Democrats, meanwhile, continued to lambast the agreement.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told JI the administration is “desperate” and “flailing” and criticized the exclusion of Israel from the negotiations given that it continues to face attacks from Hezbollah, from which he said it must defend itself.

He said the agreement’s reliance on the U.N. as an enforcement and verification mechanism also hurts Israel.

“How can Israel trust the U.N.? Working with Israel is simply not in their toolkit. With the hundreds of billions of dollars provided, the unfreezing of sanctions immediately, the lifting of the freeze on assets, I don’t know how Republicans who attacked us with the JCPOA are going to handle that,” Blumenthal said. “This is a regime that continues to call the United States ‘the Great Satan.’ I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

And, he argued, the agreement effectively requires nothing of Iran: “I know the vice president’s line has been, ‘They only get the benefit of the bargain if they keep their side of it,’ but there is no side of it for them. They’re under no obligations here. It keeps the status quo for nuclear arms, lifting sanctions, lifting the freeze on assets, the $300 billion dollars.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) called the deal “appalling, flawed, pathetic failure” but “the inevitable conclusion of a combination of never making the case to the American people, flawed strategic provision, lack of grasp of the regional dynamics. How many ways can I say bad, bad, bad.”

On the issue of sanctions, Coons told JI, “President Trump cut a horrible deal where he is giving to Iran an enormous amount of released assets that have been frozen, sanctions relief that will generate tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, and this reconstruction fund In combination, this is a massive infusion of cash to the mullahs and the IRGC. History shows the mullahs will not primarily use this money to build health clinics and schools.”

He said that Vance’s criticisms of Israeli officials are part and parcel of his efforts to sell an unsatisfactory agreement.

“I think JD Vance has been tasked with trying to sell a really bad deal and he is being as aggressive as he possibly can in knocking down one of the more obvious critics — a country that has a lot to lose,” he added. “If their opposition to the JCPOA was in any way principled, then they have to criticize a deal that’s worse than the JCPOA.”

Coons pointed responsibility for countering the deal toward Republicans, emphasizing that Iran will use the funding it receives under the deal for malign purposes. The Delaware senator said that there are “some things” Congress can do including conduct oversight of the congressional sanctions that the deal seeks to lift.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) echoed colleagues in describing the agreement as an “unconditional surrender” by the U.S. ‘because we get nothing from this deal.”

“All the specific benefits go to Iran. We get vague promises for potentially in the future hundreds of billions of dollars,” Booker said. “We’re allowing an extreme, terrorist supporting regime, that’s more extreme than when we began this, that chant ‘Death to America,’ to have more resources to do more things. So this is perhaps one of the biggest presidential blunders and failures in the last 20 years.”

He said that whether Senate Republicans stand firm and refuse to allow the administration to lift sanctions requiring congressional approval “is going to be the big test.”

“Will they just roll over and lay down for him, or will they stand up and provide the kind of checks, balances, oversight, and accountability when it comes to Iran, that they should be doing?” Booker asked. “They have a lot of levers to pull on the Republican side, where they right now control the Senate and control the House.”

He did not address what Democrats plans’ or role might be.

In the House, pro-Israel Democrats are also outraged by the deal and vowed not to support when it comes before Congress, which they said it must under INARA.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer said he is “totally dumbfounded by this agreement, and, like many, in a state of disbelief,” adding that the U.S. “got nothing” and “not one core objective was meaningfully met.”

He predicted that the next phase of the deal will never come about, and said the U.S. is “selling out Israel” and “kowtowing to Hezbollah terrorists, by tying Israel’s hands in Lebanon.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) called it a “surrender agreement” and an “unacceptable capitulation without achieving any of our objectives” that will “facilitate the rebuilding” of Iran’s military and support for proxy groups.

“Unless the agreement is changed to actually close and permanently block Iran’s path to nuclear weapons, I will vote against it,” Schneider said.

President Donald Trump upended an expedited effort to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence before the end of the week with a Wednesday morning Truth Social post announcing that he was “cancelling” Clayton’s planned confirmation hearing later that afternoon — but Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Intelligence Committee chairman, insisted the hearing would go on as scheduled unless Clayton fails to appear.

Though Trump doesn’t have the ability to unilaterally cancel a Senate hearing, he could instruct Clayton not to appear as scheduled. Senate lawmakers were rushing to confirm Clayton before the end of the week to prevent federal housing chief Bill Pulte from serving as acting DNI, a choice lawmakers on both sides of the aisle view as problematic and unqualified for the role.

“Jay Clayton is a pending nominee before the Intelligence Committee. We will proceed with his hearing as scheduled unless the president directs him not to appear or withdraws his nomination,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on X following Trump’s post.

Republicans have been trying to clear a path to rapidly confirm Clayton before Pulte is set to take over as acting DNI on Friday.

Confirming Clayton and blocking Pulte from the DNI role would also unlock Democratic support for renewing federal foreign surveillance authorities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which lapsed last week amid Democratic opposition.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, lambasted the “extraordinary display of dysfunction from a president who seems determined to turn America’s national security into a political bargaining chip.”

“At every turn, the president has injected more uncertainty into a process that should be focused on one thing: keeping the American people safe,” Warner continued. National security cannot be governed by social media post. The president’s latest intervention only underscores a simple reality: the biggest obstacle to resolving these issues has not been Senate Democrats or Senate Republicans. It has been the chaos and confusion coming from the White House itself.”

Trump asserted that “Dumocrats broke the Deal” on FISA and Pulte, and also demanded that James McDonald, who Trump said he would nominate to replace Clayton as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, be confirmed before Clayton is confirmed for DNI.

But McDonald’s nomination hasn’t yet been transmitted to the Senate, according to congressional records.

Trump also indicated that he would veto the FISA renewal unless Republicans attach the SAVE America Act, which aims to impose new national voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements at the ballot box and limit mail-in and online voter registration, to it — a proposal that cannot pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

“To add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it,” Trump said. “Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap.”

The Senate’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act proposes sweeping new conditions on U.S. support for the Lebanese Armed Forces. The proposed restrictions come after top Senate lawmakers publicly expressed frustration in recent months with the LAF’s failure to take concrete steps to fully disarm Hezbollah, and argued that the U.S. should not provide unconditional funding for the LAF.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chair of the Armed Services Committee, which produces the NDAA, said in late April that “Congress should not support the LAF unless it acts to disarm Hezbollah completely — and immediately.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, echoed Wicker, adding that it was “well past time for the LAF to take tangible action to fully disarm Hezbollah and for the Lebanese government to follow through on long-promised economic reform. The era of complacency and unconditional bailouts must come to an end.”

Support for the LAF, which would be limited to no more than $36 million, is conditioned on the LAF’s work to disarm Hezbollah. No more than 5% of that funding can be provided until the administration certifies to Congress that Lebanon has outlawed Hezbollah’s activities and that the LAF is actively working to disarm Hezbollah, prevent the Iranian-backed group’s rearmament and prevent attacks on Lebanon’s neighbors — including Israel.

The administration would then be required to re-certify every 90 days to Congress that the LAF is continuing to act against Hezbollah to the full extent of its capabilities, with a mandatory suspension of aid if it cannot meet that certification.

The quarterly reports would also include specific data on the number of weapons seized from Hezbollah and other metrics regarding the LAF’s efforts to degrade Hezbollah, as well as the makeup and capacities of the LAF forces.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday publicly condemned Israel’s operations against Hezbollah, suggesting — in a move that baffled both lawmakers and experts — that Syria’s military could instead be called upon to deal with the Hezbollah threat.

The NDAA would block U.S. counterterrorism assistance to Syria until the administration can certify the Syrian government is taking action to demobilize, disarm and monitor foreign fighters and jihadists in the country, implement a system to “fairly integrate” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces into the Syrian military and prevent attacks on minorities including Kurds and Druze.

The provision comes amid continued scrutiny on Capitol Hill of the Syrian government’s efforts to protect minorities after the U.S. withdrew sanctions on the Syrian government.

As previously reported, the NDAA, which was finalized last week but not released in full until Tuesday, includes a version of the FUTURES Act, which has become a hot-button issue in the context of the House version of the NDAA, seeking to centralize and expand existing defense collaboration efforts between the two partners.

But it also includes a second provision on joint development, requesting the administration provide Congress with a plan to establish a partnership between the U.S. and Israel on defense industrial priorities, with the goal of supporting the defense industrial bases in both countries, providing opportunities for industries in both countries to cooperate and collaborate and supporting defense development and startups in both countries.

The legislation additionally proposes boosting funding for cooperation on subterranean operations — previously billed as counter-tunnelling efforts — from $80 million to $100 million, and counter-drone programs from $70 million to $100 million. The bill also authorizes $1 million for cybersecurity cooperation with Israel.

That funding would still have to be approved separately in the appropriations process later this year.

The NDAA also includes two different provisions to enhance defense cooperation with both Israel and other Middle East allies.

One, the Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Initiative, would establish a program to expand defense cooperation between the U.S. and the Abraham countries, to address various threats in the region. It encourages each country in the region to provide matching funds for the program.

The other, which pulls language from the OASIS in the Middle East Act, aims to develop a coordinated air- and missile-defense acquisition strategy alongside Israel, Abraham Accords members and other Middle East allies to ensure adequate resources to protect the U.S. and its allies in the event of future conflicts.

The provision further requires the administration to explain its work to replenish interceptor stockpiles that have reportedly been severely degraded in the war, assess the possibility for co-production with various Middle East allies of interceptor systems, consider an creating an air-defense stockpile in the Middle East and improve joint development and acquisition of low-cost interceptor options.

The NDAA, which provides formal congressional authorization for the Civil Military Cooperation Center overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire plan in Gaza, requires the administration to provide Congress with information on plans for and actual deployment of the International Security Force in Gaza and its involvement in disarming Hamas, as well as on granular, specific details on the amount and types of aid moving into Gaza.

Plans for the ISF have largely failed to materialize, and the force has not yet deployed inside Gaza, where efforts to disarm Hamas have stalled in light of the terrorist group’s intransigence.

Despite having previously approved a similar motion, the Senate on Tuesday narrowly defeated a procedural vote on a war powers resolution to prevent further military action against Iran, as the administration moves forward in negotiations with Tehran.

The same four Senate Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — voted to advance the resolution, but absences favored Republicans this time, defeating the resolution 48-47.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was again the sole Democrat who voted against the effort.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who led the previous war powers resolution that successfully advanced, explained to reporters that he hasn’t yet called up that resolution for further votes because he needs to secure one more vote in support to ensure passage.

“I would like to call up mine when I know I’ve got a win,” Kaine said. “I don’t yet have a fifth. I need a fifth vote. … I’ve been working some people to try to get that, but I haven’t gotten any solid commitments.”

He said that he’s still trying to persuade colleagues that, even if the war is paused now, it should not restart without congressional approval, and that Democrats still want to have weekly votes on the war. He said he’s hopeful that the current ceasefire could give some additional Republicans the leeway to vote for the effort.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), seen as a potential GOP swing vote, ultimately voted against the motion after telling reporters that the current uncertainty could warrant some involvement by Congress.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing right now. … Are we in a ceasefire, are we in an agreement that is basically a new agreement on a ceasefire? Are we working towards a real lasting agreement that may be subject to ratification of Congress?” Tillis said before the vote. 

The North Carolina Republican said he would decline to take a firm position before hearing arguments on both sides of the issue.

“[If y]ou’ve got all that uncertainty, then maybe, if we do still think that the U.S. forces need to be put at risk and be kept there, then we should probably be talking about an authorization for the use of military force,” Tillis continued.

Some Republican senators said that the administration does not need to submit the recently signed 60-day memorandum of understanding with Iran to Congress for review and a potential vote under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, potentially sidestepping the first major opportunity for Congress to weigh in on the agreement.

Under INARA, the administration is required to promptly submit any deal with Iran relating to its nuclear program to Congress for review, with an opportunity for Congress to vote to reject the deal. But the administration may attempt to avoid that step, at least until a broader agreement is reached during the 60-day negotiating period — if one comes about.

A source familiar with the situation said Republican leadership is in discussions with the administration about what is included in the MOU — senior Republicans have said publicly they have not yet been informed — but they are collectively moving toward a view that the MOU is an agreement for further negotiations, not a deal on Iran’s nuclear program in itself, thereby sidestepping INARA for the time being.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some senators offered a similar view on Monday evening.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that he’s “not aware of any precedent” for Congress to vote on an MOU.

“This is like a template for further negotiations,” Hawley said. “I don’t even know constitutionally if we have a role on that.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said that he does not believe that a congressional vote on the MOU is necessary. He also went further, emphasizing that even under INARA, there is no requirement for Congress to vote on any Iran agreement.

“People may have different points of view of whether or not we should or we shouldn’t, but there’s certainly nothing required,” Schmitt said. 

Pressed on why lawmakers wouldn’t want an opportunity to vote on the deal, Schmitt responded, “on whether or not a president can cease conflict in that way?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” he continued. “I’m just stating the law. … I will say that I do think that there are certain people in this building that want to undermine this, there’s no doubt about that. … You have the camp that wants us to lose, and then you have a camp that wants a forever war. President Trump’s not in either one of those camps.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that “if there’s a final” deal with Iran, he believes Congress should have the opportunity to review and vote on it, but that he does not believe that such a vote is necessary for the current MOU.

“When there’s a final agreement — if there’s a final agreement — just like the JCPOA Congress should be able to weigh in,” Kennedy said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who said he was involved in crafting INARA during the Obama administration, said that whether the MOU needs to be submitted is a question of what it includes.

“If the details are opening the ports, opening the straits and ceasefire, but let’s talk about the nuclear program — I don’t know that that would have to be submitted,” Kaine said. “If the details that we hear Friday include some nuclear elements, and maybe we’ll talk about some other ones down the road — well then it might have to come to us. You just have to see whether the deal that is announced Friday includes an agreement on any of the elements of [their nuclear program].”

He emphasized, however, that meeting the 60-vote threshold in the Senate to pass a joint resolution of disapproval under INARA to block a deal would be difficult given current political dynamics around the war.

Others, however, are more eager for congressional scrutiny and even Senate ratification of the deal as a treaty.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he hopes the U.S. doesn’t “make the mistake Obama made [with the original nuclear deal]. We had an agreement that never really got ratified by Congress, didn’t have a lot of visibility, and I think that’s a mistake.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) emphasized that any lasting agreement would need to be submitted to Congress.

“If it’s going to be long lasting, you’ve got to pass law, and that was what President Obama figured out: he could make an executive agreement, but the next president just turns it off,” Lankford said. “The president has the power to be able to negotiate foreign policy. He is the person who speaks for the country on foreign policy issues, but lasting agreements that last beyond that president have to be put in statute.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) also said that if the deal is strong, it should be submitted to Congress for ratification as a treaty. “The JCPOA was torn apart, taken apart, because it could not meet that standard,” Rounds said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), asked if the Senate should vote on the MOU or only the subsequent negotiated agreement said, “It’s the law. Any nuclear deal with Iran has to be voted on. There is no way that we will not review a deal.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) are leading 28 colleagues in introducing a House version of the Jewish American Security Act, the package of antisemitism-related legislation introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) last month in the Senate.

The bill includes a proposal for significant increases in security funding, new oversight and administrative measures to address antisemitism on college campuses and new transparency  requirements for social media companies relating to antisemitism online.

The legislation is being co-sponsored by Reps. Grace Meng (D-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Rudy Yakym (R-IN), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Marc Veasey (D-TX), Don Bacon (R-NE), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Dan Meuser (R-PA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Tom Barrett (R-MI), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), Greg Landsman (D-OH), David Kustoff (R-TN), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Randy Weber (R-TX), Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI) and John Moolenaar (R-MI).

“Words of condemnation are no longer enough,” Goldman said in a statement. “Since the October 7th attacks, there has been a systematic failure in Congress and in our communities to counter the threat posed by surging antisemitism across this country.”

Goldman, a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, said the bill would change that pattern: “Whether on campus, at synagogues, or online — the Jewish American Security Act will provide the tools necessary to help secure our at-risk communities to practice their faith without fear. American Jews cannot be asked to bear this burden alone. As Americans, we must stand shoulder to shoulder with those under siege by hate.”

Lawler, who is also the lead sponsor of the long-stalled Antisemitism Awareness Act, said in a statement that by providing additional resources for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the bill would help safeguard constitutionally protected religious freedom and bolster Jewish institutions against attacks.

“This bill also delivers critical protections for Jewish students on college campuses through stronger Title VI enforcement, requires greater transparency from online platforms on antisemitic content, and establishes key threat assessments,” Lawler said. “We must act decisively so Jewish Americans can feel safe in their schools, synagogues, and online.”

The legislation is supported by a wide range of Jewish groups across the religious and political spectrum.

“[A]ntisemitism remains a serious threat to the safety and security of the American Jewish community. A piecemeal approach to combat this scourge of [antisemitism] is no longer sufficient. The Jewish American Security Act is a serious and comprehensive federal response to this epidemic of hate,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “We are grateful to Congressmen Goldman and Lawler for championing this bill in the House and showing that keeping Jewish Americans safe is a genuine bipartisan priority.”

Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, told Jewish Insider in a brief interview that, given the support in both the House and Senate and the Jewish community, “there’s never really been something like this at this level of comprehensiveness on Jewish security, with all the Jewish organizations working together.”

“People care, but they just don’t realize how bad it’s been. They don’t realize what’s happened in the last year. They don’t understand how Temple Israel was almost a disaster that would have changed the country,” Fingerhut continued. “This is really an important moment and we are all over this. There’s nothing that’s a higher priority.”

He said that if the bill passes, “we really have something that will make a difference for the Jewish community, which has been the target of a serious domestic terror crisis over this last year. So we’re grateful and we’re ready to work.”

American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement that Americans should not need security to pray or be afraid to leave their homes and interact in their communities, “yet, that is exactly what Jews in this country are experiencing every day.” 

“We are at an inflection point. Surging antisemitism is not just a threat to the Jewish community; it is a crisis for our democracy and the values we cherish as Americans — pluralism, religious freedom, and the promise of equal protection,” Deutch said. “We thank Representatives Goldman and Lawler for their leadership and demonstrating that confronting this hatred is not a political issue, but a moral obligation.”

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said that antisemitic violence “demands investments in a sustained, whole-of-government and whole-of-society response.” 

“The Jewish American Security Act helps us to meet that need by focusing on tools that we know work,” Spitalnick said. “A truly inclusive American democracy requires Jewish safety — and so too does our safety as Jews depend on protecting our democratic institutions and values and ensuring the safety and rights of each and every community.”

Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, said that the organization “strongly supports” the bill and that the “unprecedented wave of antisemitism demands an unprecedented response by our government,” including increasing NSGP funding to $1 billion.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that “the need for meaningful steps to bolster security and the fight against hate is vital.”

“The Jewish American Security Act strengthens the government tools and funding that will be available to help us meet this moment and uphold the American commitment to religious freedom,” Pesner said.

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, praised the bipartisan support for the legislation as well as the broad consensus around it in the Jewish community, urging the bill’s quick passage.

“It is deeply encouraging to see this bill come together with bipartisan, bicameral support at a time when that kind of consensus is all too rare. There is real meaning in Republicans and Democrats joining around the shared responsibility to protect Jewish Americans,” Daroff said.

“It is encouraging to see real consensus across Jewish organizations. Since October 7, engagement is up and coordination is stronger. That unity is both needed and significant.”

Maine Democrats rallied behind scandal-plagued oyster farmer and military veteran Graham Platner as their Senate nominee against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in Tuesday’s primary, turning to a left-wing outsider running against the political and institutional establishment as its standard-bearer for the general election. 

Platner — whose controversies, including his now-covered Nazi tattoo and abuse allegations, have unnerved many Democrats — will be a political test over whether his brand of progressive populism can win over swing voters in a state critical to the Democrats’ hopes of winning back the Senate.

“In trying so hard to understand me, [the media] failed to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us, about the far too many, working far too hard and struggling far too much,” Platner said in his victory speech. 

Attacking “forever wars,” Platner railed against the Trump administration’s war in Iran, and slammed Collins for “closing hospitals while using our tax dollars to destroy them halfway around the world.” (The line was an apparent attack against Israel’s targeting of Hamas terror infrastructure that was often lodged in medical facilities during the war in Gaza.)

Platner won about 72% of the primary vote despite Gov. Janet Mills remaining on the ballot, a solid enough showing amid all the controversies that should mute any calls for him to drop out of the race. In a statement on Platner’s victory, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) reiterated their support for the nominee: “In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority.” 

Mills, for her part, did not mention Platner at all in her statement about the election results.

The most recent polls in the race, conducted as Platner’s scandals hit the news, suggest a highly competitive matchup between Collins and Platner. Maine is the only state Trump lost in the 2024 presidential election that is represented by a Republican in the Senate, but Platner’s personal baggage is complicating the party’s path to victory. 

Collins, meanwhile, is one of the most politically resilient senators, winning reelection even when the political environment for her party has been less than favorable. 

