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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/sKzQc2XnmT

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Capitol Hill, it’s usually the senators who publish books, not their staffers. 

The office of Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) has both: Last year, McCormick authored a book on leadership with his wife, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick. Now, McCormick’s chief of staff, Mark Isakowitz, is gearing up to release a book of his own. 

Isakowitz’s book, a memoir, is titled Wisdom in the House of Mourning: Kaddish, My Father, and Me. It tells the story of Isakowitz grappling with the loss of his father, who immigrated to America after surviving Auschwitz, and Isakowitz’s daily practice of reciting the mourner’s prayer at a synagogue in Washington. 

The book is described as a “father’s path from Auschwitz to America,” and “a son’s journey from grief to growth.” It will be published in January.

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.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Monday that he would support President Donald Trump abandoning diplomatic talks with Iran and resuming military operations. 

“It’s becoming clearer and clearer that they’ve been stringing us along and that they had no intention of negotiating in good faith,” Wicker told Jewish Insider of Iran. “I wouldn’t blame the president at all if we resume full-scale war. I don’t think the American people would blame him at all.”

The senator’s remarks follow a sharp weekend escalation, which saw Iran launch a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in response to IDF operations in Beirut. Asked at the Capitol on Monday about Trump’s subsequent pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold back retaliatory strikes, Wicker encouraged a tougher stance on Iran.  

Wicker has been skeptical for weeks of U.S. negotiations with Iran, urging a return to combat operations.

While Netanyahu reportedly called off broader strikes on Iran on Monday, he suggested he had pushed back on Trump’s request for Israel not to respond to an Iranian missile attack on Sunday. Netanyahu said he had relayed to the White House that Israel retains its right to self-defense “with appreciation and respect in my good conversations with my friend President Trump.”

Wicker dismissed concerns that Trump and Netanyahu’s relationship had deteriorated over the war in Iran, and emphasized his support for Israel’s actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“I think the president would tell you that our relationship with Israel is as strong as it’s ever been, and that he’s doing well with Netanyahu,” Wicker said. “On the issue of Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah exists for no reason other than to destroy Israel and kill Americans. That’s the only reason they exist. They’re not a religion, they’re not a region, they’re not an ethnic group.”

“I absolutely believe that Israel has every right to respond forcefully when attacked by Hezbollah,” he added.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) said that Israel and the U.S. are responsible for making their own decisions, but said that shouldn’t damage the core alliance.

“Israel is a sovereign country. They can make their own decisions. We’re a sovereign country, we can make ours,” Budd said. “We can make recommendations to either, and they’re a great ally. We need to make sure we maintain the status of them being a great ally.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) argued that what he characterized as the administration’s failures are producing friction with Israel.

Blumenthal said that “Israel has a right to defend itself” from both Iran and Hezbollah and “has a right to strike back at Hezbollah, in Lebanon, where it is strongest, maybe outside Beirut.”

“The fundamental problem here is that Trump is caught in a quagmire of his own making with unrealistic and, in fact, confused goals that have not been achieved,” Blumenthal continued, “He’s struggling for negotiations, while Israel wants to achieve some goals, including securing the enriched uranium, and so there’s bound to be some tension.”

“But at the end of the day, they’ll have to continue working in concert, because that’s the only path toward peace,” Blumenthal said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Thursday called out recent AIPAC and crypto-linked spending in the crowded Democratic House primary in Maryland to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), accusing “outside groups” of “trying to buy this congressional seat.”

“I think voters need to be aware that these outside groups do not have the voters’ interests at heart,” he said during a press conference.

His comments came days after AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, invested more than $1 million in a television ad buy to boost Adrian Boafo, a Maryland state delegate endorsed by Hoyer as well as other prominent Democrats in the state.

In a statement to Jewish Insider, Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, shot back at the senator, an outspoken critic of Israel who in March called AIPAC anti-American in an address to the progressive Israel advocacy group J Street. “Once again, Chris Van Hollen is deliberately misrepresenting our views and discriminating against millions of pro-Israel Democrats who are members of AIPAC,” Dorton said.