Platner was surrounded by mostly older women as he delivered his victory speech, a critical constituency for him to win in the general election in the state with the oldest median population, especially given the allegations of abuse towards several ex-girlfriends. 

In other primary news on Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) coasted to renomination, though he only won 58% of the GOP vote against weak competition. 

In his victory speech, Graham railed against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), two isolationist, anti-Israel GOP lawmakers who left or were ousted from Congress. “What did we prove tonight? That South Carolina is Trump country, not Massie country. We proved tonight that nobody gives a damn what Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks about who to vote for in South Carolina,” Graham said.

In South Carolina’s governor’s race, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, will face state Attorney General Alan Wilson in a runoff for the nomination. Reps. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) lagged well behind in the primary, with Mace’s fifth-place finish serving as a disappointing conclusion to her congressional career. 

United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, is spending $2 million on an initial ad buy this week to boost Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, a UDP spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

The new TV ad, which calls Stevens “a proven fighter for Michigan,” touts her past role as chief of staff to President Barack Obama’s auto task force, support for capping insulin prices and efforts “fighting back against” President Donald Trump’s “Medicare cuts.”

“She’s a fighter for Michigan families on affordability and jobs,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, said of Stevens, a moderate pro-Israel Democrat. “We are going to show that on these ads,” he said in a statement to JI.

UDP is also spending $300,000 on radio and mail ads, Dorton said of the group’s first investment in the race. He was unable to share how much UDP intends to spend in the primary, which takes place on Aug. 4.

The spending comes as AIPAC is viewed as a lightning rod in Michigan’s closely contested Democratic Senate primary, where one of Stevens’ top rivals, Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal far-left critic of Israel, has accused her of being beholden to donors from the pro-Israel group. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator, has also vowed to reject campaign contributions from AIPAC.

In contrast with other races where UDP has relied on shell PACs that allow it to shield its involvement until after a primary has concluded, the group is spending under its own name in Michigan, which is home to a sizable Jewish community.

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and James Lankford (R-OK) are set to introduce a bill on Thursday directing the Pentagon to develop a coordinated air- and missile-defense acquisition strategy with Israel, Abraham Accords members and other Middle East allies.

The Optimizing Acquisition Strategies for Integrated Security (OASIS) in the Middle East Act, which expands on existing legislative and administrative efforts to establish a coordinated air and missile defense system throughout the Middle East to protect the U.S. and its partners, would aim to ensure that the necessary resources are in place to protect the U.S. and its allies in future conflicts, sponsors said.

It builds on past legislation sponsored by the co-chairs of the Abraham Accords Caucus, including the DEFEND Act, and comes ahead of the Senate’s markup of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. Previous Abraham Accords caucus projects have been incorporated into past years’ NDAAs.

“Iran’s reckless and destabilizing behavior underscores why we must work together to ensure we have sufficient air and missile defense resources to respond to Iranian aggression and keep our allies, like Israel, safe,” Rosen said in a statement, referring to Iran and its proxies’ attacks throughout the region. “Our bipartisan bill will provide a clear framework to support DOD’s efforts to develop an integrated air and missile defense acquisition strategy for the region.”

Lankford said that Iran’s “aggression cannot go unanswered.”

“The OASIS in the Middle East Act makes sure the Department of War has a coordinated strategy so Israel and our partners have what they need before the next attack comes, not after,” Lankford continued. “Standing with our allies is not optional; it is a core American commitment, and this bill ensures we back that commitment up with real resources and real strategy.”

The Trump administration on Monday sent a fresh slate of diplomatic nominations to the Senate for approval. But noticeably absent was a full-throated push to fill critical vacancies across the Middle East and North Africa, even as the Iran conflict has increased the need for coordination and dialogue in the region.

The newest list of nominees included only two names for the MENA region: Donald Blome, tapped to serve as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs — a role that acts as the principal advisor on U.S. foreign policy across the region — and Nick Oberheiden, nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Egypt.

The lack of attention to Middle East ambassadorships underscores a broader staffing vacancy first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May, which noted that more than 100 U.S. ambassador posts remain unfilled under the current administration, including in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait.

Experts told Jewish Insider that the administration is rapidly running out of time to fill these vacancies and implement its preferred candidates before the midterm elections potentially change the makeup of Congress and threaten to leave the president with a less cooperative Senate. 

Analysts have suggested that the vacancies may reflect a deliberate strategic preference, noting that President Donald Trump has bypassed traditional bureaucratic channels and instead relied on his immediate inner circle — including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — to spearhead high-level engagement and negotiations in the region.

Even so, several foreign policy analysts have argued that leaving these senior posts vacant is an unwise strategy that risks eroding U.S. influence and diplomacy at a time of conflict and pivotal regional realignment. 

We reported earlier this month on the series of vacancies in key ambassador-level posts throughout the Middle East — in countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait. A senior State Department post overseeing Middle East issues also remains vacant, after the previous nominee was blocked by lawmakers.

At this point, time is running short for President Donald Trump to fill any of those vacant posts before the confirmation process potentially becomes more difficult in the Senate after the midterm elections. 

Processing the nominations will take time: The chamber is set to be out of session for significant portions of the next few months. And there will be various other critical bills — including government funding, the annual defense bill and a potential third reconciliation package, to process on the Senate floor. Even ahead of floor proceedings, the vetting process in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can, itself, take months before nominees appear for a confirmation hearing.

If Trump seeks to fill these posts, it will likely be in the administration’s interest to do so before the end of the current Congress, as GOP control of the Senate for the final two years of Trump’s term is not assured, and even if Republicans retain the majority, it could be with an even smaller margin.

It’s not just Democrats who have proven to be an obstacle to some of the administration’s picks. Amer Ghalib, Trump’s original nominee to be ambassador to Kuwait, was blocked by Republicans over his history of antisemitism, among other issues. And Joel Rayburn, tapped for a top Middle East job in the State Department, was blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who also slowed down proceedings for U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz.

That said, it’s not clear whether the administration will prioritize filling these vacancies. Earlier this month, experts told Jewish Insider that the White House has seemed content to vest responsibility for broad Middle East portfolios within a tight circle of personal allies of the president, including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack — whose role has particularly concerned some Republicans. Many experts have argued that leaving the positions open is unwise and risks harming U.S. influence and diplomacy in the region.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told JI that “the department has confidence in our ability to communicate with our counterparts around the world and advance the national interest.” 

A State Department official claimed that the Trump administration is on track to have more nominees confirmed in the first two years of Trump’s second term than the Biden administration, and praised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for working to promptly confirm its nominees. The official also noted that the State Department had reestablished a committee to review potential career foreign service officers who could be elevated to ambassadorial posts.

Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. envoy to Iran during the first Trump administration, however, warned that it might be “too late” to clear the nominations. He added that “it does not seem that the administration is very concerned” with the issue.

“Normally any administration would try to fill as many ambassadorial posts as possible before the August recess. But it is a little late, because in order to do that you have to have people cleared, formally nominated, go through hearings, be voted out of committee and then come to the floor for a vote,” Abrams said. “I doubt the administration will rush to get ambassadors in place now, because it just does not seem to be a very high priority for the president.” 

Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council in Trump’s first administration, suggested that the White House should prioritize advancing qualified nominees for ambassadorships and criticized Democrats for what he described as a “long history of stymying President Trump’s nominations, regardless of whether they are in the majority or the minority.”

“The administration should continue to prioritize sending qualified ambassadors aligned with the president’s agenda to strategically significant countries, and pressuring Senators to confirm them expeditiously,” Gray said. “Historically, presidents received considerable deference in the confirmation of ambassadors. President Trump and Senate Republicans should demand similar treatment today.”

Other Trump allies argued that filling the ambassadorships is less critical, doubling down on the belief that the administration’s current approach of running Middle East policy through Trump’s inner circle is effective.

“In this region, trusted relationships, direct lines of communication and confidence from the president matter more than whether an ambassador is in place,” Jason Greenblatt, who served as White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, said. “The leadership and senior diplomats in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have strong and trusted relationships with President Trump and with the group doing much of the day-to-day work, including Steve Witkoff, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, Vice President Vance, and Jared Kushner. That group has President Trump’s deep trust and direct access to him. That remains true regardless of how Senate politics develops.”

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a moderate Democrat running for Minnesota’s open Senate seat, said on Wednesday that she would not seek the support of the state Democratic Party at its convention being held this weekend — effectively ceding that endorsement to Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, her left-wing opponent.

Craig, who will still run in the Aug. 11 primary, said “the DFL endorsement process just doesn’t reflect the full scope of the party that we are and the purple state that we have become,” referring to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota’s Democratic affiliate, which was already expected to back Flanagan.

“Most Minnesotans don’t have the luxury of choosing a sub-caucus over a Saturday soccer game with their kids. Most Minnesotans can’t choose a convention over a closing shift. And most Minnesotans can’t put a delegate vote over driving their dad to a doctor’s appointment,” she said in a press conference while criticizing the DFL’s endorsement process.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Flanagan’s campaign countered that “DFLers overwhelmingly consolidated behind” the lieutenant governor “because they’re hungry for a leader who will stand up to corporate power, not bend to Republicans, and fight unapologetically for working people.”

Last month, Craig’s campaign called on the DFL to launch a formal investigation into a series of alleged instances of antisemitic activity among delegates in advance of its state convention, which has navigated mounting intraparty divisions over Israel.

Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat, said at an event with Jewish supporters last week that he struggles to answer questions about whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

At his “Jews for Abdul” event last week in Pontiac, Mich., a recording of which was obtained by Jewish Insider, El-Sayed, in response to a question from an audience member about him sidestepping inquiries about Israel’s right to exist, said, “I often struggle with the question that people ask in this particular scenario, because what they now ask is, ‘Do you believe in the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state,’ which, to me, forces the question of a definition of what a Jewish state means.”

SCOOP | Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat, said at an event with Jewish supporters last week that he struggles to answer questions about whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

“I often struggle with the… pic.twitter.com/ugjbXgxUvr

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 27, 2026

El-Sayed continued: “I need folks who want to ask me that question [to explain] what it is that they mean by that, and how that is consistent with any form of liberal values that we say we believe in here in the United States.”

He accused Israel of “bypassing” the issue of Palestinian rights and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel by implementing apartheid in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, and said that the question of Israel’s right to exist overlooks “the rights of people who’ve been displaced by Israeli action” dating back to 1948.

He said that U.S. support is “funding leadership” in Israel that is opposed to a two-state solution while Palestinians do not have a voice in that conversation, and said “it’s not actually our job to decide what the peace looks like there.” 

“[Israel] exists as it stands, but nobody ever asked me about the right of Palestine to exist, because it doesn’t exist. And so I just push back on the characterization here,” El-Sayed said. 

MORE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Abdul El-Sayed says “I need folks who want to ask me that question [to explain] what it is that they mean by that, and how that is consistent with any form of liberal values that we say we believe in here in the United States.”

Read more:… pic.twitter.com/8kaWUqwYCK

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 27, 2026

El-Sayed’s candidacy, positions and affiliations — particularly his campaigning with streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly shared antisemitic sentiments and support for terrorism — has drawn concern from the sizable Jewish community in Michigan and nationally.

Photos from the event shared by El-Sayed’s campaign appear to show around a few dozen people in the audience, at least one of whom — who raised the question about Israel’s right to exist — said she was not Jewish.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) said Wednesday that he plans to call on the Senate to pass the SACRED Act, legislation imposing restrictions on protests around synagogues and other religious institutions, by unanimous consent.

The effort could be derailed by opposition from any one lawmaker, but highlights the momentum and desire by some on Capitol Hill to pass “buffer zone” legislation or other measures to combat antisemitism, which Congress has struggled to do on several occasions since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the ensuing spike of antisemitism.

“’I’m going to get the SACRED Act done,” Moreno said at a breakfast event held on the Hill by Jewish organizations commemorating Jewish American Heritage Month. “My plan is in the next day or two to put the SACRED Act on the floor of the United States Senate with unanimous consent, get that passed.”

The SACRED Act, which was introduced in late April in the House by Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Max Miller (R-OH), would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship, within 100 feet of a religious institution.

A Senate version of the bill has not yet been introduced. Republicans and outside advocates are also working on alternative buffer zone legislation that would likely take a different approach than Suozzi’s bill.

The breakfast event was organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Weitzman Museum of Jewish American History.

Other attendees included Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) and Reps. David Kustoff (R-TN), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Tim Kennedy (D-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Randy Weber (R-TX), Don Bacon (R-NE), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Rick Allen (R-GA) and Randy Fine (R-FL).

Sam Salz, one of the first Orthodox Jewish NCAA Division I football players, was the keynote speaker.

Bacon, who is retiring at the end of his term, said that he’s concerned about the rising antisemitism on both sides, including on the right within the Church.

He said that some are rejecting and twisting scripture “just like Nazi Germany did in the 1930s and just like we’ve seen throughout history, where we’ve seen antisemitism using the Bible to condone it.”

Making reference to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), he called it “just wrong” for Massie to blame Israel for his loss in his concession speech on Tuesday, also condemning Democratic Texas candidate Maureen Galindo, who has espoused a range of virulently antisemitic sentiments.

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) on Tuesday introduced the Jewish American Security Act, a broad new effort by the lawmakers, who co-chair the Senate antisemitism task force, to address antisemitism across multiple sectors of American society. 

Similar legislation is also expected to be introduced in the House.

The bill, which has widespread support from all corners of Jewish leadership, including all major religious denominations and political organizations on both sides of the aisle, contains various provisions aimed at increasing security for Jewish communities through additional funding and federal resources.

Key provisions include: additional security assistance and improvements to security grant programs for Jewish communities; addressing antisemitism on college campuses through new federal oversight measures including a federal official to handle campus antisemitism; and addressing the spread of antisemitism online by requiring new transparency reports from social media companies, among a range of related steps in each category.

Rosen, leaders from the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and BBYO International and local leaders whose communities have been impacted by antisemitic violence in recent years spoke in favor of the bill at a Jewish Federations of North America press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. JFNA activists are on Capitol Hill this week meeting with more than 200 lawmakers to advocate for the bill and other legislation.

Rosen called the bill an “aggressive and comprehensive” response to antisemitism in the U.S. which will “help keep Jewish students safe, will help secure Jewish community institutions and we will help fight antisemitism online.”

She acknowledged that the path ahead is “not going to be easy” but emphasized that “it’s not an option for our government to not do more to fight antisemitism.”

Lankford emphasized the impacts of antisemitic violence on individual Jews and communities in a statement on the bill.  

“These are not just numbers, these are real stories impacting real people. Jewish students being targeted on campuses. Synagogues being vandalized. People being attacked in the streets simply because of their faith and heritage,” Lankford said. “That is not who we are as a nation, and we unequivocally condemn antisemitism in all its forms. Every American deserves to live their faith freely. That is worth fighting for.”

Rosen told Jewish Insider later in the day that she and Lankford had been working to craft the bill for the past year, and had taken a range of input on the legislation. She said she and Lankford had learned from past legislative fights that to garner strong bipartisan support “you have to be very specific” and targeted in how legislation is crafted.

She said the new bill is focused on combating domestic antisemitism across three of the areas that have been epicenters of the recent rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7.

“I think it’s a good, solid bill and I believe that we crafted it in a way to get that good bipartisan support,” Rosen said. “We’re not going to solve every problem, but you have to start with something and work from there, and hopefully we build on that success.”

“Antisemitism we know is a canary in the coal mine. It starts with the Jews, it doesn’t end with the Jews,” she said.

“This bill that we wrote, we meant it to not be so prescriptive,” Rosen continued.” When we do things on college campuses, it’s going to help all students. When we do things in houses of worship, it’s not just for synagogues, it’s for all houses of worship. And when we start looking and analyze some of these algorithms online, it will probably inform us about some of the other algorithms, probably the same algorithms that are taking people down that hateful rabbit hole.”

Asked after the press conference about the path forward for the bill, and how advocates could avoid the same pitfalls that befell other efforts to combat antisemitism since Oct. 7, JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut said that Jewish community groups took lessons from previous fights, particularly over the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the federal government’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in evaluating campus antisemitism cases, but has failed to pass in several congressional sessions.

“We learned a lot from the experience with the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Of course we still support the IHRA definition, but we made a collective communal decision that there’s a separate bill that covers the IHRA definition, and that we hope that will continue to move through the process, but this is a separate issue,” Fingerhut told JI. 

The bill does not explicitly endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which has proven a hurdle to previous efforts to combat antisemitism, but it notes that the Trump administration in 2019 implemented an executive order enforcing the IHRA definition on college campuses.

“This is the security of the Jewish community, and it has to be something that can be embraced on a bipartisan basis across the aisle,” he continued.

Fingerhut said that Rosen and other advocates made specific efforts to ensure the bill would not contain elements that would “turn it into a partisan effort” or “alienate people who have strong feelings about some of the issues that were in the Antisemitism Awareness Act, and so we hope we’ve accomplished that.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who co-chairs the House antisemitism task force and also spoke at the press conference, said that he and his House co-chairs are moving toward introducing companion legislation.

“This was a labor of … unquestionabl[e] importance and it has taken us quite some time to come together in a bipartisan, bicameral way,” Goldman acknowledged. “We worked for several months to fine tune this bill, so that it can be a targeted, productive, and effective concrete step to fighting antisemitism and rooting it out on the ground. We have worked very hard in a bipartisan way because none of these bills matter unless they become law.”

Goldman highlighted the “dramatic escalation” in antisemitic incidents in New York City in recent weeks, and said that simple condemnation after -the -fact is “too little, too late.”

The bill has widespread support among Jewish community groups and across all major religious denominations, including from the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Orthodox Union, JFNA, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Secure Community Network, The Rabbinical Assembly, Hadassah, Jewish Women International, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, JCC Association of North America, the Nexus Project, Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Agudath Israel of America.

The Republican Jewish Coalition and Jewish Democratic Council of America are also both endorsing the bill, JI has learned.

The legislation follows a previous effort by Rosen and Lankford, and counterparts in the House, to introduce a comprehensive package of antisemitism legislation in the past Congress, the Countering Antisemitism Act, which faced opposition from senior lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and ultimately did not advance.

The new bill is somewhat more limited than that prior effort, and builds on or combines other efforts that lawmakers have advanced individually, though certain provisions could still face objections from various corners.

Mirroring efforts currently underway in the 2027 government funding process, the legislation would authorize $1 billion annually for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program — though that funding would still have to be approved annually through the appropriations process even if this bill passes.

It also includes various provisions aimed at reforming NSGP management, including requiring that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide sufficient staffing to “streamline the application process and post-approval process for a grant,” provide additional technical assistance to grantees and quickly disburse funds under the program, within 90 days of when grantees submit reimbursement requests.

At the outset of the Trump administration, grant reimbursements were paused for a significant period as the administration reviewed all Department of Homeland Security grant programs.

It requires that applications for the program open no later than 90 days after Congress passes funding for the program, and that each state publicize a timeline to submit applications, both of which were issues during the 2025 grant cycle.

Addressing repeated congressional complaints during the second Trump term that lawmakers have not received adequate information about or communication from the administration about the grant program, the legislation would codify a requirement that FEMA provide Congress with a list of grant awards and amounts at least a week before such grants are publicized. It would also release to the public information about grant acceptances and rejections and the criteria for such decisions.

Responding to concerns about new conditions imposed on applicants relating to cooperation with immigration authorities and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming, the bill bars any conditions or terms that would disadvantage applicants or grant recipients based on their “religious, political, or ideological affiliation.”

The bill would modify current grant rules to allow nonprofits to use NSGP funding to pay for contracted or in-house security personnel.

At the press conference, Rosen called the provisions “comprehensive and long overdue reforms to this program that will actually make sure that it works for our at-risk institutions.”

And it would require the intelligence community to produce annual assessments on domestic and transnational antisemitic violent extremism.

The legislation would additionally codify a version of a program established in the 2026 Department of Justice funding bill that would allow the DOJ to provide grants to state and local law enforcement for the purpose of protecting religious institutions and addressing religious-based hate crimes.

In the education space, the bill would establish an antisemitism coordinator within the Department of Education, whose responsibilities would include working to ensure that antisemitism complaints that have been pending with the department’s Office for Civil Rights for more than 180 days are resolved promptly.

It would also mandate that any schools receiving federal funding designate a coordinator for addressing discrimination complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and establish a uniform grievance procedure and provide support mechanisms for such complaints. The effort mirrors policies currently in place for sex-based discrimination, under Title IX.

To improve visibility into the volume of antisemitic activity on college campuses, the legislation would change federal reporting procedures for hate crimes on college campuses, requiring that annual public campus crime reports disaggregate such offenses based on the bias category, such as antisemitism, that motivated them.

It also requires the Department of Education to offer trainings for schools on their Title VI responsibilities and to create an online database on Title VI best practices and recommendations. It requires schools to publicize educational materials about students’ Title VI rights both online and in person.

Rosen told JI that existing mechanisms have been “woefully inadequate to protect our students.”

Addressing antisemitism online, the bill requires platforms with more than 50 million unique monthly American users to submit to the Federal Trade Commission and to share publicly a transparency report on their “content moderation practices and efforts to detect, remove, limit the visibility of, and prevent the amplification of antisemitic content” on their platform, twice each year.

That report would include details on the specific review mechanisms and content moderation tools the platforms use; the total number of pieces of content on the platform that were determined to violate their policies on antisemitism and what action the platforms took; the amount of antisemitic content that reached more than 100 viewers or was promoted by the platform’s algorithms; the percentage of antisemitic content that violated the platforms’ policies but remained online; and details on accounts that were suspended or removed for sharing antisemitic content.

Platforms that do not comply with these reporting requirements would be subject to penalties by the FTC.

The administration would also be required to report to Congress on antisemitism online that has been linked to offline violence.

Goldman said that such transparency provisions would serve as a “tremendous deterrent.”

“If these social media companies need to disclose how much money they’re making off of antisemitic content, that’s going to be a deterrent. That is bad PR. And so it is critically important that we take this first step,” Goldman said. “It doesn’t violate the First Amendment, it doesn’t violate Section 230. It is purely bringing some transparency.”

Rosen emphasized that social media has been an “accelerant” and driver of antisemitism, making such content easier to access. She said the legislation would not compel speech or action by the platforms, but would provide transparency into how algorithms may be driving people toward hate and violence, and allow better analysis and understanding of the problem.

Fingerhut told JI that recent antisemitic attacks may also play a role in demonstrating to lawmakers the need for the legislation to address antisemitism and protect the Jewish community.

Several speakers also made note at the press conference of the attack on Monday at the Islamic Center in San Diego, highlighting the threats to religious communities broadly which can benefit from the NSGP funding.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) became the latest of a small number of Senate Republicans to break ranks and vote with the majority of Democrats in favor of an effort to force an end to the war in Iran on Wednesday.

She joined Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted for the second time for such an effort, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has consistently voted with Democrats on the issue. Nevertheless, the effort still fell short of a majority of the Senate, or of the 60 vote threshold needed for passage, with a final vote of 49 in favor to 50 against.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) remained the only Democrat to vote against the war powers effort.

Murkowski has been working with other Senate Republicans on an Authorization for Use of Military Force to set limits on the U.S. operations against Iran, but it remains unclear when she plans to introduce it or what its scope will be.

Murkowski and Collins’ votes suggest they’re unconvinced by the administration’s assertions that the military operations that began in late February have now concluded. The War Powers Act sets a 60-day deadline for military action without congressional approval.

“You’ve got a timeline that has taken us beyond the 60 days,” Murkowski told reporters. “I thought that perhaps we would get … more clarity from the administration in terms of where we are, and I haven’t received it. So I felt that it was now time to advance a discharge so that we can discuss our responsibilities as Congress under the War Powers Act.”

Collins said following the prior vote, two weeks ago, that she had voted for the resolution in order to enforce the War Powers Act.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who previously said his position might change after the 60-day mark and has been urging the administration not to restart military operations, again voted against the war powers effort.

“I think the administration’s in compliance, the president’s [in] compliance with the war powers statute given his certification to Congress … saying that he had terminated hostilities under Operation Epic Fury,” Hawley told Jewish Insider, echoing comments he made earlier this week. “I welcome the termination of hostilities … I’m glad [Trump] has resisted some of my colleagues’ calls to return to large-scale bombing and is pursuing an end to the conflict. I think that’s good.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) had urged Republicans not to break ranks on the issue while President Donald Trump is in China on a state visit this week.

“Right now, the president’s overseas,” Thune said. “He’s negotiating with the Chinese on a whole range of issues, some of which bear on national security, and I think it would be best if everybody hung together and supported the president.”

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), who had previously expressed opposition to any military operations beyond the 60-day deadline, also voted against the resolution. He suggested to reporters that the efforts from Democrats were not “serious.”

“I’ve yet to see a serious war powers vote. Let’s admit it, all this is a poke at the president,” Curtis said.

Curtis told reporters later in the day that the situation and the path forward is not simple, and that many questions including whether the U.S. is in a ceasefire, whether hostilities have actually stopped and whether the U.S. is drawing down from operations in Iran need to be answered to shape his approach to the issue.

He said that there is not “any question in my mind” that the 60-day period has expired. He reiterated that he would not fund the war beyond 60 days without congressional authorization.

Asked by JI whether he would introduce his own war powers resolution or AUMF as an alternative to those pushed by Democrats, Curtis indicated he does not plan to do so. “Ever since 1973,” when the War Powers Act was first passed, “Congress has struggled with what the answer is.”

He said he wants to ensure the administration maintains freedom to act in an emergency scenario. He said that drawing the proper boundaries is “not easy, and there’s a reason nothing’s been done on it. It’s not a matter of will, it’s a matter of where do you draw that line? I do think it’s time to have that conversation and count me in, in a group that would try to define that.”

Asked about the potential for renewed military action, he said he would have to evaluate it and the requirements for notifying Congress based on events as they occur.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told reporters he wants to work with the administration on an AUMF, dismissing comments by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth yesterday indicating that the administration feels it does not need and does not plan to seek an AUMF if it returns to combat.

The House is set to vote on a war powers resolution on Thursday, which stands a greater chance of passage. However, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), who voted for the first war powers resolution that came before the House earlier this year, said he plans to vote “present” tomorrow, as he did on the second House vote.

Jewish Insider Washington reporter Matthew Shea contributed reporting.

The Senate rejected for the sixth time an effort from Democrats to force the Trump administration to halt the war in Iran — with the vote once again falling largely along party lines. 

The vote was the last before the conflict approaches the 60-day mark outlined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the executive to seek congressional approval for continuing hostilities or draw down U.S. forces. 

“After 60 days of war, it is long past time for Republicans to hold Donald Trump accountable,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement released prior to the vote. “Some of my colleagues have indicated that the War Powers Act’s 60-day mark is the moment they may join our efforts to bring this war to its conclusion. That time has come.” 

The latest resolution, sponsored by Schiff and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), failed by a measure of 50-47. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) did not vote. 

Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted with the opposition party. This was the first time in which Collins sided with the Democrats on the war powers votes.

“As I have said since these hostilities with Iran began, the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief is not without limits,” Collins said in a statement following the vote. “Further military action against Iran must have a clear mission, achievable goals, and a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close. I voted to end the continuation of these military hostilities at this time until such a case is made.”

Collins added that the 60-day war powers deadline is “not a suggestion; it is a requirement.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he was not surprised by Collins, noting that “she has been saying the 60-day clock is significant for her.”

He added that for him: “We haven’t reached the 60 days. That’s why I voted the way I voted.” However, Hawley said that he wants “to see an end to the war.”

Senate Republicans have told Jewish Insider they expect the White House to abide by the law and provide notification of a 30-day extension to Congress, which is permitted to ensure a safe withdrawal. However, the administration has not yet indicated publicly whether it will seek that extension or continue offensive operations, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday that the 60-day clock was “paused” during the ongoing ceasefire.

As the deadline approaches, a growing rift is emerging among Senate Republicans over whether to support an Authorization of Use of Military Force. 

“I would hope it wouldn’t come to that,” Hawley said of the White House potentially extending the conflict past the 60-day mark. “I think the administration has tried to remain within the statute.” Hawley has said that should the conflict extend past the deadline with no further action from the White House that he would debate an AUMF, but said he would prefer not to support authorizing a war he wants to see “wind down.” 

Hawley said he would “welcome further communication from the White House.”

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) also said he expects that the White House will “communicate” and “make a very strong legal argument.” He also noted that he believes the administration has “followed the War Powers Act provision so far in a very careful way.”

Young said that should an AUMF be necessary, he could see himself voting for a “properly structured authorization.” 

“That’s been my position throughout this exercise,” Young said, referring to the recent slate of war powers votes. “My hope would be that if we went down that road, we’d work with the administration to draft a properly scoped authorization for the use of military force.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said he is “not ready to commit to anything.”

“I want to make sure that we continue to get classified information on a timely basis from the Pentagon,” Rounds said. “I think today we had a very good classified setting with a lot of good information being provided. I think they [the White House] did a good job of sharing their point of view on it. So we’re moving in a good direction.” 

Asked whether he believes anything would change at the 60-day deadline, Rounds replied: “I have no reason to believe that’s the case right now.” 

Rounds said he believes a path forward between the U.S. and Iran will be “extremely difficult without regime change.”

“But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope for an agreement with this particular regime under very strict observations by outside forces to make sure that they adhere to any agreements we make,” Rounds added. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that while he thinks the current war is “unwise” and “illegal,” he said that if Congress “were to pass an AUMF in both houses it would stop being illegal.”

“I would stop critiquing it as an illegal war if they [Congress] passed an AUMF,” Kaine said. 

Kaine said he expects that another war powers vote “will come up right after [Congress adjourns for] recess.” 

“I think the testimony this morning shows they [the White House] know they got a 60-day problem,” Kaine said, referring to Hegseth’s remarks at the hearing.

Rounds, who serves on the Senate Armed Services committee, said that he would need to “go back and do a good review of that particular” remark.

“We’re in the middle of it,” Rounds said. “Once I have a chance to actually go through it myself then I’ll have a comfort level. I’m not going to disagree with him [Hegseth] at this stage.”

Maine Gov. Janet Mills said on Thursday that she was suspending her primary campaign to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), clearing the path for her Democratic primary rival, Graham Platner, to secure the party’s nomination.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else — the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” she said in a statement.

Her sudden exit, with just over a month until the June primary, marks a stunning development in the closely watched race that Democratic leadership has regarded as one of its best pick-up opportunities this cycle as the party seeks to reclaim the majority in the upper chamber. 

Mills, a moderate two-term governor who had been favored by the Democratic establishment, struggled to gain traction in the race against Platner, a far-left political newcomer who had continued to maintain a commanding polling and fundraising lead, even as he has faced ongoing scrutiny for his extensive record of incendiary statements and personal controversies.

Since he entered the primary last year, Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine, has weathered criticism over a now-covered Nazi tattoo whose imagery he claims not to have recognized until recently as well as a series of past online comments in which he praised Hamas’ tactics during a violent raid into Israel in 2014, among other posts that have been surfaced amid his campaign. 

He has otherwise drawn blowback for boosting extremists — telling a podcast host who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, for instance, that he was a “longtime fan” of his show.  

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair, called Mills “a formidable governor who has broken barriers and never hesitates to stand up to bullies to fight for Maine,” adding that they “will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat” Collins, viewed as among the most vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection.

The statement, hardly a ringing endorsement of the now-presumptive nominee in a crucial battleground state, underscored the uncomfortable nature of their relationship with Platner, who has been a vocal critic of the Democratic establishment and its support for Israel.

Platner, casting himself as a populist, had won an early endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that helped him rise to prominence at the beginning of his campaign, and has continued to claim backing from a handful of other national progressive leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).

Nirav Shah, a Democrat running for governor of Maine, also announced he was endorsing Platner on Thursday after Mills had bowed out of the primary.  

Mills, whose comments did not mention Platner, has not indicated if she will back her now-former rival.

In a statement, Platner voiced gratitude for Mills’ “service to Maine” and said he looked “forward to working with her between now and November” to defeat Collins.  

Republicans, for their part, have seemed particularly eager to go up against Platner, whose vulnerabilities the Senate GOP campaign arm had been aggressively highlighting even before Mills ended her campaign.

“Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats just coronated a phony who is too extreme for Maine,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, said in a statement on Thursday. “Susan Collins has always put in the work for her constituents and delivered. Washington Democrats always fall short in Maine and will again, because they just nominated a dishonest radical.”

Collins, in comments to a CNN reporter on Thursday, praised Mills but would not weigh in on Platner as she prepares for what is now expected to be a bitterly contested general election.    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Gov. Josh Shapiro about recent Senate moves attempting to block U.S. military aid to Israel, and talk to Sen. Richard Blumenthal — one of seven Senate Democrats to vote last week against the weapons bans — about his efforts to restore bipartisan support for the Jewish state. We talk to Jewish leaders from communities targeted by antisemitic violence about their efforts to lobby Congress on legislation to protect religious institutions, and report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision not to adopt any definition of antisemitism after scrapping City Hall’s previous adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism days into his tenure. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Chaim Galbut, Patrick Drahi and Hilary Krieger.

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

• Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Simon Karam, Lebanon’s former top envoy to Washington, are set to convene today for a second State Department-brokered meeting in as many weeks between officials from the countries. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee returned to Washington earlier this week and is expected to participate in the talks.
• The talks will take place days before the expiration of a 10-day ceasefire between Jerusalem and Beirut, and a day after a Lebanese journalist for the pro-Hezbollah daily Al-Akhbar was killed in an Israeli strike on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Read more here.
• Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is hosting a dinner this evening at the U.S. Institute of Peace honoring President Donald Trump and CBS News’ White House correspondents amid a flurry of events around the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night.
• The Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting a candidate forum with NY-17 Democratic candidates Cait Conley and Beth Davidson. Read our interviews with Conley, a former senior counterterrorism official, and Davidson, a Rockland County legislator.
• Former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Walter Russell Mead are among those slated to speak today at the Hudson Institute‘s daylong New India Conference in Washington.
• Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, will sign into law legislation adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S mATTHEW KASSEL

As Vice President JD Vance has recently found himself navigating tenuous negotiations between the United States and Iran, his central role in the talks to end the war is highlighting his own vulnerabilities on the domestic front — where he is facing pushback from the isolationist right that is seen as part of his coalition. 

In many ways, Vance’s political troubles recall his predecessor, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who in her 2024 presidential campaign drew fierce protests from far-left activists who objected to former President Joe Biden’s support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Harris, who has grown more openly critical of Israel since losing the race and leaving office, strained both to articulate a consistent message on Gaza that would satisfy the far and center left and to distance her campaign from an aging, unpopular president whose approach to Israel, according to her recent memoir, was not fully aligned with her own.

Anti-Israel activists continue to insist, even years after the election, that Harris’ association with Biden while he supported Israel’s war against Hamas cost her votes that contributed to her defeat, while pro-Israel Democrats claim she failed to draw red lines around growing extremism within the party that alienated moderates, and is now inflecting the midterm elections. More recently, the former vice president faced anti-Israel hecklers during a book tour last year.        

In recent weeks, Vance, who is widely seen as a top 2028 presidential prospect, has likewise struggled to appease a restive coalition of anti-war critics on the populist right who feel his alignment with President Donald Trump’s robust foreign policy agenda represents not only a betrayal of their values but also the noninterventionist views he himself had long espoused.

Last week, in a disruption reminiscent of Harris’ campaign experience, Vance was notably heckled during a speaking appearance at a Turning Point USA event held at the University of Georgia, where an attendee interrupted his comments to accuse the Trump administration of supporting “genocide” in Gaza and “killing children.”

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

SHAPIRO SPOTLIGHT

Josh Shapiro supports U.S. aid to Israel, but calls to use it as leverage

On the eve of the NFL draft on Wednesday, Pittsburgh, the host city, was in full spectacle mode. Israel, 6,000 miles away, was abuzz for a very different reason: the country was celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut, marking 78 years of independence. As he jumped between draft events, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro shared his thoughts with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch about both. 

On Israel and the Iron Dome: “In the case of Israel, you have a country that is constantly being attacked with missiles and other weapons that put civilians at risk, and America is invested in providing assistance like Iron Dome to protect innocent civilians from those terrorist attacks,” said Shapiro. “I think that is in America’s national security interest.” But the swing-state governor, who appears to be mulling a presidential run in 2028, did argue that the U.S. should use its position as a major financial backer of Israel to exert leverage over the country’s use of American-made weapons. Shapiro said Washington has not done a good enough job of that.

Read the full interview here.

Bonus: Last night, Shapiro co-hosted a Unity Dinner for Jewish and Black college students, part of an effort by the United Negro College Fund, Hillel International and Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate to bridge divides between the communities. 

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

PARTNERSHIP PRIORITIES

Sen. Richard Blumenthal says he wants to work to restore eroding bipartisan support for Israel

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), one of just seven Senate Democrats to vote last week against resolutions to block U.S. arms sales to Israel, said that he still wants to maintain and restore bipartisan support for Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Standing his ground: “An overriding goal that has been one of my most profound concerns since coming to the United States Senate is to preserve bipartisan support for Israel,” Blumenthal told JI in a brief interview on Wednesday. “I partnered with [former Sen.] John McCain (R-AZ) on traveling to the Middle East and to Israel a number of times. He believed powerfully, as I do, that the cause of Israel’s security has to be bipartisan, and I will adhere to that goal as long as I’m in this body.”

Read the full story here.

On the Hill: For the fifth time, the Senate rejected an effort by Democrats to force the administration to end the war in Iran, with the partisan battle lines on the issue remaining firmly unchanged from previous iterations of the vote. In the House, Reps. Greg Meeks (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) also introduced new war powers resolutions on Iran, after previous efforts narrowly failed.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

MAINE SQUEEZE

Elizabeth Warren shrugs off Graham Platner praise of Hamas tactics

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) dismissed criticism of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s scandals on Wednesday, after calling him “my kind of man” at his rally in Maine on Saturday, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

Standing by him: “You care about character,” CNBC host Sara Eisen said to Warren. Eisen referred to a JI report unearthing Platner’s 2014 Reddit comments in which he said “‘I dig it,’ next to a video of a bunch of terrorists killing five soldiers? I don’t know, I mean, you guys want to be the party of inclusivity, right?” Warren answered, “I want to be the party that stands up for hardworking people. I want to be the party that is transformative of an economy that right now is hip deep in corruption … and that’s what Graham Platner wants to do and I’m there to stand with him and to help in that fight.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

COMMUNAL PUSH

Leaders from communities targeted by antisemitic violence push lawmakers for security support

Jewish leaders from communities impacted by antisemitic violence in the past year met with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to advocate for additional federal security assistance, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The advocates represented Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., a hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., and the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

Notable quotable: “I will never forget the phone call. Or the images on the news of smoke rising from the place where I had just left my child,” Taylor Weintraub, a parent of a child who attended Temple Israel, told reporters on Wednesday morning. “Thank God, none of the children were physically hurt. But that wasn’t luck, that was preparation — reinforced doors, trained security, investments made because we knew this could happen. But here’s what keeps me up at night: we are the lucky ones.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

DEFINITION DEBATE

Mamdani won’t set definition of antisemitism after repealing IHRA, his antisemitism czar says

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s antisemitism czar said on Wednesday that his administration won’t replace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism he wiped off the books his first day on the job, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.

What she said: Speaking before the City Council’s Task Force Antisemitism alongside officials from the NYPD, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, Phylisa Wisdom, said that city agencies do not and will not work off any official definition of antisemitism. “Across city government there is not a definition codified for any form of hate at all,” Wisdom told Republican Councilmember Inna Vernikov, one of the task force’s two co-chairs. “We don’t believe that there needs to be a codified definition at all.”

Read the full story here.

Manhattan moves: New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin warned Wednesday morning that if Mamdani vetoes the council’s legislation intended to regulate protests at religious and educational sites, the city will face “more divisiveness,” calling the decision a critical test for the mayor, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Q&A

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo won’t rule out 2028 run

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping the door open to a possible 2028 presidential run, telling Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs in a wide-ranging interview “only the good Lord knows” what comes next as he continues to reestablish himself in the private sector and policy world after serving in the first Trump administration. 

Looking ahead: Pompeo emphasized that there will be a “donnybrook” of competing visions for both parties in the next election cycle, and urged candidates to focus on “important issues” rather than online theatrics. He also praised Columbia University, where he now teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs, for “beg[inning] to get back the correct leadership … in a way where more voices can be heard.”

Read the full interview here.

Out of the running: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) ruled out a 2028 presidential run, telling MSNOW he had “zero interest” in mounting a bid.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

Dems’ El-Sayed Trap: The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait posits that far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is rising in polls against Democratic opponents, could win the primary but fall short in the general election due to his more radical positions and embrace of terrorist supporters. “The Democratic Party’s interest is to tamp down the importance of Israel. But El-Sayed’s best strategy to win the nomination is to play up the issue, which drives apart the party’s base and allows him to claim the biggest slice. … A candidate could potentially win statewide election in Michigan after soliciting endorsements from supporters of terrorism, but it won’t be easy. The Democrat’s likely opponent in November, former Representative Mike Rogers, presents as a mainstream Republican.” [TheAtlantic]

The Improbable Intermediary: The Financial Times’ Humza Jilani and Andrew England spotlights Pakistani army chief Asim Munir’s efforts to mediate talks to reach an end to the war between the U.S. and Iran. “During his stints heading Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the military intelligence wing, Munir became familiar with Iran’s various power bases. This month, he visited Iran’s joint military command headquarters in Tehran and met its head, Major General Ali Abdollahi. The field marshal’s ascent into Trump’s orbit has been more improbable…” [FT]

Pakistan’s Preoccupation: In The Wall Street Journal, the American Enterprise Institute’s Sadanand Dhume suggests that Pakistan will “struggle to prosper in the modern world” if it continues its “visceral hostility” to Israel. “Pakistanis often frame talk of normalization as doing Israel — and by extension, the U.S. — a favor. In reality, Islamabad would be doing itself a favor. An obsession with Israel is often the hallmark of a country that can’t get its own act together. … To turn this ship around, Pakistan needs to see the world as it is, not as it would like it to be. It could learn from India, which jettisoned antipathy toward Israel in the early 1990s, at around the same time that it embraced a more market-based economic outlook.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

The Defense Department announced that Navy Secretary John Phelan was departing, without giving a reason for his exit after 13 months in the role…

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack doubled down on recent comments appearing to equate Israel and Hezbollah, saying he was “simply stating the obvious reality on the ground” when he said at a conference in Turkey last week that “everybody has been equally untrustworthy”…

Politico spotlights Keith Sonderling, a deputy to former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer who was tapped by the Trump administration to serve as acting secretary following her departure earlier this week; one GOP insider told Politico that Sonderling, who also served in the first Trump administration, has been “the pivot point of all labor and workforce policy for this administration”… 

Rep. David Scott (D-GA) died at age 80; Scott, who was elected to the House in 2002 after decades in state politics, was the fourth House Democrat to die in office this Congress…

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) has been absent from the House for nearly two months as the New Jersey Republican faces unspecified health issues; a consultant for Kean said the lawmaker, who represents the state’s most competitive purple seat, “will be back on a regular full schedule very soon”…

A senior Pentagon official told House Armed Services Committee members in a closed briefing this week that efforts to clear mines placed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz could take six months…

Iran seized Liberian- and Panamanian-flagged ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the seizures did not violate the ceasefire as neither boat was U.S.- or Israeli-flagged…

Paolo Zampolli, the U.S. special representative for global partnerships, asked FIFA to replace Iran with Italy in this summer’s World Cup, after the Italian team failed to qualify for the tournament; the effort comes as the Trump administration looks to repair its relationship with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with whom President Donald Trump has clashed in recent months over the president’s comments about Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war…

Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George missed a scheduled meeting with Jewish community members, with her staff citing a City Council hearing schedule change, Jewish Insider‘s Gabby Deutch reports; Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said “We know that there are many demands on their time and we understand completely when unanticipated scheduling changes come up”…

High school basketball forward Chaim Galbut committed to Duquesne, which discovered the 6-foot-7 Orthodox Jewish teen on social media, as he aims to become the first observant Jew to play four years of D1 basketball…

Mitchell Rales is donating $116 million to support efforts to send works from the National Gallery of Art, where he serves as a longtime trustee, to smaller museums around the country that are facing fiscal challenges and declining attendance…

The New York Times spotlights Rabbi Shalom Landau, who is using TikTok and Instagram to share Jewish teachings beyond the Jewish community; read JI’s December 2025 profile of Landau here…

Mark Cuban’s Harbinger Sports Partners has reportedly garnered $450 million in investor commitments as it closes its first funding round…

Former Ben & Jerry’s CEO David Stever, who was fired by the ice cream company’s parent Unilever as the conglomerate clashed with its subsidiary over social issues, including product sales in Israel, was named the new CEO of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams…

The Financial Times calls Patrick Drahi’s potential sale of his SFR to French telecoms companies for $24 billion “a masterclass in hardball negotiation”… 

A Canadian court found a 17-year-old guilty of plotting to murder Jews in an Islamic State-inspired attack in the country’s capital; a trial for the teen’s alleged co-conspirator is set to begin today…

Australia’s University of Queensland Press scrapped the publication of an indigenous author’s upcoming book after the book’s illustrator penned an essay in response to last year’s terror attack targeting a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration calling the victims of the attack “affluent beneficiaries of imperialism” and suggesting that “White, Jewish settler victimhood demands exceptional, heightened grief”…

Two Palestinians — a student and a parent of a student — were killed at a West Bank school by Israeli settlers; the IDF said it was investigating the incident, which took place after rocks were thrown at a car carrying Israeli passengers…

The New York Times spotlights India’s B’nei Menashe community, one of the “lost tribes” of Israel, as the remaining 5,800 members of the Jewish community prepare to move to Israel, with 250 flying to the Jewish state today…

The Hudson Institute’s Nate Sibley is joining the Helsinki Commission as a senior policy advisor focusing on illicit finance and economic statecraft…

70 Faces Media tapped Hilary Krieger as executive editor of the Jewish Telegraph Agency and  New York Jewish Week… 

Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson was named the executive director of New York Jewish Agenda, months after Phylisa Wisdom, who previously held the job, joined the Mamdani administration in New York City…

Pic of the Day

Israelis celebrated Yom HaAtzmaut, the country’s Independence Day, on Wednesday afternoon at Tel Aviv’s Charles Clore Park.

Birthdays

Founding member of the rock band the National, he was a collaborator on several of Taylor Swift’s studio albums, Aaron Brooking Dessner… and his twin brother, also a member of the National, Bryce David Dessner, both turn 50… 

Retired stage, television and film actor, Alan Oppenheimer turns 96… Owner of Council Bluffs, Iowa-based Ganeeden Metals, a multigenerational scrap metal recycling firm, Harold Edelman… Retired real estate brokerage executive, he held leadership positions at Merrill Lynch Realty, Prudential California Realty and Fox & Carskadon, Terry Pullan… Retail industry analyst and portfolio manager at Berman Capital, he is the former president of JCPenney Credit Services and VP of credit at Macy’s, Steve Kernkraut… Chair emeritus of Israel Policy Forum, he serves as chairman of Trenton Biogas, an organics recycling-to-energy business in Trenton, Peter A. Joseph… Health services researcher focused on smoking cessation programs for women, maternal health and child health, Judith Katzburg, PhD, MPH, RN… Deputy director of NCSEJ, the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, Lesley L. Weiss… Principal of Philadelphia-based Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy, Larry Ceisler turns 70… Gary R. Pickholz… Retail sales manager at Chrissy’s Collection, Janni Jaffe… Co-founder of Gryphon Software, he is the author of a book on the history of antisemitism, Gabriel Wilensky turns 62… CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, he is the primary proponent worldwide of the Magnitsky Act, Bill Browder turns 62… DC-based executive director of the Orthodox Union’s Advocacy Center, Nathan J. Diament… Heiress and businesswoman, daughter of Ronald Lauder, style and image director for the Estée Lauder Companies, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer turns 56… CEO of Aish HaTorah, Rabbi Steven Burg turns 54… Former president and CEO at Americans For Peace Now, now president and CEO at New Jewish Narrative, Hadar Susskind… Jewelry designer, Jennifer “Jen” Meyer turns 49… Director of policy initiatives at Maimonides Fund, Ariella Saperstein… Founder and CEO at 90 West, a Boston-based strategic communications firm, Alexander Goldstein… Co-founder of Edgeline Films, he co-directed and co-produced “Weiner,” a documentary about Anthony Weiner’s campaign for mayor of NYC in 2013, Joshua Kriegman… Vertical lead at Red Banyan, he was the communications director at the Republican Jewish Coalition, Neil Boylan Strauss… Israeli singer-songwriter, now based in Seville, Spain, known for Ladino music of the exiled Jews of Portugal and Spain, Mor Karbasi turns 40… Deputy director of the Mid-Atlantic and Florida for J Street, Adi Adamit-Gorstein… Senior editor at Axios, Alexis Kleinman… Former University of Michigan quarterback, now a fund manager in NYC, Alex Swieca… American Jewish Committee ACCESS New York board member, Sam Sorkin… Director of the Jewish Renewal Administration, Elisheva Mazya… Executive editor and strategist at ILTV News, Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman… 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), one of just seven Senate Democrats to vote last week against resolutions to block U.S. arms sales to Israel, said that he wants to maintain and restore bipartisan support for Israel.

“An overriding goal that has been one of my most profound concerns since coming to the United States Senate is to preserve bipartisan support for Israel,” Blumenthal told Jewish Insider in a brief interview on Wednesday. “I partnered with [former Sen.] John McCain (R-AZ) on traveling to the Middle East and to Israel a number of times. He believed powerfully, as I do, that the cause of Israel’s security has to be bipartisan, and I will adhere to that goal as long as I’m in this body.”

Asked how that support on the Democratic side can be restored, he said that he doesn’t have a silver bullet, but he’s “going to work at it every day,” reaching out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle, even those who disagree with him, to work on the issue and travel to the region.

“I will take advantage of every opportunity to make sure that we are as bipartisan as possible, and I resent and oppose anyone who tries to use Israel as a wedge issue politically,” he said. “We need to make decisions on the merits of our own national interests and security.”

He said that he has family in Israel and in the IDF, but his support for Israel comes from it being one of the U.S.’ closest allies and the U.S.-Israel relationship being “vital to our own national security” through military cooperation, intelligence sharing and technological, academic and educational cooperation.

“My argument to my colleagues is that Israel is an ally in a dangerous world,” he continued.

He said he’s also working “fervently” toward normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, a goal he said was “very close” prior to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

“But it’s a very powerful, long-range dynamic that serves everyone’s interests, including our own,” Blumenthal said, describing normalization as an issue that “could bring us together again, to more robust bipartisan support.”

Asked during a Tuesday press conference about the anti-Israel shift in the Democratic Party, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), another one of the seven Democrats who opposed the effort to block weapons sales, pivoted to discussing the war in Iran.

“Our caucus is united and focused on ending the war in Iran,” Schumer responded.

For the fifth time, the Senate rejected an effort by Democrats to force the administration to end the war in Iran, with the partisan battle lines on the issue remaining firmly unchanged from previous iterations of the vote.

“Democrats will continue to force votes on war powers resolutions every week until Republicans decide to put the American people over Donald Trump and end this war,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said ahead of the vote. 

The vote failed 51-46, with Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and David McCormick (R-PA) not voting, and Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) voting with the opposing party.

Democrats have already introduced eight other similar resolutions that will be eligible for votes in the coming days and weeks, giving them plenty of runway to continue such efforts for the foreseeable future.

In the House, Reps. Greg Meeks (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) also introduced new war powers resolutions on Iran, after previous efforts narrowly failed. The Congressional Progressive Caucus reportedly plans to force votes on such resolutions frequently next month.

Though they haven’t broken openly with the president, dynamics for at least some Senate Republicans could begin to shift toward the end of the month; under the War Powers Act, the administration can only carry on military operations without congressional approval for 60 days, with an additional 30-day drawdown period.

Though some Republicans have said Congress and the administration should disregard that deadline, others say that some form of action will be necessary at that point, and some hope that the war will be over before then.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who has been working with other senators on crafting an Authorization for Use of Military Force on the war, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday, “we’ve been having some good conversations, and we’re going to continue them.” She said the goal of the AUMF is to have “greater disclosure, greater transparency” about the war.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said earlier this week, ahead of the U.S. extension of the ceasefire, that he believed the president was “trending in a direction of ‘let’s end this without further involvement, including even further strikes’” and said that he hopes the war is over before the 60-day mark.

He told JI that he hasn’t been working with Murkowski on her AUMF, but said that the effort “makes sense since we’re approaching the 60-day deadline.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI he would “give the administration the benefit of the doubt that they will respond accordingly, in compliance with that” 60-day deadline “and if not, then we’ll have to have some discussions” around further congressional involvement through an AUMF or other avenue.

Still, other Republicans seem comfortable overlooking the 60-day deadline.

“I think the president has the authority to protect us, so we should let the president protect us,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said.

The Democratic shift on Israel policy was on full, dramatic display on the Senate floor on Wednesday night as 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted for at least one of two resolutions to block U.S. shipments of bulldozers and bombs to Israel.

The votes left many pro-Israel Democrats shocked and disillusioned — exemplified in the muted statements, if any, on the vote from key pro-Israel groups — and is being seen by some as the marker of a new era of Democratic policy on Israel, in which critics of Israel are firmly in the party mainstream.

“It’s yet another data point that the bipartisan consensus [in support of Israel] is, at least at the moment, no longer,” a former Biden administration official told Jewish Insider on Thursday. “Democrats think it’s politically advantageous to take these votes that would have been completely out-of-bounds just two-and-a-half years ago. … It’s deeply concerning if you care about the relationship, if you care about the security of [Israel]. But that’s the state of play at the moment, I think until or unless there’s an event that changes the trajectory.”

Abe Foxman, the former head of the Anti-Defamation League, said the vote highlights the “progressive socialist wing” of the Democratic Party’s increasing takeover. “This is a calamity for the Democratic Party, if it will not be contained and stopped,” Foxman told JI. “What’s also disturbing to me is that this litmus test is being first administered to every Jewish candidate.”

He added that the votes send a terrible message to U.S. allies beyond Israel that the U.S. can’t be relied upon.

Pro-Israel Democrats who spoke to JI said the votes came about as a combination of several factors: They served as a proxy for the war in Iran that nearly all Democrats oppose, but also were a signal of opposition to Israel’s operations in Lebanon, settler attacks and settlement expansion in the West Bank, the war in Gaza and — to a substantial degree — the Democratic enmity that has been growing for years toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and his alignment with President Donald Trump and Republicans.

And lawmakers are also responding to the growing progressive pressure, fueled by two years of imagery from the war in Gaza, amplified by social media platforms that boosted antisemitic content, that has changed the politics around Israel in a “really dramatic way” in the Democratic Party, the former Biden administration official said.

“Those [resolutions], at this moment in time, were just a proxy for real discomfort with the direction of the Trump-Netanyahu relationship in this war, which is not the right reason to vote for these,” another former Biden administration official told JI. “I understand the [vote to block] bulldozers at this moment in time. [Withholding] the munitions — I think it’s really, really troubling.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), an early supporter of efforts to block weapons sales to Israel, said that the growing opposition can’t be blamed solely on Netanyahu. “I also think it’s watching how the weapons are used,” Kaine told reporters. “I think the observation of how the weapons are used is probably a little bit more the reason that the vote total is going up than a feeling about the domestic politics of Israel.”

Some pro-Israel Democrats say that the impact and meaning of the votes shouldn’t be overstated, and that there remains a sizable pro-Israel Democratic contingent, even including some of the lawmakers who voted for the resolutions on Wednesday.

“There were pro-Israel senators, and senators who are close partners and allies of the Jewish community, on both sides of this vote last night,” Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said. “This didn’t occur in a vacuum, and it’s not necessarily driven by anti-Israel, and certainly not antisemitic, views. It also doesn’t necessarily represent a wholesale shift in the Democratic Party. It’s a snapshot of where we are in this moment as it relates to these particular arms sales and this particular Israeli government and its policies. But I have no doubt that there’s the chance that that will change in the future.”

Soifer said that she and JDCA didn’t support the resolutions, but emphasized that some of the Democrats who voted for the resolutions said in their statements that they remain strong supporters of Israel. And she said JDCA doesn’t view the votes as “inherently anti-Israel” or necessarily an expression of alignment with the far left.

She called the vote on the bulldozers, which received 40 supporters, a particularly potent “symbolic message” — many Democrats associate the machines with the destruction of Palestinian homes and expansion of settlements in the West Bank. But she said it was something of an “anomaly” as compared to previous efforts to block systems such as bomb guidance kits.

“It’s a challenging time where both things are true at once: You do have an increased number of Democrats who are supporting these [resolutions], and you also still continue to have a majority of Democrats who support the U.S.-Israel security relationship,” Soifer said.

A common refrain in conversations with those in the Democratic pro-Israel world after the votes — and even before then — was that the end of Netanyahu’s premiership would provide a critical opening and opportunity to start rebuilding support for Israel among Democrats.

Kaine said that a change in the Israeli government would lead lawmakers to step back and analyze the potential implications, but said it wouldn’t necessarily bring sweeping changes. “I don’t think the 40 [Democrats voting for the resolutions] is baked in, I also don’t think it will immediately change.”

But a Netanyahu defeat in this year’s Israeli elections is far from a sure thing. So what happens if Netanyahu wins again? “I think it will be very difficult for Democrats to hold any center on support for Israel,” one former Biden administration official said.

The other former Biden administration official said that the intense anti-Israel pressure on Democrats would likely fade if Middle East policy issues are out of the headlines on a day-to-day basis. They further argued that the 2028 primaries will be an “inflection point,” on both sides of the aisle.

And they said that the Jewish community, particularly the non-Orthodox community, needs to be more organized and active locally and on a grassroots level in advocating for their representatives to be supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Foxman said he hopes to see more Democratic lawmakers — naming Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) specifically — standing up directly to the anti-Israel wing of the party, just as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has spoken out against antisemitism on the right.

With opposition to weapons systems for Israel apparently firmly within the mainstream, we wrote earlier this week about the emerging progressive push to cut off U.S. support for Israel’s missile-defense systems as well.

Asked whether he takes a similar view, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the lead driver of the Senate votes, did not directly respond. “Let’s take one thing at a time. Right now, I think we made progress yesterday,” he told JI.

Kaine took a firmer stance in support of missile-defense aid, calling those who want to cut it off “a tiny minority,” especially in the Senate. He noted that no Democrats have offered similar resolutions to block defensive systems, and that other weapons sales to Israel have gone entirely unchallenged — though he acknowledged that the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons can be fuzzy at times.

One of the former Biden administration officials warned that opposing missile-defense support is a “totally unproductive, terrible” policy — not just for Israel, but also sending a message to allies around the world that the U.S. can’t be relied upon to follow through for its partners.

Saying that funding to protect synagogues and other religious-based nonprofits “has not kept pace to meet the moment,” 41 senators — almost entirely Democrats — wrote to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging members to provide $750 million in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2027.

That figure amounts to a substantial increase in funding over current levels, as well as over Senate lawmakers’ request from last year.

The program was funded in 2025 at $274.5 million, which has not yet been disbursed, and the still-stalled 2026 Homeland Security funding bill includes $300 million for the program. Yet, in 2024, the program fulfilled just 43% of requests, even with additional funding provided through a national security supplemental bill that year. Jewish and interfaith groups, as well as House lawmakers, have been pushing for up to $1 billion for the program.

Last year, 33 senators requested $500 million for the program, a record-high request at the time. This year’s request represents a new high-water mark, both in terms of the funding requested and the number of lawmakers who signed the bipartisan letter in support.

“The threat of violence is unfortunately increasing at places of worship across our country at alarming rates. In the past few years, there has been an increase in hoax bomb threats and attacks against houses of worship that are intended to interrupt services and intimidate worshippers. In particular, there has been an increase in antisemitic incidents across the country following the October 7th attack on Israel,” the senators wrote. “Nationwide, there have been countless acts of violence against religious communities.”

The lawmakers also urged the Appropriations Committee to “maintain separate line-items for this program,” amid reports that the administration has been pushing to convert Federal Emergency Management Agency grant programs, under which NSGP falls, into a broad state-by-state block grant.

The administration also called for cuts to non-emergency FEMA grants, a category that includes NSGP, without making any specific line-item request for the NSGP.

“[F]unding has not kept pace to meet the moment,” the lawmakers added, highlighting a litany of attacks on religious institutions and the funding shortages in 2024.

The letter was led by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Lankford (R-OK), Gary Peters (D-MI) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV). Only two Republicans other than Lankford joined the effort: Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

“As we continue to work with Congress to secure Jewish communities, the bipartisan consensus in the Senate around $750 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program is a monumental step toward our community’s $1 billion goal,” Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, said. “At a time of rising antisemitism and an escalating security crisis facing vulnerable communities across the country, demand continues to far outpace available funding.” 

Fingerhut said that JFNA plans to bring Jewish activists from across the country to lobby Congress on the issue next month “and urge them to act with urgency and resolve to ensure at-risk institutions have the resources they need before the next incident, not after.”

Lauren Wolman, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior director of government relations and strategy, said, “At a time of sustained and evolving threats, this program remains a critical lifeline for houses of worship and nonprofit institutions working to protect their communities. Demand continues to far outpace available resources, and we urge Congress to ensure funding levels reflect the reality on the ground.”

Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, said, “The need for increased NSGP funding remains critical. We are thankful to the large bipartisan group of Senators who signed onto this letter.”

“OU Advocacy will keep pressing on all fronts to deliver the funding our Shuls and schools need to stay safe,” Diament continued.

👋 Good Thursday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we have the scoop on Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s praise for a violent 2014 Hamas attack on an Israeli military base, and report on last night’s failedSenate votes on weapons sales restrictions to Israel, which garnered the support of most Senate Democrats. We cover Meta’s defense of its content moderation policies following an Anti-Defamation League report that found that the platform failed to remove the vast majority of reported extremist and hateful content, and look at how Israel is preparing for a potential future Houthi ground assault. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ken Marcus, Avi Issacharoff and Matt Brooks.

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

• President Donald Trump suggested yesterday that a call between Israeli and Lebanese leaders could take place today, following a State Department summit on Tuesday between the ambassadors from the two countries. Israeli Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun were slated to speak, while a Lebanese government official told Reuters earlier today that Beirut was “not aware” of any upcoming contact with Israeli officials.
• Pakistani army chief Asim Munir is in Tehran today for meetings with senior Iranian officials aimed at convening a second round of U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad. Yesterday, Munir met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The meetings come as Pakistani Prime ‌Minister Shehbaz Sharif conducts a multicountry trip through the weekend, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. In Jeddah yesterday, Sharif met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
• Voters in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District are heading to the polls today for the election to succeed now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Progressive organizer Analilia Mejia, who since the primary has gotten the backing of top Garden State Democrats, is the favorite to win in the blue district against Republican Joe Hathaway.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for several positions: NTIA Deputy Administrator Adam Cassady to be ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy, attorney Todd Steggerda to be U.S. representative to the U.N. in Geneva and the State Department’s Preston Wells Griffith III to be U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• The House Appropriations Committee is holding a series of budget hearings over the course of the day. Committee members will hear this afternoon from Karen Evans, the acting administrator of FEMA, which administers the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.
• Harvard University is hosting a landmark public conference on antisemitism and civil rights today, one of the terms of a legal settlement between the school and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. More below.
• The Shalom Hartman Institute’s Yehuda Kurtzer and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg will sit in conversation at an event this evening at the Capital Jewish Museum focused on “Jewish America at 250” ahead of the U.S. Semiquincentennial.
• Semafor’s World Economy summit in Washington continues today. Speakers today include Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Mark Warner (D-VA), Steve Daines (R-MT), Todd Young (R-IN) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Bannon, former Biden administration official Amos Hochstein and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. 

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

There’s been a lot of debate lately over whether President Donald Trump is losing some of his grip on the Republican Party, amid growing economic concerns and the ongoing military operations in Iran.  

While the media coverage has been amplifying any sign of intraparty discontent — to the point that former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting strange new respect from some Democrats and mainstream press — polls continue to show Trump with widespread backing from within his own party, and especially within the MAGA faction of the GOP.

Ultimately, election results are the best reality check. And you couldn’t draw up a better test on the degree of Trump’s impact on the Republican Party than examining the results from four states holding highly consequential primaries next month that will be a benchmark of the president’s power.

Key races in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas will speak volumes about the president’s ability to shape the GOP agenda for the remainder of his second term — and most consequentially, whether he will be able to maintain a unified front with his party on continuing to pursue military action against Iran. 

The biggest intraparty showdown, especially when it comes to foreign policy, is the May 19 primary between Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and military veteran Ed Gallrein. Massie, one of the few anti-Israel Republicans in Congress, is being opposed by Trump but also has a solid base of grassroots support in the northern Kentucky district, which has thus far supported his anti-establishment brand of politics. But Gallrein has proven to be a credible challenger, raising millions and giving Massie the biggest political test of his career. 

Trump has spent some valuable political capital to boost Gallrein, including appearing at a recent rally in Massie’s district to promote his challenger. He’s been joined by the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has poured $3.5 million into the race, airing five ads underscoring Massie’s record of breaking with Trump. (Further drawing Trump’s ire: Massie also joined with Democrats in championing the release of the Epstein files.)

It’s never easy to beat a sitting incumbent, but Trump also has an imposing record of winning primaries in which he chooses to engage. If Massie pulls out a victory despite breaking so flagrantly with Trump on a number of key issues, it will be a sign of the president’s diminished political clout.

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

SCOOP

‘I dig it’: Graham Platner praised Hamas tactics in 2014 graphic video of killings of Israeli soldiers

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner repeatedly praised the tactics used by Hamas terrorists in comments made about a graphic video of a Hamas raid into Israel in 2014, in which terrorists killed at least five Israeli soldiers, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What he said: “Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me,” Platner wrote in 2014 on the Reddit forum r/CombatFootage, a discussion board for footage and photographs of past and current armed conflicts. “Pragmatically I have little problem with killing an enemy combatant who you attempt to capture but for whatever reason cannot. From a strictly professional standpoint, this was a damn fine looking and successful raid against a superior opponent, I dig it,” he added, in response to another user.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

FEELING THE BERN

Following Bernie Sanders’ lead, 40 Senate Democrats vote against arms sales to Israel

Most of the Democrats in the Senate — 40 in total, including some traditionally pro-Israel lawmakers — voted on Wednesday evening for a measure led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that aimed to block sales of bulldozers to Israel, with 36 of them also voting to advance a second Sanders-backed resolution to block sales of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Newcomers: After having opposed previous similar efforts, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) all flipped and voted in favor of Sanders’ latest resolutions. Warner and Peters, along with Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), voted to advance the resolution to block the bulldozer sale but against advancing the one on bombs.

Read the full story here.

Also on the Hill: An effort by Senate Democrats to force an end to the war in Iran was again blocked by Republicans on Wednesday, the fourth such failed attempt mounted by Senate Democrats since the war began in late February.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

META-MORPHISIS

Meta defends content moderation policies, touts usage of AI to track Holocaust denial

Amid accusations that Meta’s moderation policies enable antisemitic content to circulate on its platforms, a Meta leader on Tuesday highlighted efforts to combat online Jew-hatred, including restrictions on Holocaust denial, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Pushing back: “We remove Holocaust distortion and denial, not because it’s false, which it is, but because it’s antisemitic. It is hate speech against Jewish people, so we’ve drawn a clear line against it,” said Ben Good, director of content policy at Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Good spoke at “Hack the Hate NYC 2026,” an event at the Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan spotlighting Israeli tech experts and Jewish leaders working to combat digital antisemitism. But even as Meta has made strides in addressing Holocaust denial, the Anti-Defamation League released a new report on Tuesday, just hours before the event, revealing that Instagram failed to remove 93% of reported extremist and hateful content, tying the trend directly to Meta’s efforts to roll back content moderation last year.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

CAPITAL CONTEST

D.C. mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie courts Jewish voters as DSA-endorsed rival Lewis George faces communal backlash

As voters in Washington, D.C., get ready to elect their first new mayor in more than a decade, the two leading candidates — former colleagues on the Council of the District of Columbia — are proposing drastically different visions for the city’s future: political moderation or democratic socialism. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutchthis week at his campaign headquarters in Northeast Washington, former Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie drew a direct contrast between his campaign and that of his Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed rival, Janeese Lewis George. 

DSA direction: “I didn’t seek, nor would I accept, the endorsement of Democratic Socialists of America, or any organization, for that matter, that requires some sort of divisive pledge to exclude people that are a part of the fabric of the community of the District of Columbia,” McDuffie said. He was referring to a DSA endorsement questionnaire that asked candidates not to engage with “the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups.” Lewis George, a longtime DSA member, vowed not to attend events that promote Zionism when she filled out the questionnaire, which earned her the DSA endorsement. 

Read the full interview here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

CONTINGENCY PLANS

Iran’s ‘Houthi card’: Israel prepares for possibility of ground assault if war resumes

Like a desperate poker player holding an ace in the hole, Iran has a “strategic reserve” if the ceasefire in the war with Israel and the U.S. collapses and fighting resumes: the Houthis, the Tehran-backed Yemeni terrorist group. How Iran plays the Houthi card has been the subject of concern in Israel, with analysts telling Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov that everything from a ground invasion from the east — with echoes of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, rampage in southern Israel — to making good on the threat to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to further choke off international shipping remains in play.

Seeking revenge: Yoni Ben-Menachem, a senior Middle East analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JI that the Houthis planned “to take revenge and bring back their honor” since Israel killed much of their leadership in August 2025. “They see that Israel’s air defenses are strong, and it’s hard for them to reach military achievements with missiles and drones. They want to surprise Israel, so they are looking at ways to do it on the ground,” he said.

Read the full story here.

Cautious optimism: The first round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon has been received positively by diplomats, pro-Israel lawmakers and experts, who see it as a sign of Hezbollah’s waning influence in Lebanon. But despite the optimism surrounding the discussions, experts caution that disarming the terrorist group remains a daunting obstacle that stands in the way of any meaningful change, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

CAMPUS CONVERSATION

Brandeis Center convenes inaugural conference on antisemitism at Harvard

A Jewish legal group will convene its inaugural conference on antisemitism and civil rights law at Harvard University on Thursday, an event that was born out of last year’s settlement of a Title VI lawsuit against the school and framed around the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

On the agenda: “We’re very excited to have a mix of federal, high-level leadership, prominent scholars, Jewish communal leaders, high-powered litigators and experts in the field,” Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the group hosting the conference, told JI. The daylong event is slated to open with an address from Marcus and benediction from Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who leads Harvard Chabad. Held as America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary this summer, Marcus said the headline session will focus “on how we define antisemitism as lawyers and professionals, and why a proper definition of antisemitism matters for America at this point in time.” 

Read the full story here.

Cambridge chatter: Federal prosecutors filed a 160-page brief calling on a circuit court to reinstate the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar freeze on Harvard’s research funding.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

The Problem with Piker: The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik looks at Democrats’ continued embrace of Hasan Piker, despite the far-left streamer’s extensive history of praising terrorists and antisemitic and anti-American rhetoric. “The truth is they’re afraid of challenging Piker because they don’t want to alienate his next-gen Bernie Bro audience — a fear that is greatly exacerbated by their hand-wringing about not being on ‘the right side of history,’ down with the kids. … There’s a deeper problem here, one that is more cognitive, even spiritual: Too few Democrats can see that Piker is obviously, deeply wrong, that he lacks imagination, that he’s ignorant, that he camouflages his ignorance with just enough lingo to make his highly unoriginal neo-Marxist riffs and rants sound incisive.” [FreePress]

The Future of Warfare: In The Wall Street Journal, former CIA Director David Petraeus posits that despite the U.S.’ military successes in Iran, the war in Ukraine is more instructive as to the future of warfare. “War is increasingly defined by unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and mass precision. The Gulf offers useful insights, but Ukraine is the more demanding laboratory. There, the true challenges of unmanned systems at scale and the rapid emergence of autonomous capabilities are already on display. … The Gulf conflict demonstrates what American forces can achieve from a position of strength. Ukraine has shown what war looks like from a more vulnerable position, when that strength is contested at scale.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

At Semafor’s World Economy summit in Washington on Wednesday, Chuck Robbins, CEO of the tech giant Cisco, spoke about his decision a decade ago to acquire Leaba Semiconductor, an Israeli company, before it had even developed a product, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy, speaking at the confab, called for the Strait of Hormuz to be an international passageway that is not under the control of any one country…

Also speaking at the summit yesterday, “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, speaking to David Rubenstein, talked about documentarian Ken Burns‘ July 4 tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence out loud with his family, calling it “a Seder for America”…

A second U.S.-sanctioned supertanker entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the U.S.’ maritime blockade of the waterway…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how growing economic distress in Iran could push Tehran back to negotiations with the U.S. as it seeks much-needed sanctions relief…

Seb Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, is reportedly looking to be named the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, following Joe Kent’s resignation last month…

The Financial Times spotlights Paolo Zampolli, a close personal friend of President Donald Trump and the U.S. special representative for global partnerships, as he conducts multibillion-dollar deals on behalf of the White House…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the hurdles facing Kevin Warsh ahead of his confirmation hearing to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve…

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), appearing on “Pod Save America,” praised former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — once a vocal Omar foe who called for the congresswoman’s deportation while they were both in the House — and far-right influencer Candace Owens over the pair’s break with Trump, JI’s Marc Rod reports… 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a challenge Wednesday to those seeking to challenge her plan to penalize protesters who get too close to religious institutions — “Bring it on.” Announcing new state programs to provide support and security for organizations deemed “vulnerable to hate crimes,” the governor, a Democrat, took questions regarding her proposal to bar demonstrations of more than two people from occurring within 25 feet of a house of worship, JI’s Will Bredderman reports…

Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, apologized for using racist language in social media posts as a teenager, but fell short of addressing more recent comments in which she suggested that Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place,” and celebrated “freedom fighters of Palestine”… 

A new report from Yale University’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education found that universities themselves cultivated significant public distrust of higher education, citing soaring tuition costs, unclear admissions processes and the uneven applications of standards and rules…

Kent Syverud, who earlier this year had been tapped as the next chancellor of the University of Michigan, announced that he has been diagnosed with brain cancer and will not assume the position in Ann Arbor; the school’s Board of Regents said it will begin a new search process in the coming days…

Duke University suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on Tuesday, one month after students began submitting complaints about an antisemitic Instagram post from the group, which depicted the U.S. and Israel as pigs frothing at the mouth, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Hebrew Union College President Andrew Rehfeld told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher that the school was “deeply disappointed” by a decision by the Ohio Attorney General’s office to file a lawsuit to block the institution’s plans to shutter its Cincinnati rabbinical programs…

Apple TV released the trailer for the upcoming Israeli thriller series “Unconditional,” which stars Liraz Chamami and Talia Lynne Ronn as a mother-daughter pair stranded in Russia and at the mercy of Moscow crime rings following Ronn’s character’s arrest on drug-smuggling charges… 

“Fauda” co-creator Avi Issacharoff shared a sneak peek of the show’s upcoming fifth season, which takes place in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks…

Police in the U.K. arrested two people following an attempted arson attack at a synagogue in North London…

U.K. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for the deportation of foreigners who engage in antisemitism…

Immanuel College, one of London’s only private Jewish secondary schools, is set to close at the end of this year, citing financial challenges…

Kanye West postponed an upcoming show in Marseille, France, after government officials, as well as the mayor of Marseille, suggested the rapper would not be welcome in the country; the decision comes days after U.K. authorities revoked West’s visa ahead of a summer festival he was set to headline in the country…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law legislation levying criminal penalties — including fines and prison sentences — against individuals convicted of antisemitic offenses…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungary Prime Minister-elect Peter Magyar spoke by phone on Wednesday, with a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office saying that the incoming Hungarian leader invited Netanyahu to the country for the 70-year commemoration of the Hungarian Uprising…

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil denied reports that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was planning to pull its financial support for the league, weeks before its first scheduled U.S. tournament of the season, slated to take place next month at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia… 

Front Office Sports reports that a multiyear deal between Michael Rubin‘s Fanatics and Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority is on the verge of collapse… 

Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks is joining Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a senior strategic advisor; Brooks will continue in his position at the RJC, in addition to his role leading the Jewish Policy Center…

Israel Malachi was named the new director general of Israel’s Finance Ministry after serving for nearly four years as the ministry’s deputy director general…

Amy Marks is joining JCC Association of North America as the organization’s chief advancement officer…

Former “All Things Considered” host Ari Shapiro is joining CNN as a contributor, where he’ll co-host a new podcast focused on digital trends with his former NPR colleague Audie Cornish…

Author and TV producer Barbara Gordon, whose memoir about her addiction to Valium and mental health challenges became a bestseller, died at 90…

Pic of the Day

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (center right), cut the ribbon at the official launch on Wednesday of ARC Landing Boston, a joint initiative between Healey’s administration and Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. Joining Healey for the ribbon-cutting were New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Sheba Director General Yitshak Kreiss and ARC Innovation Founder and Director Eyal Zimlichman. 

Birthdays

Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actress and movie producer, Ellen Barkin turns 72… 

CEO and president of American Express in the 1990s, he now serves on many corporate and charitable boards, Harvey Golub turns 87… Chasidic singer, known by his stage name Mordechai Ben David or MBD, Mordechai Werdyger turns 75… Olympic track-and-field athlete, and survivor of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Esther Roth-Shachamorov turns 74… Cofounder of Jordan Company LP, a New York private equity firm, David Wayne Zalaznick turns 72… Physician and venture capitalist focused on biotechnology and life-sciences industries, Lindsay Rosenwald turns 71… Professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, Aaron Louis Friedberg, Ph.D. turns 70… Filmmaker, he directed the 2011 documentary “Paul Williams Still Alive” and the 1997 slapstick comedy “Vegas Vacation” starring Chevy Chase, Stephen Kessler turns 66… Former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf turns 64… Former secretary of state of the United States under the Biden administration, Antony John “Tony” Blinken turns 64… Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer, he co-created and produced “Will & Grace” and “Boston Common,” David Sanford Kohan turns 62… Long Island native, he is a Los Angeles pharmacist, Jeffrey D. Marcus… U.S. ambassador to Egypt during the Trump 45 administration, Jonathan Raphael Cohen turns 62… Former mayor of Hoboken, N.J., Dawn Zimmer turns 58… Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. and minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer turns 55… Canada’s minister of the environment, climate change and nature, Julie Dabrusin turns 55… Celebrity plastic surgeon, he is active on social media as “Dr. Miami” and has been on reality TV about his practice, Michael Salzhauer, M.D. turns 54… Board member of Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, Ellen K. Finestone… Founder and president of Glass Ceiling Strategies, she is also a managing director for communications at Climate Power, Alex Glass… Founder of Jewish Fashion Council and journalist at Fabologie, Adi Heyman… Former pitcher in the Washington Nationals organization, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Richard Sidney Bleier turns 39… Attorney who has served as a law clerk to three Maryland judges, now a VP at JPMorgan Chase, Geoffrey S. Middleberg… Lead product manager at Anthropic, Uriel Kejsefman… Singer, pianist and composer, he is best known as half of the folk-rock duo the Portnoy Brothers, Mendy Portnoy turns 34… Climate and energy transition investor, he was a White House staffer in 2017, Matthew Saunders… Senior client strategy and success manager at Grow Progress, Adam Gotbaum… First baseman and free agent, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Matthew Jared “Mash” Mervis turns 28… Josh Goldstein… Sarah Wolfson…

Most of the Democrats in the Senate — 40 in total, including some traditionally pro-Israel lawmakers — voted on Wednesday evening for a measure led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that aimed to block sales of bulldozers to Israel, with 36 of them also voting to advance a second Sanders-backed resolution to block sales of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs.

The votes are a striking statement of the extent to which anti-Israel sentiment has become mainstream in the Democratic Party. Just seven members of the Democratic caucus voted against both measures.

Twenty-seven Democrats supported at least one of two similar measures in July 2025, which was a record at that time.

After having opposed previous similar efforts, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) all flipped and voted in favor of Sanders’ latest resolutions.

Warner and Peters, along with Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), voted to advance the resolution to block the bulldozer sale but against advancing the one on bombs.

Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Peter Welch (D-VT), all of whom had supported at least one past effort to block arms sales, voted for both measures on Wednesday.

Every Senate Democrat rumored to have presidential ambitions voted to block both arms sales.

Kelly, a moderate Democrat and potential presidential candidate, insisted in a Senate floor speech that he “cannot and will not abandon Israel,” which is “one of our closest partners. They have a right to defend themselves, and I will always support Israel’s right to exist as a successful and prosperous nation.”

But, he said, “Supporting a partner doesn’t mean that we don’t ask tough questions. It doesn’t mean that we always agree. Our support for our allies must always be about what makes us stronger and safer, and we can look at what’s happening in the region right now and understand that this is not business as usual, and it is not making us safer,” referring to the war in Iran, Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and violence in the West Bank.

He said that the weapons sales will not “bring us closer to peace and security,” but that he remains “confident” that Israel has the ability to protect its people and that “we’ll be able to do so in the future with our partnership and I will always support that.”

Schiff, who is Jewish and generally a reliable supporter of Israel, and Padilla released a joint statement saying that they voted for the resolutions “to oppose the U.S. sale of specific weapons and equipment to Israel which might be used in Iran or to facilitate further settlement activity, which we believe undermine Israel’s long-term security and our own.”

“We strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself and the right of the people of Israel to live in peace and prosperity in a Jewish state,” they said. “We oppose actions that further deepen the United States in an unauthorized conflict in Iran — one with no clear strategy, no legal authority, and no defined end.”

They said they also intend to oppose any supplemental funding for the war.

Slotkin said she would “continue to assess U.S.-funded offensive weapons to Israel on a case-by-case basis” but would continue to support missile-defense systems. She said that she had “struggled with these [measures] as much as any vote since I joined Congress.”

“My entire life, I have been — and continue to be — a strong supporter of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel,” she said. “The people of Israel, like all people throughout the region, deserve long-term security and peace. But being pro-Israel today is not about simply supporting the political or military agenda of Prime Minister Netanyahu, just like being pro-American should not be equated with loyalty to President Trump.”

Slotkin said she is also “deeply skeptical” of providing additional funding for the war in Iran.

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Jewish Insider in a statement that he did not want to provide equipment to enable displacements of Palestinians in the West Bank or “escalatory military actions in southern Lebanon,” which he called contrary to both Israel and the United States’ interests.

“The United States can and must hold two truths at once: we can stand firmly with Israel’s security while also speaking out against actions that jeopardize peace and stability in the region,” Warner said. “Israel has an unequivocal right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to unilaterally displace Palestinians in the West Bank and torpedo any chance of ever achieving a two-state solution.”

“The United States should ensure that Israel has the tools it needs to protect its people and deter its adversaries while opposing transfers of equipment that are used to demolish homes, expand settlements, and further entrench a reality that weakens the already fragile prospects for a durable peace,” he continued.

Sanders, who has called for the U.S. to “end US military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government,” had described these votes as a referendum on the war in Iran, as well as Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and violence by settlers and Israeli military forces in the West Bank.

J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy group that last week called for the U.S. to end financial support for Israel’s missile-defense systems after the current U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding expires in 2028, supported the Sanders-led resolutions.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Chris Coons (D-DE) were the only Democrats to oppose both resolutions.

Gillibrand, who this week introduced a war powers resolution to halt the war in Iran, told JI on Wednesday morning that she sees the resolutions on weapons sales to Israel and the resolutions on the Iran war “very differently.”

“I oppose the war in Iran, but I do not believe we should leave an ally [Israel] who is being attacked without support,” Gillibrand said during a press conference.

AIPAC said in a statement, “We appreciate the senators who opposed these misguided and dangerous resolutions. Letting our democratic ally buy American-made equipment to protect its families from Iran and terrorist groups is clearly in America’s national interest. Congress must continue to stand with Israel as it confronts multiple ongoing threats.”

An effort by Senate Democrats to force an end to the war in Iran was again blocked by Republicans on Wednesday, the fourth such failed attempt mounted by Senate Democrats since the war began in late February.

The measure failed by a vote of 52-47, with all Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting for a procedural motion on the war powers resolution, and all Republicans except Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting against it. Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) was not present for the vote.

Nevertheless, Democrats intend to continue their efforts. They have nine such resolutions that have been filed, and top Senate Democrats said this week they intend to continue forcing such votes weekly, in the hopes that more Republicans will change their votes as the war drags on.

Some Republicans have begun to express hesitation about the war, and top members of the caucus have said they hope it comes to an end soon. But thus far most have not been willing to openly break with President Donald Trump on the effort.

Separately, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) plans to call up a vote later on Wednesday on a pair of measures to block sales of bombs and bulldozers to Israel, which Sanders has also framed as referenda on the war in Iran. Twenty-seven Democrats have previously voted for such resolutions, and supporters of the effort expect that number to increase this time.

But at least one lawmaker, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who introduced a war powers resolution on Iran this week, for future consideration, said that she views the two issues differently.

“I think of them very differently,” Gillibrand told Jewish Insider during a virtual press conference on Wednesday. “I oppose the war in Iran, but I do not believe we should leave an ally who is being attacked without support,” she said, referring to Israel.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said Tuesday that he’s hopeful that the war in Iran is close to winding down, in advance of a deadline that could require congressional action for the war to continue.

Under the War Powers Act, unilateral military action undertaken by the president without congressional authority is limited to 60 days — with a 30-day extension for draw-down purposes.

Thune emphasized that the administration’s current goal is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and that Senate Republicans support efforts to isolate the Iranian regime and their economy.

“We get the strait open again — and that’s sort of their last resort. The military effort here has been extraordinarily successful. This is sort of the last dying gasp of this regime, is to try and shut down the strait,” Thune said in a press conference after a GOP conference meeting. “The administration is making an effort to ensure that it’s open, that there’ll be traffic in and out there. And hopefully that will be successful and we can begin to see this thing wind down.”

Pressed on whether Republicans would be open to voting to continue the war if it extends beyond 90 days, Thune suggested that wouldn’t be necessary.

“At this point, most of us, I believe, feel pretty good about what the American military has achieved there in terms of its objectives,” Thune said. “It’s a hypothetical down the road. … I think the administration has a clear objective, a clear plan, and if they can execute on it, hopefully that question won’t be a necessary one that we’ll have to answer.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said that it’s “not quite time” yet for a full Senate discussion on the war, but said that he does want to see the administration more fully lay out its strategy and plan as the war continues and approaches the 60-day deadline at the end of April.

“We do expect that the administration will be laying out their plan for after the end of seven, eight, nine weeks,” Rounds said. “We have to know what the next steps are, and that’s part of our due diligence that we have to do.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said that Republicans did not discuss the possibility of an authorization for the war during their meeting.

Other Republicans have argued that the provision of the War Powers Act that sets out the 60-day deadline, is not enforceable and that Republicans on Capitol Hill are not paying attention to it.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that the U.S. should “finish the job” rather than extending a ceasefire agreement with Iran if the regime is not willing to agree to U.S. demands, including a permanent end to nuclear enrichment, surrendering all of its already enriched uranium, fully reopening the strait and abandoning its ballistic missile program and support for terrorism.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Senate Democrats plan to bring forward another war powers resolution to stop the war on Wednesday, and will continue to force votes on similar resolutions weekly until the war ends. For now, most Republicans seem likely to continue to vote against the legislation.

Senate Republicans also indicated that they’re not likely to attempt to include supplemental funding for the Iran war in an upcoming partisan budget reconciliation package, which is focused on border security and immigration funding currently being blocked by Democrats.

Thune, who has said he wants an “anorexic-like” reconciliation package, again indicated on Tuesday at a press conference after a Senate Republican lunch meeting that the package will be tightly “focused” to fund immigration enforcement.

“I think we’re going to do a very skinny reconciliation,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said when asked about Republicans’ discussions on Iran during the conference meeting.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that he has not heard anything about either the timing or the size of the supplemental request the administration plans to submit. Initial reports indicated that the Pentagon wanted to ask for $200 billion, but more recent reports have indicated that the final request will be lower.

Republicans have discussed advancing another reconciliation package before the end of the year, though some members of the conference, like Kennedy, have openly expressed skepticism that such an effort would be possible.

At this point, given the strong and widespread opposition among Democrats to the war in Iran, it’s unclear whether a funding package for the war would be able to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold necessary for passage in the Senate.

A group of six additional Senate Democrats plan to file new war powers resolutions this week to halt the war in Iran, a move that would allow Democrats to continue forcing votes on the war for the foreseeable future. 

Previously, a different group of six Democrats introduced similar resolutions, and Democrats have called up two of them thus far, with plans to call up a third this week. So far, the resolutions have all failed along mostly party lines, with all senators remaining consistent in their votes.

The latest group of lawmakers includes Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Andy Kim (D-NJ). 

The array of lawmakers involved in the latest effort spans from staunch progressives and critics of Israel to generally more pro-Israel members. 

“President Trump chose to start a war knowing it was going to raise gas prices on Americans already struggling to get by,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “The president, and his party, just don’t care about anyone other than themselves. They lie, cheat and steal to enrich themselves and leave regular folks with the bill. It is long past time for Republicans in Congress to stand up and do their job.”

House Democrats also plan to call up a war powers resolution this week, which may pass given that some Democrats who previously opposed a war powers effort and a handful of Republicans have indicated they plan to change their votes.

The latest set of six resolutions will not be eligible for floor votes immediately, but Democrats can call up the other four resolutions introduced previously at will. Senate Democrats are also likely to force votes on matters related to the Iran war during the upcoming reconciliation process, which Republicans aim to use to fund immigration enforcement and other priorities.

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Pop. Pop. Pop. Liz Rosenbaum heard the unmistakable sounds of a gun being fired and took a deep breath as the 4-year-old boy next to her looked her way, wide-eyed. Even in the best of times, he was an anxious kid. This was not one of those times. “Was that a gun?” he asked.

Without missing a beat, Rosenbaum reminded the boy that the classroom across the hall in the Temple Israel Early Childhood Center had a bunch of balloons set up earlier for someone’s birthday. They must’ve popped, she suggested. “Remember? You saw the balloons in their class,” she told the child. 

Rosenbaum, a retired Detroit public school teacher, locked eyes with the much younger teacher across the room and whisper-yelled to her: Don’t show any emotion. Just take care of the kids. So they held the babies — to a preschool teacher, any child is a baby — and waited, not knowing anything beyond the fact that someone was shooting a gun and the smell of smoke was getting worse. Rosenbaum’s 5-year-old grandson, Theo, was in a nearby classroom, but she had already gotten word from her daughter, via Theo’s teacher, that he was OK.

Seconds or minutes or hours later — it was hard to know — police officers came to the door. Rosenbaum’s co-teacher was perched at the door’s little window, peeking through a one-way blackout shade that allowed teachers to look out but kept outsiders from seeing in. 

The officers said the code word that the teachers had been trained to know would reveal the person on the other side of the door was, in fact, one of the good guys. The teachers opened the door and grabbed the kids, carrying or pulling or holding or dragging, whatever it took to obey the officers’ command to “get out of here, fast.”

“[The kids] knew something was going on. I said, ‘Remember these officers you studied? You read about them. We talked about them. Those are our helpers,’” Rosenbaum recalled telling the kids. Two days earlier, police and firefighters had visited the preschool, located in the largest Reform congregation in Michigan, as part of a lesson. 

A cadre of preschool teachers carried babies and led toddlers out the back door of the synagogue, first to an ambulance that was too crowded, and ultimately onto a West Bloomfield School District bus that took them across the street to a country club for the Chaldeans, an Iraqi Christian community. Some teachers had to run with their kids to get there. You’re a dinosaur — run as fast as you can! they said, hoping to hurry the kids along without scaring them.

Rosenbaum and the entire world would soon learn that a Lebanese immigrant — later revealed to have ties to the terror group Hezbollah — had driven a truck packed with explosives into Temple Israel around noon that day. Cable news networks showed aerial shots of smoke billowing from the roof of the synagogue and reported in alarming chyrons that an active shooter was inside. The attacker got out of his car and started shooting before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Every child in Rosenbaum’s classroom walked out of Temple Israel alive. In fact, every person who was already in the building survived; the only person who was injured was a security guard, hailed as a hero and already on the mend. (He was apparently quite pleased that, in his moment of need, he convinced a Temple Israel rabbi to buy him a sandwich with bacon to bring to his hospital room.) 

The story of Temple Israel is one of miracles. The building’s sprinkler system turned on, soaking everything in the building except for the Torah scrolls. Miracle. The hallway where the attacker rammed his car was set aflame, burning most of the photos that lined the wall showing the synagogue’s annual confirmation classes but sparing the oldest photos, from decades ago, which were not digitized and otherwise would’ve been lost forever. Miracle. Teachers trained in active-shooter protocols acted quickly and meticulously to secure their classrooms, and security guards performed their jobs perfectly. Miracle. No children were in the hallway in the path of the truck. Miracle upon miracle upon miracle. 

“Nes gadol hayah poh,” Noah Arbit, a lifelong member of Temple Israel and a Michigan state representative whose district includes the synagogue, said last week in an interview with Jewish Insider at a bakery a couple of towns over. A great miracle happened here. It was a riff on a Hebrew phrase used on Hanukkah, the holiday that celebrates the Jews’ miraculous victory over the ancient Greeks during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Usually, Jews living in the diaspora say a different version of the phrase that translates to “a great miracle happened there.” This time, the miracle was here in Michigan. 

”I think if it happened anywhere else but Temple Israel, we probably could have had a massacre. Temple Israel benefits from scale and resources in a way that other synagogues around here don’t,” said Arbit, a Democrat. 

But it is not accurate to say that this is only a story of miracles. For people who don’t live in West Bloomfield, once the headlines shifted from “active shooter at a synagogue” to “antisemitic attack thwarted,” many moved on. Jews in Metro Detroit did not. For them, this story of miracles was first a story of terror, of fear, of never being able to un-learn the feeling of dread that comes from not knowing whether your child is alive or dead.

“People are traumatized, and there’s no way around it,” Rabbi Josh Bennett, who has been on the pulpit at Temple Israel for 33 years, told JI last week. “And yet there’s an entirely different world out there, which is the world talking about miracles, and thank God nobody was injured. And that’s actually very dissonant, because the rest of the world has kind of moved on, and they’re just waiting for us to reopen the building.” 

The path toward healing is not as straightforward as just reopening the building, and even that will be complicated and time-intensive. 

“The building will be rebuilt. If you drive by there now, you’ll see there’s construction workers working on it right now, and they’re drying it out, and they’re redoing the drywall and fixing it. It will come back bigger and better,” said Steve Ingber, a Temple Israel member and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. 

There’s also the question of where to have Temple Israel’s preschool meet for the rest of the school year. The ECC students have been holding playdates together as the school remains closed and Temple Israel looks to find an alternate place for the school to meet. 

But first and foremost is the lingering emotional trauma that is only beginning to be unpacked. 

“We don’t want to leave anyone behind. We don’t want anyone to feel like they are isolated and living in a black hole, and after this traumatic moment and after a mass violence experience, that is often the case, is what I’m learning from these professionals,” said Rabbi Arianna Gordon, Temple Israel’s director of education and lifelong learning. “It’s really easy to fall into that black hole and really feel like you’re invisible, feel like you’re isolated. And we are really, really trying to make sure that everyone feels seen and feels helped and feels heard.”

On March 12, the day of the attack, Gordon heard a loud boom that she later learned came from the truck driving into the building. She opened her office door and saw a stroller overturned in a pile of broken glass. A security guard shouted to get back in the room, and she took her staff to shelter in place in a far corner of a new office they had moved into only two days earlier. She sent a message to all the teachers, telling them to implement lockdown procedures. 

Her 2-year-old son was in the building. When Gordon and her colleagues were evacuated, she waited outside the building until her son came out. 

“Rachel, our ECC director who ran out with me, will say that my voice screaming for my child, when we were running out, will forever haunt her,” said Gordon. She doesn’t remember making a sound.

Most of all, as social workers and rabbis work to meet community members’ emotional needs, the biggest unanswered question has to do with security: Is there enough? Even if so — and by all accounts, Temple Israel’s large security operation saved lives — how do community members make sense of the fact that their sense of safety has now been shattered? That a man from a nearby community pledged his allegiance to a foreign terrorist group and sought to bring tremendous harm to Jewish children? 

“It hurts more than I ever thought that it would. I think there’s a lot of people who feel that way. It’s a beautiful building and a sacred space,” said Arbit, the state representative. He blinked back tears. “Sorry. It’s been really hard.” 

The day of the attack, Ingber was getting ready to leave the federation office in nearby Bloomfield Hills for lunch when he heard the security radio crackle to life. The Jewish Federation of Detroit employs 23 security officers throughout the community’s schools and synagogues, and each of them carries a radio. The one in Ingber’s office goes off each morning around 8 a.m., a tech check to make sure it works. It sits quiet the rest of the time. Except on March 12. “SHOTS FIRED,” a voice announced over the radio.

“First, it took me a second, like, Wait, did I just hear that?” Ingber recalled during an interview in his office last week. “From there, we heard that this was real, and then we immediately started working on it, and that entailed sending every other Jewish building in town into lockdown, because we don’t know: Is this a one-off, or is this a coordinated attack?” 

Security is the biggest annual line item expense for the Jewish federation, as it is for many Jewish institutions. The federation has made more than $1 million in security funds available to local organizations since the attack. Jewish activists from Detroit and around the country went to Capitol Hill the week after the attack to lobby Congress to increase the amount of money in the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program. 

But for the 75,000 or so Jews in the Detroit metropolitan area, the need still feels almost impossible to meet. 

“I still feel, despite everything, that Temple Israel is incredibly safe, because what happened was our team protected us. They protected the staff and the children,” said Elyssa Schmier, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan office and a Temple Israel member. Her 5-year-old son goes to another Jewish preschool in the area that is smaller, with less of a security presence. 

”My son’s preschool was — the security was fine. I wouldn’t say it was great, and we’ve kind of known all along it wasn’t super great. So now they’ve had to put in full-day armed security and go with a new company. People weren’t sending their kids to school until that went into place. We’ve had a couple families pull out altogether,” Schmier said in a conversation last week in a coffee shop near West Bloomfield. “The additional cost is astronomical now of what the school’s going to have to take on.”

All of the added security means even more closed doors at a time when the Jewish community longs more than ever for allies. 

“Things that are part of the strength of the Michigan Jewish community are now being looked at with an eye of concern, and the irony of that, for a community that so values community building and institutions is, I think, not lost on anybody,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told JI last week. 

Jeremy Moss, a Democratic state senator who attends a Conservative synagogue in the area, said over a meal of rye bread, pickles and chicken soup at a West Bloomfield deli last week that the Temple Israel attack warrants a much larger outcry from outside the Jewish community than it is getting. Moss, who is running for Congress this year, is the only Jewish member of the Michigan state Senate. He is also the only LGBTQ member of the Senate. He knows that those two parts of his identity are often treated differently.

“When I talk about LGBTQ rights, I have my Democratic colleagues rushing to be behind me, to stand in solidarity, to allow me to lead on the discussion, to allow me talk about what is homophobic and transphobic, to back me up,” he said. 

“In the past several years, when I talk about antisemitism, it feels like I’m talking alone, or that I’m challenged, or that I’m lectured, not necessarily by my colleagues, but lectured about what is antisemitism from others, rather than allowing my own experience to be accredited, to be valid,” he added. “It’s a very isolating, lonely feeling, and it really makes you realize how small the Jewish community is and how difficult it is to get our lived experience heard and supported.” 

The attack on Temple Israel, and the fact that no one died, offers a “second chance,” Moss said. Not just for the parents and children, he said, but “for all of us.”

“Whether you’re on the left, this is a second chance to speak out if you haven’t spoken out before. Whether you’re on the right, this was a second chance for them,” Moss said, taking aim at his Republican colleagues who did not support a major hate crimes package passed last year. “I think there’s a lot of second chances going on as a result of this incident, where every child went home healthy to their parents that day. The question is, what are we going to do with that?” 

For a lot of people at Temple Israel, it’s too early to think about what all of this means. The pain is too raw. Because here’s what they know: A man was able to park in the Temple Israel parking lot, sit there for two hours listening to Arabic battle anthems while texting his sister and other family members about his plans and drive his truck head-on into the building, while teachers shushed children and sang them songs just feet away.

What could be normal after that? 

“It needs to be driven home over and over again: A person who drives their vehicle with fireworks and gasoline into an early childhood center with the intent of killing children and Jews — that is antisemitism,” said Bennett, the senior rabbi. “It is impossible to be in an event like this without being forever changed. It is an indelible mark on the soul of our congregation.” 

In a strange irony, many of the kids who were at Temple Israel during the attack are unfazed. Some were too young to notice anything out of the ordinary. The slightly older kids experienced the chaos, but they mostly felt lucky to get an unexpected field trip that came with chicken tenders, pizza and games. Parents whose younger children were at the ECC are struggling to describe what happened to their older kids. 

“When they ask, like, why do people hate Jews, it is really hard to be a parent and to be an educator in this moment and figure out the right things to say to our children,” said Gordon, the education director. Her 2-year-old is, of course, not asking those questions; he was mostly asleep throughout the attack, which occurred during nap time. But her 7- and 9-year-old kids are.

“I say that I don’t have a good explanation. I can’t tell you why people hate Jews. But what I can tell you is that there also are people who are really incredibly helpful and wonderful and supportive of our Jewish community, and we want to focus on that,” said Gordon. 

The day after the attack, Shabbat services were held at Shenandoah County Club, the Chaldean club that had opened its doors a day earlier as a reunification center during the attack. Last Friday, Temple Israel’s members met inside another West Bloomfield synagogue. At least 200 people joined the service, eager to hug each other and sing together and live out the beautiful parts of being Jewish. But they were reminded at every moment that they were living in a world transformed by ugliness. 

Police cars parked out front directed traffic, and anyone coming in had to pass seven or eight security guards as they walked through a metal detector. During the service, security guards slowly walked around the room, monitoring the crowd. One guard stood like a sentry at the sanctuary’s big window, eyes fixed on whatever unknown threats might be lurking outside on the frigid early spring evening.

Indoors, Temple Israel’s rabbis and cantor joyfully ushered in Shabbat with a musical service. They told congregants about webinars being offered by mental health professionals. They shared that the synagogue’s staff were being given the entire week of Passover off so they could relax with their families. 

The rabbis and ECC staff had been allowed back into the synagogue briefly to be able to take items from their offices before cleanup crews disposed of the rest, most of which was waterlogged or burned. One of them grabbed a box of large, colorful plastic bricks. 

As people left the service, they were invited to take one of those bricks home with them to place on their Seder plates. It would be a bitter reminder of what Temple Israel had endured. But more importantly, it would remind people that with the help of its dedicated and loving community, Temple Israel will rebuild. 

For Rosenbaum, the Temple Israel preschool teacher, it’s been a challenging few weeks. She woke a few days after the attack from a nightmare. She stepped outside, breathing in the fresh air. She is in therapy. Babysitting the Temple Israel toddlers who are now out of school helps, too. She will be back teaching at Temple Israel as soon as she is allowed.

“My mother taught me, when you fall off a bicycle, you get back on and you learn to ride it. When you get in an auto accident, you get back in the car and you learn to drive it. I taught my kids that. And Temple Israel is very strong. We are going to go back. We’re going to go back as being strong and supporting and loving one another, like we do,” said Rosenbaum.

“In the grand scheme of things, Hashem was with us.”

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — When Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw the news on March 12 about an attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, her first thought was about her 5-year-old daughter, Noa. 

McMorrow is not Jewish, but her husband is, and Noa attends preschool at another Reform congregation in the area. 

“This could have been us. This could have been our daughter,” McMorrow thought. 

Then, as an elected official and one of the three leading candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, she released a statement condemning the attack, in which a heavily armed man drove a car that was filled with explosives into the synagogue and opened fire before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one else was killed in the attack, which occurred steps away from preschool classrooms where more than 100 children and their teachers sheltered in place.

“I was horrified when I put out my statement that day. All of the first comments on it were whataboutism,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider in an interview in a coffee shop near Detroit last week. “Antisemitism is real.” 

Recent polling released by McMorrow’s campaign shows her with a narrow lead over her primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and public health official Abdul El-Sayed. But many voters remain undecided, and the state’s primary is not until August. 

The FBI said on Monday that the Temple Israel attacker, a Lebanese immigrant whose brother had been a Hezbollah commander until he was killed by the IDF the week before the attack, carried out a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan.” 

The attack was emotionally jarring for McMorrow, who got choked up speaking about her daughter. 

“It was really eye-opening when I started going to services and events with Ray and Noa — the level of security did stand out to me as somebody who grew up in a Catholic church, to walk in and the first thing you see are the security guards, and they’re lovely and they’re friendly, but it just — that really stuck with me, that we need that just to be Jewish,” McMorrow said. “We shouldn’t have to think twice that somebody is going to attack her or my husband or our family or anybody, for no other reason than she’s Jewish.”

After the attack, McMorrow watched people respond to her social media posts and argue that somehow the attack was warranted or justified.

“We didn’t see that with things like the Sandy Hook shooting. When we see attacks on kids, you don’t immediately jump to, ‘Well, what about this? And did they deserve it?’ Of course not,” McMorrow said.

In the Senate primary, McMorrow appears to be trying to carve out a lane between Stevens, a moderate pro-Israel stalwart, and El-Sayed, a far-left candidate whose recent decision to campaign with antisemitic political streamer Hasan Piker earned condemnation from both Stevens and McMorrow. 

In her interview with JI, McMorrow described herself as someone tuned in to the fears of Jewish Michiganders who is also trying to be a bridge-builder to the state’s large Arab community. 

“Over the last week, I made it a point to reach out and talk to not only members in Temple Israel and leaders in the Jewish community, but also leaders out of the Muslim community, particularly over in Dearborn,” McMorrow said. “What I heard independently from both groups is we need to figure out a way out of this, that there is so much hurt and there is so much pain, and this is not sustainable. There is a desire to bring the heat down, but we have to recognize as leaders, we need to create open doors for people to work through their trauma.” 

But sadness or frustration at events in the Middle East cannot be grounds for attacking a Jewish institution, McMorrow said. 

“There are going to be differing views on what the right course of action is in the Middle East, and that should be expected in a state like ours,” said McMorrow. “However you feel about what is happening in the Middle East, the response is never to take it out on people at home. The 140 kids who were at preschool that day bear no responsibility at all for anything that’s happening in the Middle East.”

McMorrow has said she will not accept donations from AIPAC, which has been a big booster of Stevens in the past, although AIPAC has not formally endorsed Stevens for Senate. McMorrow is endorsed by the progressive Israel advocacy group J Street, which currently describes McMorrow as a priority candidate for the organization. 

“I believe deeply that long-term peace and security for Israel is necessary, and I worry that the Netanyahu government is making that reality harder,” McMorrow said. She has said that she supports legislation to block offensive weapons sales to Israel, and told JI that she thinks the U.S. should play a role as a moderating force for Israel — and described herself as someone who supports the U.S.-Israel relationship but not unconditionally. 

“There was a headline in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago that I think about often, which is, ‘Israel won the war, but lost the world.’ And Israel needs allies to survive. It is attacked from all sides at all times,” she said. “That’s how I think about it with the U.S.-Israel relationship: How do we as an ally help our ally in the Middle East not make the same mistakes that the United States did, even in Iraq and Afghanistan, where retribution went too far?”

In October, when asked by a voter whether she believes Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, McMorrow said yes, “based on the definition” of the word. Since then, she has avoided using the word directly, instead saying that its usage has become a “political purity test,” an argument she also employed in her interview with JI.

“People seem to be more focused on a word than a goal, which is why I have since said this does feel like we’re splitting hairs over the definition of a word and not talking about for most people, we want the same thing. How do we get there in a way that brings people together instead of pushing them apart?” McMorrow said. 

That same attitude drives McMorrow’s approach to the state’s diverse constituencies — particularly, she said, as she thinks about how to address antisemitism and hate after the Temple Israel attack. She touted a bill she supported last year that expands the definition of hate crimes and called for more interfaith work in the state.

“That is part of the responsibility and role of a senator that may not be legislative, that’s just, how do we keep doors open?” she asked. “How do we talk about the things that unite us, and how do we work together so that Michigan, given the uniqueness of our population, can be a model for the rest of the country? That even in the wake of a lot of uncertainty and turmoil in the Middle East, we can coexist?”

But McMorrow also keeps returning to something that a Temple Israel parent told her, about the “root cause” of this month’s attack.

“As I was talking to a mom from Temple Israel, she credited all of the security that they’ve invested in,” McMorrow recalled. “She said, ‘We have to address the underlying root cause, which is antisemitism and hate that led this person — whatever trauma he was going through, his first course of action was to think to attack the synagogue full of preschoolers.’” 

Thursday brought a series of new signals that at least a small number of ideologically varied Republican lawmakers are growing frustrated with the war in Iran and with the administration’s frequently shifting rhetoric about it — including from some otherwise-hawkish lawmakers.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who previously called for an end to the war, told Bloomberg on Thursday that she’s working on a potential authorization for use of military force in Iran, to limit the scope of the U.S. operation and prevent the deployment of ground troops.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Murkowski told the outlet. “I’m worried we get out of town and the president goes in with ground troops aiming for a full takeover.” The Senate is scheduled to be in recess for the next two weeks.

After Murkowski’s comments, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump was considering deploying an additional 10,000 troops to the Middle East.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who has generally been supportive of the war effort, told NOTUS on Thursday after a House Armed Services Committee briefing the day prior that he was unclear on the U.S.’ plans and goals in the war.

“I don’t know the plan,” Bacon said. “What is the end-state goal? What is the mission? I think clarity there would be helpful.”

Rep. Rob Wittmann (R-VA) also told the outlet that he’s seeking “more granularity, more specificity on what specifically is happening on the ground, and then how is that leading to achieving the military objectives.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the Armed Services Committee chairman, emerged from the briefing Wednesday frustrated with what he said was a lack of information from the administration, warning officials that their reticence could have “consequences.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who’s been more critical of the war in general, indicated to Axios she’s now inclined to vote for an upcoming war powers resolution to end the war, bringing it closer to the threshold for passage. She added, “War with Iran needs to end. President Trump has won the war, time to exit.”

House Democrats were initially expected to call a vote on that legislation this week, but have delayed their plans until after the congressional recess, saying they still don’t think they have the votes to pass it.

Regardless of whether the resolution passes the House, it remains unlikely to pass the Senate and could be vetoed by Trump. But passage of the resolution in the closely divided House would be a rebuke of Trump and his strategy.

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing criticism from some prominent Michigan Democrats — including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is running against him in the Democratic primary — for his decision to host campaign rallies with Hasan Piker, the far-left political streamer with a history of antisemitic remarks. 

“That’s the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” Stevens told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “We have to be serious here about who’s going to be the best general election candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan to beat [Republican] Mike Rogers, and someone who’s campaigning with someone like that is not going to win in Michigan.” 

El-Sayed will host two rallies with Piker and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University on April 7. 

Piker has millions of followers on the streaming platform Twitch. He has said that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, and has described Orthodox Jews as “inbred.” He has also praised terrorists and said America deserved 9/11. 

Stevens said that by associating with Piker, El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

Slotkin told JI that she is not familiar with much of Piker’s language but that what she knows of his rhetoric raises concerns for her.

“Any equating of all Jews or American Jews with Israel and the Israeli government is a problem right off the bat, and then it sounds like, from there, a cascading set of antisemitic tropes and just the kind of rhetoric that is — I want to read for myself, but sounds deeply antisemitic, consistently, and therefore not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment,” said Slotkin. 

The announcement of Piker’s upcoming campaign visits to Michigan comes two weeks after an attempted terrorist attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. 

A new poll conducted by the campaign of Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, the third major Democrat running alongside Stevens and Piker, shows McMorrow leading the race with 30%. El-Sayed is behind her at 25%, and Stevens follows at 23%, with 21% undecided. Other polling ahead of the August primary has shown Stevens with a small lead. 

For the third time in a month, Senate Republicans on Tuesday evening blocked an effort by Democrats to halt U.S. operations in Iran.

The war powers resolution, this time led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), is part of a series of efforts by Senate Democrats to disrupt business on the Senate floor to force a reckoning and public testimony by Cabinet officials about the war in Iran.

Democrats have four other such resolutions filed, which they could call up for votes at a time of their choosing, using special procedures allowing lawmakers to force votes on war powers resolutions.

The Senate again rejected the resolution 53-47, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) once again voting in favor of the war effort and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) again voting against it.

The mostly party-line vote comes in spite of recent comments by some Senate Republicans pushing for the war to come to an end.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), another leader of the Democratic war powers push, said that the group plans to continue to force weekly votes on the issue. He acknowledged before the vote that the results might not change this week, but suggested that some Republican colleagues might be won over if the war continues to drag on, troops are sent to invade Iran or oil prices continue to spike.

Kaine indicated that he was not encouraged by President Donald Trump’s comments that he considered the U.S. to have “won” the war in Iran or his recent claims of engaging in productive talks with the regime.

“If he announces that it’s over, that will be good news,” Kaine told Jewish Insider. “Now, the consequences are not going to be over for a very long time, and Virginians are going to be suffering the consequences of something that lacked a rationale and lacked a plan for a very long time, in all likelihood. But the minute he announces it’s over, that will be positive — if he doesn’t change his mind, but he could change his mind.”

The House is expected to vote this week on a similar measure led by Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY). A separate House measure led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and other pro-Israel moderates which would limit the war effort to 30 days — a period which will expire next week — could also come to a vote soon.

At least one House Democrat who voted previously against a war powers resolution and backed the U.S. operations in Iran has said he plans to vote for the Meeks resolution this week.

The Senate is set to hold another round of votes on blocking U.S. arms transfers to Israel, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) filed three new joint resolutions of disapproval against $658.8 million in sales of 500- and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel and “defense articles” for 250-pound bombs.

“Given the horrific destruction that Israel’s extremist government has wrought on Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, the last thing in the world that American taxpayers need to do right now is to provide 22,000 new bombs to the Netanyahu government,” Sanders said. “No more weapons to support an illegal war.”

The effort is being co-sponsored by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Peter Welch (D-VT).

Sanders emphasized that the administration had sidestepped normal congressional review procedures using emergency authorities in advancing the arms sales earlier this month.

Sanders and other progressive Democrats have forced votes on similar efforts to block arms sales to Israel on three previous occasions since the war in Gaza began, with a majority of the Democratic caucus — 27 lawmakers — voting to block at least one arms sale in July of last year, a significant jump in support from similar efforts in November 2024 and April 2025.

Israel’s standing among Democrats has worsened since last July, with even some Democrats who supported continued arms sales at that time blaming Israel for dragging the U.S. into the war in Iran. Polls show registered voters now see Israel more negatively than positively.

Some senators have argued the U.S. should have threatened to cut off military support to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran.

Van Hollen, Merkley and Welch, in statements, all framed the bomb sales as proxy votes on the war in Iran, and a vote to block the sales as a step toward ending the war. Senate Democrats have voted nearly unanimously as recently as yesterday to bring an immediate end to the war in Iran.

“With the bombs already provided to Israel by American taxpayers, Israeli forces are unleashing a campaign of total war in Iran with the clear and deliberate intention to eviscerate Iran’s economy and society,” Welch said in a statement. “I support these joint resolutions to make sure that we do not send another 20,000 bombs to Israel that will result in further destruction in Iran and Lebanon. We must end this war, and we must not send these bombs.”

On the other hand, some Democrats who had voted in favor of previous arms sales flipped in the July 2025 vote to express frustration with the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

With the war in Gaza now in a ceasefire, humanitarian aid restored and efforts toward reconstruction slowly starting, that motivation for blocking arms sales may no longer be salient for some Democrats.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-7 Thursday to advance Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination to be secretary of homeland security to the full Senate, largely along party lines.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the committee chair, was the lone Republican to oppose the nomination, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted in support. Mullin’s nomination now heads to the full Senate, where a simple majority is required for confirmation.

Prior to the vote, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the committee’s ranking member, announced he would oppose the nomination, arguing that Mullin “is not up to the challenge.”

“When I heard President [Donald] Trump would be nominating Sen. Mullin, I kept an open mind,” Peters said on Thursday. “However, throughout the nomination process, he has failed to be forthright and transparent. Sen. Mullin also showed that he doesn’t have the experience or the temperament to lead this critical department.” 

Some committee members had expressed frustration during his hearing on Wednesday that Mullin was not forthcoming about a trip he took as a member of Congress, which he claims was classified.

Explaining his vote as the lone Democrat in support, Fetterman said on social media: “My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security.” He added that he had approached the confirmation “with an open-mind.”

During Mullin’s contentious hearing on Wednesday, Paul had voiced opposition to Mullin, citing personal animosity stemming from remarks the Oklahoma senator made about a past assault on Paul.

Mullin last month called Paul a “freaking snake” and said he “understood” why Paul’s neighbor had attacked him — an assault that left Paul with serious injuries and resulted in a prison sentence for the assailant. Mullin declined to apologize during the hearing, prompting Paul to threaten to cancel the vote.

The vote also comes as DHS enters the second month of a funding lapse amid a standoff between lawmakers over funding and reforms for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The lapse has impacted agencies including the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, ICE and the Coast Guard, raising security concerns amid heightened threats tied to the ongoing war with Iran.

During his confirmation hearing, Mullin said it was a “horrible time” for the department to be without full funding and acknowledged the increased threat environment.

Lawmakers also raised concerns about the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides funding to help protect religious institutions.

Following last week’s violent attack at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, Mullin was pressed on the need to streamline the program amid persistent challenges, including underfunding and delays tied in part to the DHS funding lapse.

Mullin agreed, saying “there’s a better way to do this,” adding that he would be “laser-focused” on improving the program.

The Senate voted largely along party lines on Wednesday night to reject a procedural motion on an effort aiming to bring the U.S. operations in Iran to an immediate halt for the second time this month.

The war powers resolution, led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), is part of an effort by a group of Senate Democrats to disrupt and slow down business on the Senate floor in protest of the war in Iran, which was launched without congressional authorization, and to seek public testimony by Cabinet officials about the conflict. 

In the minority, Democrats have limited ability to effect change or disrupt the war effort, but war powers resolutions are subject to special Senate procedures allowing them to be called up at a time of their sponsors’ choosing, after a short waiting period.

The Senate voted the resolution down 53-47, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) breaking with Democrats to support the war effort and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) breaking with Republicans to oppose it, as they both did the previous time.

The Democrats involved are planning to continue such efforts and already have five additional war powers resolutions introduced that could be called up, though Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Jewish Insider on Tuesday he was only expecting one vote this week.

“We made a determination back at the very end of February when this war started, that we were not going to let [President Donald Trump] do this without a fight … to not allow business as usual, to not allow them to spend billions of dollars of our treasure and the blood of our American citizens without so much as an adequate debate or hearing oversight or accountability whatsoever,” Booker said at an event with the advocacy group VoteVets prior to the vote.

Booker also argued on the Senate floor that the situation in the Middle East has only worsened since the chamber voted on the previous war powers resolution.

Though Republicans, with the exception of Paul, are continuing to stick together in support of the operation, it’s unclear whether that will last as the war continues or if the U.S. deploys ground troops in Iran.

A handful of Republicans from the populist wing of the GOP have suggested that the U.S. operation in Iran has largely met its goals and can wrap up promptly.

“We are going to keep forcing them again and again and again — as much as they hate it — to have to vote on this, until we finally get in public the answers that Americans deserve,” Kaine said at an event prior to the vote.

Kaine also said that the Democratic lawmakers aim to leverage the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act appropriations process, potential GOP reconciliation bill and anticipated supplemental funding request to force votes on the war and compel testimony by administration officials.

“We are committed to using every last one to demonstrate the foolishness of this war, the illegality the war, with the thought that the more we do it, the more the American public agrees with us, the more they’re gonna talk to their members of Congress and senators, and we can start pulling some more votes away,” he said.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that passing the resolution would endanger American servicemembers and the country.

“What they’re asking us to do is to put our tail between our legs and leave the battlefield and surrender the battlefield to the Iranians. We’re not going to do that,” Risch said on the Senate floor. “Democrats are attempting to stop the administration from keeping Americans safe through these defensive actions against Iran. … The resolution would put them further in danger if it passed.”

Both of Missouri’s Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, argued that the administration seems to have largely achieved its key objectives for the war in Iran — a posture that distinguishes him from most GOP colleagues and highlights subtle but emerging divisions among Republicans on the proper scope and duration of the war.

Pointing to comments by President Donald Trump saying that the war was substantially complete and that the U.S. had achieved its objectives, Hawley said on Fox News earlier this week, “I agree with what the president said last night. You look at all the success that we’ve had in the last 10 days. I mean, this thing is a victory. I think we should be hailing our military. We ought to be saying we’ve achieved our objectives here. … If this isn’t success, I don’t know what would be. … Now it’s time to declare victory.”

He also posited that Iran has nothing remaining with which to reconstitute its nuclear program — though the regime maintains a stockpile of enriched nuclear material which many experts argue cannot be fully secured without some form of on-the-ground presence.

Continuing a trend of making contradictory comments on the war’s timeline, Trump had said the same day that the U.S. could and would go much further in Iran, and that the U.S.’ aims could expand significantly.

Asked by Jewish Insider on Thursday about the metrics by which he was judging the success of the war, Hawley — who is one of the more prominent senators from the populist wing of the GOP — said he was referring to Trump’s own comments on the subject.

“I assume our overriding national security objective when it comes to Iran is to prevent them from getting nukes. And between our bombing last June and in the last … 12 days, I don’t know how they’re going to reconstitute their nuclear program anytime in, maybe, our lifetimes,” Hawley said.

“Our military has done an amazing job. I think it’s been an overwhelming display of force,” Hawley continued. “I know my Democrat colleagues, a bunch of them are saying, ‘This has accomplished nothing, nothing’s happened.’ It seems to me a lot has happened. And I think we should say that’s a good thing.”

Pressed on whether the war can be ended while Iran continues to fire missiles and drones at countries throughout the Middle East and is dropping mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Hawley said he would defer to Trump’s judgement on when to end the war.

“My point is just that I think the military has achieved a tremendous amount. It has ended [Iran’s] nuclear program for all intents and purposes. It has destroyed their navy. It has eliminated most of their ballistic missiles — those are good things,” he continued. “I’d be glad to take that [win].”

“Seems pretty good to me,” Hawley added.

Schmitt, who is also aligned with the populist wing of the party, likewise emphasized the progress the U.S. has made and pushed for a quick conclusion to the war.

“I know they’re way ahead of schedule. I’d look for a swift end to it,” Schmitt told JI. “I’m not interested in forever war in the Middle East, I don’t think the president is either. And I think that, again, they’ve laid out clear objectives and [are] making a lot of progress.”

Other Republicans are taking a distinctly different approach. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told reporters on Thursday that “victory isn’t determined by declaration, it’s determined by the outcome.” He argued that the U.S. can’t and shouldn’t end the war prematurely.

“If you pull 90% of the weeds of our garden and you leave 10%, you’re going to have a weedy garden,” Cramer continued. “The last 10% are the hardest, in many cases.”

The North Dakota senator, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed surprise that the U.S. had not been better prepared to secure the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a potential “miscalculation” and saying that the attacks on ships in the critical waterway “could have been avoided.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the most vocal supporters of the Iran war on Capitol Hill, said that he thinks there are “weeks more of this coming.”

“I don’t see this conflict ending today. I think the mission is to make sure they cannot regenerate, that they’re going to be beyond capable of building missiles to hit us, and they’ll never go back to the nuclear business,” Graham continued.

Also on Thursday, in a rare Senate floor speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), emphasized that the war against Iran cannot be decoupled from the global axis, including Russia and China, with which Iran is aligned. 

Russia, McConnell emphasized, has reportedly been providing Iran with targeting intelligence. He criticized Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who said earlier this week that he takes Russia at its word that it has not been doing that. 

“I’ve warned successive presidents to take the Russian-Iranian axis, actually, more seriously,” McConnell said. He emphasized the supportive role that Ukraine has taken in helping to protect the U.S.’ allies in the Gulf, and criticized administration officials for not moving more quickly in pre-war discussions to acquire Ukrainian anti-drone technology.

He also urged lawmakers who oppose the war to nonetheless support an expected request for supplemental military funding as “an overdue opportunity to invest in urgent and strategic defense priorities.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is criticizing his fellow Democrats over their opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the U.S. war in Iran, arguing that his party should celebrate efforts to bring down the Iranian regime and its military and nuclear capabilities as a “positive development.” 

Fetterman, the most vocal pro-Israel Democrat in the Senate, has been one of the leading advocates for striking Iran directly since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. He backed Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities amid the 12-day war with Israel last year, criticizing Democrats at the time for speaking out against the operation, and has since emerged as one of the staunchest Iran hawks in the Democratic Party.

The Pennsylvania senator said, since leading Democrats have long argued that Iran should never have the ability to get a nuclear weapon, criticism from the party of the joint U.S.-Israel efforts to degrade their military capabilities is hypocritical.

“First, let’s get to history. Every single Democratic presidential candidate or Democratic president all agreed, we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. Everyone has run the gamut: sanctions, treaties, proxies, other kinds of negotiations. It never worked,” Fetterman told Jewish Insider in an interview on Tuesday. “But you know what it actually produced? Nine hundred pounds of just pure, weapons-grade uranium.”

“When the country that wants death to America and wants to destroy Israel could have been months away from developing a nuclear weapon, and every single Democratic candidate for president all agreed we can never allow them [to do so], why can’t we just acknowledge what’s happened?” he asked. “It’s a profound development. I don’t get it. I know what the [Democratic] base demands right now: condemn and criticize.”

He said that Democrats should be able and willing to praise the operation for degrading Iran’s regime and its capabilities.

“Why can’t a Democrat call this a positive development given everything that Iran is responsible for and what their ambitions are?” Fetterman said. “This is effectively us destroying the Nazi regime and Hitler before they could’ve even begun. So, to your readers, whether in Israel or here, I ask: Why is that a problem?”

Fetterman also said that the media and fellow Democrats are ignoring what he characterized as the apparent successes and effectiveness of the U.S.-Israel strikes.

“Iran’s capabilities have been effectively ended. Right now, the missile strikes are down by 90 percent. Their Navy is gone. They can’t even project any force at this point,” Fetterman said. “Why do The New York Times and other left-wing media keep making it seem that the region is on fire when this is the breaking free of Iran? Why can’t a single Democrat agree that this is a good thing for the world and the region?”

Fetterman also blasted recent comments from former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, criticizing Trump’s decision to launch the U.S. war in Iran and questioning the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. The Pennsylvania senator said he was not surprised by the mainstreaming of opposition to Israel within the Democratic Party, predicting that the shift away from supporting Israel would continue.

“I expect at the end that our party is going to continue to back away from the moral clarity of Israel. If you are describing Israel as an apartheid state, or you have people in leadership [doing so], that’s profoundly disappointing but unsurprising,” Fetterman said.

With no clear path to confirmation in the Senate a month after he was grilled and struggled to explain his past views and writings at a confirmation hearing, Jeremy Carl withdrew his nomination to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations on Tuesday.

Carl faced unified opposition from Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), who said after the hearing he found Carl’s past comments downplaying the U.S.-Israel relationship and his “insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated.”

The nominee had previously expressed a range of derogatory views about Jews, describing them as having a victim mentality, downplaying the significance of the Holocaust to the Jewish story and experience and musing about the need to address the what he called the “Jewish Question.” He also espoused a view of the United States as a white, Christian nation, claiming that white people are undergoing a “cultural genocide” and deliberate replacement.

Curtis’ opposition was sufficient to prevent Carl’s nomination from advancing out of the committee, leaving Carl with no clear path to confirmation.

“I am tremendously grateful to President Trump for nominating me and then (upon expiration of my original nomination) renominating me for this role, and I am also grateful to Secretary Rubio and his team for their continued support throughout this long and time-consuming process,” Carl said on X.

He added that, with no path to unanimous support from Republicans on the committee, he did “not wish to have the President, Secretary Rubio, or the rest of his team waste valuable time and energy attempting to change that decision.”

A group of six Senate Democrats is threatening to immediately begin obstructing proceedings on the Senate floor in order to force public hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee and debate on the chamber floor on the war in Iran.

Jewish Insider first reported that several of those lawmakers — including Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) — introduced a series of five new war powers resolutions late last week.

The senators indicated in a meeting with reporters on Monday that they plan to force votes on those, and possibly additional, war powers resolutions when they become eligible for votes next week, but that those resolutions are just part of a broader strategy to disrupt normal Senate business in an attempt to force greater public discussion about the war in Iran.

“We’ve had no oversight whatsoever over what the executive is doing, as they’re spending a billion dollars a day. And we have failed to have any real substantive debate or discussion,” Booker said. “We are not going to let business as usual go on in the Senate … we are demanding that the Republican leadership of the Senate hold the adequate hearings and oversight, as well as to allow a debate that brings transparency to this onto the Senate floor.”

Booker declined to discuss their specific plans, but said that the senators would “use the levers that we have,” citing efforts over the years by Republican colleagues to block or slow down Senate procedure to compel votes on various issues.

“Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functionings of the Senate, as well as certain privileges that we can exercise,” Booker said. “And what we have agreed on right now is that we are not going to let the Senate continue its business as usual.”

Though the war powers resolutions won’t be eligible for Senate floor votes until next week, Booker indicated that the senators plan to begin other obstructionist tactics immediately, unless hearings are announced.

Murphy highlighted that the lawmakers have the ability, should they choose to do so, to “force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate” on the war powers resolutions. But Baldwin indicated that the lawmakers might not force the war powers votes if Republicans do schedule the hearings they request.

Booker said that the group is not necessarily speaking for the entire Senate Democratic caucus.

Murphy asserted that public hearings with administration officials, tasked with defending and explaining the war effort to the public, would only make the operation less popular with the American public. The Democrats also highlighted other costs, including increasing gas prices, associated with the war.

Kaine argued that the question for the Senate and the American people is not whether “Iran [is] a bad actor” or whether “in the abstract, [they have] done terrible things,” it is whether the war is worth risking American lives. Seven U.S. servicemembers have died in the course of the campaign so far.

Murphy and other Senate Democrats had also been pushing for a Senate vote on an authorization for use of military force regarding Iran. But on Monday, the six Democrats involved in this effort said they had ruled out the idea of a Democratic-led AUMF, arguing that the burden is on Republicans and the administration to put forward such a proposal and define its scope.

“They have to tell us and bring evidence to us that this war is worth an AUMF,” Duckworth said. “I personally don’t even want to have the discussion about an AUMF, because they haven’t even gone to the first step yet” of proving the need for the war.

Kaine said that the lawmakers, including Murphy, had “explored the procedural option” of an AUMF, but said that the “burden” to write such a bill should not be on the Democrats “who think this war is a bad idea.”

“It would be too unusual for the opponents to file the AUMF,” he continued. “The proponents are the ones that carry the burden of proof with the American public. They need to file it.”

The six Democrats did not appear to be entirely in agreement about how they would handle a potential request by the administration for supplemental funding to support the war effort or replenish U.S. armaments expended in it.

Kaine said he would withhold judgement on the issue until such a request was presented, explaining, “I want to end the war, I want to protect our troops.”

Schiff argued that the military has “plenty of money” from last year’s reconciliation bill, and also said that a congressional appropriation for a military effort could, legally, be considered an authorization for use of military force.

Should they secure the hearings they seek, the senators said they want to press administration officials on the goals and timeline for the war, the rules of engagement and restrictions imposed on U.S. forces, the circumstances that led to a deadly strike — which some have attributed to the U.S., though the administration disputes this — on a girls’ school, potential plans to support separatist movements inside Iran and the administration’s plans to support and protect Iranian demonstrators should another mass uprising occur.

“My goal is to end this war, to stop wasting millions of dollars and to protect further servicemembers from dying, and I think the way that you do that is by exposing to the public the fact that this is a war of choice, the fact that this president has ignored the law and the Constitution and the people through us, hold him to account,” Baldwin said.

Dan Osborn, a Democratic-aligned independent candidate running for Senate in Nebraska, received and touted an endorsement from an anti-Israel group.

The group, A New Policy PAC, is a campaign and lobbying group that aims to alter U.S. policy toward Israel, in part by electing candidates critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship. The group’s endorsements — just nine so far — include high-profile far-left critics of Israel, including congressional candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Graham Platner in Maine, Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois, Robert Peters in Illinois, Frederick Haynes III in Texas and Adam Hamawy in New Jersey.

The PAC was founded by Josh Paul, a former State Department official who left government in protest of U.S. support for Israel after Oct. 7, 2023, and since joined the anti-Israel group DAWN and become a vocal critic of Israel.

A New Policy’s advocacy arm has accused Israel of genocide, urges cutting off and conditioning U.S. aid to Israel; supported efforts to block certain arms transfers to Israel; urges direct American support for the Palestinian Authority, which is currently illegal under U.S. law; calls for eliminating barries to support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; and opposes a host of pro-Israel legislation.

The group also opposes the Antisemitism Awareness Act and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Paul also argued that the U.S.-Israel relationship is not in U.S. interests, and said “AIPAC puts Israel first, and makes our own elected officials do the same.”

Osborn said in a statement last month he was “happy to receive the endorsement of A New Policy PAC.”

“We deserve a foreign policy that honors the decency and moral center of the American people,” Osborn, who has not previously spoken extensively about Israel policy, said. “Right now our priorities are out of whack. Americans go bankrupt from unplanned hospital visits while their tax dollars pay for bombs that knock over hospitals in other countries.”

“‘Made in the USA’ should be a point of pride, not a point of shame when it’s written on bombs that kill kids,” he continued. “Every child born in this world deserves a shot at a future. That belief should be at the heart of our foreign policy. That’s why I’m proud to stand with A New Policy PAC in that calling.”

Asked by Jewish Insider about the endorsement and the group’s positions, Osborn told JI, “I will always stand against anti-Semitism, and completely agree we cannot allow a nuclear Iran.” 

“Right now, I do have concerns about the United States participating in an unpopular conflict with Iran that may draw us into another open-ended, costly war in the Middle East during a moment where large swaths of our citizens, including veterans, can’t afford groceries or medicine,” Osborn continued.

A New Policy’s co-founder, Tariq Habash, said in a statement that Osborn “deeply understands both the economic and moral weight of our foreign policy; he knows that ‘Made in the USA’ should be a source of pride, not a label on weapons used against Palestinian families. In Washington, Dan will be a fearless advocate for Americans and our values.”

Osborn, who is making his second run for the seat, with tacit support from Democrats, has said little about his views on the U.S.-Israel relationship.

This week, he criticized the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, saying “I think there’s something else going on.” In a 2024 debate, he expressed support for Israel, according to a local news channel.

“Hamas is a terrorist group and Dan thinks Israel’s response [to the Oct. 7 attacks] was justified. At this point, Dan is concerned about mounting casualties and thinks America should do whatever it can to assist in bringing about a resolution and resume the long, hard road to stability,” an Osborn spokesperson told The American Prospect in April 2024.

Running in 2024 against Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), Osborn lost by seven points in a state President Donald Trump carried by more than 20 points. He now faces Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE). An early February poll by Osborn’s campaign shows them essentially tied.

A day after Republican senators blocked a vote to end the U.S.-Israeli operations in Iran, the House voted 219-212 to defeat a similar war powers resolution, with four Democrats breaking with their party to oppose an immediate end to the war, and two Republicans voting with other Democrats to oppose military action.

Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Jared Golden (D-ME), Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) were ultimately the only Democrats to vote against the resolution, which was led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY). Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who said they would oppose the resolution before the war began, ultimately voted in favor.

On the Republican side, Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), both of whom have isolationist leanings, were the only members of the GOP to support the resolution.

Moskowitz had argued before the war that voting preemptively on the resolution would remove U.S. leverage in negotiations, but argued that the situation has since changed and that the U.S. is now in a full-scale war.

“I didn’t flip at all,” Moskowitz told Jewish Insider. “Circumstances have changed since my first statement two weeks ago.”

In a statement, he condemned Iran and its regime, saying he is “happy that [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is no longer able to reign terror on his country,” but added, “Regardless of how one feels about this war, or this President, Congress’s constitutional role in any declaration of war is a completely separate issue,” expressing concern at the erosion of congressional war powers over the past year. 

“We must reestablish our Article I authority which grants Congress all legislative powers,” Moskowitz said, adding that he did not believe the resolution would prevent continued efforts to protect U.S. bases and personnel nor intelligence sharing with allies.

Gottheimer emphasized in a statement that the U.S. “simply can’t afford to get this wrong — we must win and crush” the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, emphasizing that he is not, in principle, opposed to military action against Iran and that the regime “deserves the punishment they’re receiving.

“With the defeat of the War Powers Resolution in the Senate, the vote in the House today shifted from an unacceptable call that could put our troops in harm’s way to a clear call for this Administration to articulate the goals for the mission, the end game, and their plan to avoid a protracted conflict,” Gottheimer continued — suggesting that he voted for the resolution because it was, in essence, symbolic given that it did not pass the Senate.

“Unlike some of my colleagues who are opposed to combatting the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, I’m supporting this resolution to send a clear message to the Administration: the American people deserve a coherent explanation of what precipitated this war, what success looks like, and how we will know when the mission has been achieved,” he continued, criticizing “shifting justifications and objectives” from the administration. “I’m not opposed to taking action against Iran. I believe that steps to address the persistent threats are merited and necessary to protect our broader national security interests.”

He pledged to make sure the military has sufficient resources, signaling that he may support supplemental funding for the mission if and when requested.

The beginning of combat operations, the loss of some American soldiers and the administration’s inconsistent messaging and strategy — as well as an aggressive push from Democratic leadership — likely helped Democrats close ranks on the war powers resolution.

After the vote, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he would call up another war powers resolution 60 days from the start of the war, the limit under which an administration can conduct military operations without congressional authorization under the War Powers Act.

“Members who voted against today’s WPR on the assumption that Trump’s war will be swift or limited will not have that excuse once we’ve entered the third month of open-ended hostilities,” Meeks said.

Like Moskowitz and Gottheimer, a handful of other Democrats who have offered a degree of support for the U.S. operations in Iran ultimately voted for the resolution. Some have pointed to concerns about constitutional process and the administration’s failure to seek congressional approval for the war, rather than opposition to the war in general.

“I will vote for the war powers resolution because I cannot support unchecked authority for the administration to engage, indefinitely, in an already deadly war with unknown size and scope, especially considering Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s suggestion that he is willing to” use ground troops in the operation, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), a moderate House Democrat, said.

At the same time, Suozzi said that “Iran is weaker and the regime’s leadership has been decimated — those are good things. If these operations make the region more secure and America safer, those would also be good things.” He added that the war powers resolution would not prevent Congress from authorizing the use of force in Iran “if necessary and properly presented to Congress.”

Davidson, one of the two Republicans who voted for the resolution. said on the House floor on Wednesday that operations against Iran were just, and potentially necessary, but unconstitutional.

“For some this debate will be about whether we should even be fighting in Iran. For me, the debate is more fundamental: is the president of the United States, regardless of the person holding the office, empowered to do whatever he wants?” Davidson said. “That’s not what our Constitution says. … I rise in support of this war powers resolution today because the moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat.”

Davidson argued that his Republican colleagues were ignoring the clear definition of what constitutes a war, and repudiating Trump’s campaign promises.

The House resolution, unlike the Senate version, included no specific protections to allow for continued U.S. intelligence sharing with Israel and other allies, and defensive operations to protect allies like Israel and U.S. forces.

Earlier this week, Gottheimer, Landsman, Suozzi, Cuellar, Golden and Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Adam Gray (D-CA) had introduced an alternative resolution that would give the administration 30 days from the start of the war to wind down operations in Iran, rather than demanding an immediate halt, while banning any ground operations.

Gottheimer said in his statement he plans to call up his resolution during the week of March 23, but he hopes that, “Between now and then, I hope either the conflict has reached its objectives or the Administration has made a strong case to Congress and the American people for why this mission must continue.”

But most ultimately voted for the Massie-Khanna resolution.

Suozzi said that the Gottheimer resolution “would prevent a reckless and potentially unsafe removal of our forces and allow us to continue to protect American troops and our allies in the region during this perilous time,” a seeming indictment of the war powers resolution he nevertheless supported.

Top lawmakers supporting the war powers resolution have largely failed to articulate what the implications of immediately ending operations would be, with some claiming, in spite of the resolution’s language, that U.S. forces would be allowed to finish their mission and wind down.

Some former Democratic officials argued that Gottheimer’s alternative effort would be a more prudent path, with U.S. forces and embassies under fire from Iran, and that any realistic and safe withdrawal would take time. One also argued that the resolution, if brought to a vote, might pick up enough Republican support to pass.

Daniel Silverberg, a former advisor to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), emphasized that a similar effort to cut off the U.S.’ Libya operations led by “one of the most ardent anti-war activists in the House,” then-Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), included a 15-day wind-down provision.

“The Massie-Khanna resolution lacks it. The notion that Democrats would not, at a minimum, support that amendment to allow for a responsible withdrawal of forces is problematic from a national security perspective and from a messaging perspective,” Silverberg said.

Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency under the Obama administration, told JI that the Khanna-Massie resolution “requires [a] very strange outcome” that would be “dangerous for our troops” and that it was not “credible” because it lacked any buffer period.

With the U.S.-Israel operation against Iran widening, the Senate voted 53-47 on Wednesday afternoon — largely along party lines — to block a procedural vote on a war powers resolution that would have forced the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from combat with Iran.

Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and John Fetterman (D-PA) broke with their respective parties as expected, with Paul voting for and Fetterman voting against the motion, with all other lawmakers voting along party lines.

The vote showcased how the Iran war has quickly become a partisan issue, despite lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressing long-standing concerns about the threat from Iran and its malign activities and some Democrats offering a degree of positive commentary about the U.S. strikes.

Though widely expected to fail, Democrats view the resolution, and a similar one up for a vote in the House tomorrow, as a critical avenue to go on record with their opposition to the Trump administration’s military offensive. Many Democrats believe U.S. military engagement in Iran will be politically unpopular in a midterm election year, and are objecting to the administration’s decision not to seek congressional authorization for the operation.

Pressed by Jewish Insider in the days leading up to the vote, several top Democrats backing the resolution did not offer a clear articulation of the potential implications and impacts the resolution would have when U.S. assets and embassies are actively under fire from Iran.

Two argued, in spite of the directive contained in the legislation for U.S. forces to immediately withdraw, that the resolution would nevertheless allow for an orderly completion of the mission and drawdown of U.S. personnel.

Around 40 Democratic senators — most of the caucus — sat together at their desks on the Senate floor as the vote began, a break with usual Senate practice, which sees senators mingle on the floor and filter in and out of the chamber as votes proceed.

The tactic was likely designed to signal the nearly unified Democratic opposition to and concern about the legislation.

Republican Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) had all declined to tell reporters, in the days before the vote, how they planned to vote, but all three ultimately voted with their party against the motion. 

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), a prominent Republican advocate for reclaiming congressional war powers, said in a statement earlier Wednesday that he believed, based on the information he received, “there was a very real possibility of Iran escalating those threats against us and our service members, so President Trump made the difficult decision to direct strikes.”

He said the danger to U.S. forces and allies “will only grow if we limit the President’s military options at this critical moment. An abrupt disengagement could pose increased risks to American lives and interests.”

At the same time, he also called for hearings and debate about the administration’s aims and strategy, particularly as the war continues.

Collins said in a statement, “Passing this resolution now would send the wrong message to Iran and to our troops. At this juncture, providing unequivocal support to our service members is critically important, as is ongoing consultation by the Administration with Congress.”

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said after the vote, “I will say very clearly: Yes, I wish I would have been consulted. I wish my vote would have been asked for before this. But the president did act within his legal bounds to do what he has done.”

Murkowski, Collins, Paul, Young and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently voted with Democrats in favor of a procedural vote on a similar resolution to end U.S. operations in Venezuela, but Hawley and Young ultimately flipped on the vote on the resolution itself, leading the Venezuela resolution to fail.

Paul argued that the war in Iran was contrary to Trump’s campaign message of opposing regime change and preemptive wars, which he said had resonated with him and with other Trump voters.

The general GOP unity around the resolution isn’t necessarily a signal that all Republicans are directly in lockstep behind Trump’s efforts, however, or that they would remain so regardless of how the campaign proceeds.

Hawley — who generally favors a more restrictionist foreign policy — for example, told reporters on Tuesday that he believed Trump would need congressional approval to put troops on the ground in Iran. But Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) offered the opposite view.

Collins said in a statement that “sustained combat operations require full engagement with Congress. The Administration has adhered to the provisions of the War Powers Act that require notification to Congress within 48 hours of hostilities commencing, and it has provided numerous classified briefings to Congress.”

Some former Democratic officials have questioned the wisdom of the approach taken by the war powers resolutions up for debate in the Senate and House, which demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from combat with Iran.

They’ve argued that it’s unreasonable, unrealistic and dangerous for U.S. forces to be required to pull out immediately, without any drawdown period.

“We have U.S. servicemembers in harm’s way. Some are flying combat sorties as we speak. We can’t call them in the cockpit and say ‘Congress has prohibited you from completing this mission. Please turn around and stop what you’re doing.’ If that sounds a little strange, it is because the Ro Khanna [D-CA] resolution requires that very strange outcome,” Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency under the Obama administration, told JI, referring to a similar resolution in the House.

“An immediate withdrawal is dangerous for our troops. Any pullback needs to be orderly and safe. We need to give the combatant commander at least a few weeks to do this safely,” Bash continued. “For a war powers resolution to be credible, it has to build in several days for the commanders to act responsibly to protect their troops. This cannot be done immediately.”

Without congressional authorization, the administration is required under law to end the operation 60 days from its start.

The House is set to vote on similar legislation tomorrow, with most lawmakers again expected to vote along party lines.

The vote was held open for an extended time to allow Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to return to the Senate after his Tuesday night primary election. 

Washington reporter Matthew Shea contributed reporting.