Van Hollen, who is seen as a possible presidential contender in 2028, has not issued an endorsement in the June 23 primary to represent Maryland’s 5th Congressional District — making him a high-profile holdout among state leaders who have thrown their support behind Boafo, including Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD).

Dorton called Boafo, viewed as a favorite to win the nomination, “a strong and principled Democratic fighter,” and said UDP is “proud to stand with leaders like Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and Congressman Steny Hoyer to help get him elected.”

Boafo, for his part, said he agreed with Van Hollen “that big money has no place in politics” and vowed to “work with him in Congress to end Citizens United once and for all,” referring to the Supreme Court decision that struck down limits on independent political spending by corporations. 

“My campaign has been laser focused on the issues of affordability, health care and standing up to this president who has destroyed our economy, including our federal workforce,” Boafo said in a statement to JI shared by a campaign spokesperson, adding that his “coalition is focused on delivering results to the people of Maryland’s 5th District.”

The packed primary also includes Rushern Baker, a former Prince George’s County executive; state Sen. Arthur Ellis; Quincy Bareebe, who challenged Hoyer in 2024; and Harry Dunn, the former Capitol police officer who ran for a separate House seat in Maryland last cycle and drew outside attacks from UDP that are fueling his renewed criticism of its engagement in his current race.

In a recent statement denouncing the group, Dunn accused Boafo of “benefiting from the MAGA donors who fund AIPAC.”

Boafo, 32, is also backed by Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC — which is led by Brian Romick, a former chief of staff to Hoyer.

“We support Adrian Boafo and believe he’s the best candidate for the district,” Romick said in a statement to JI. “We hope Sen. Van Hollen will vocally and specifically oppose all super PAC spending, and not just the spending he disagrees with.”

In his remarks on Thursday, Van Hollen suggested candidates who accept AIPAC’s financial backing are not aligned with prevailing Democratic sentiment on Middle East policy.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that voters do not support unconditional votes in support of the conduct of the government of Israel,” he said, while adding, “For a long time AIPAC has had a pretty free hand.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Friday that the Democratic Party “absolutely” has an issue with rising antisemitism, calling out the party’s embrace of candidates including Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan while criticizing the recent progressive push to cut off defensive aid to Israel. 

The Pennsylvania senator made the comments after being asked on CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt” if he believed the Democratic Party has a problem with antisemitism. Fetterman argued that the growing support for both candidates in their respective primaries was indicative of a tolerance for antisemitism within the party. 

He pointed to Platner surviving the controversy surrounding his Nazi tattoo and Jewish Insider’s reporting in recent days that the first-time candidate repeatedly praised Hamas’ tactics in a 2014 Reddit forum that shared video of the terrorist group killing several Israeli soldiers. 

“I mean, the guy that’s going to win the primary in Maine has a Nazi tattoo on his chest and now that’s no problem for a lot of voters,” Fetterman said. “I don’t know why. That’s crazy. And now, I mean, we know he knows, he knew what that was. I mean, if you’re back over 12, 13 years, cheering about the death of Israeli soldiers, I mean, you clearly have a serious issue, and the left has a serious issue with antisemitism.”

“It was just released that he was praising and celebrating a video online where Hamas was beating and torturing Israeli soldiers to death,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner. 

Fetterman also made note of El-Sayed’s lead in one recent primary poll despite his decision to campaign alongside antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker.

“The guy in Michigan, he’s leading now in that race, as my party becomes more and more hostile to Israel,” Fetterman said. “They’re just palling around someone like Hasan Piker, you know the guy that, absolutely, I mean, he absolutely is proud to cheer for Hamas, loves Hamas.”

“The Democrats are proud to stand with him and campaign with him,” he added. “Go ahead, try to win Pennsylvania and campaign around Hasan Piker, or saying, ‘Yeah, America deserved 9/11’ or ‘Hamas is 1,000% better than Israel’ or ‘I don’t care about the rapes and for all this other things.’ We have a serious problem with my party.”

Fetterman, one of most vocal pro-Israel Democrats in the Senate, told Hunt that Israel is “becoming more and more toxic for a Democrat to support,” pointing out that “80% of Democrats view Israel in a negative way.” He specifically condemned the uptick in progressive and far-left voices coming out against continued defensive aid to Israel.

“You have people like [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] voting against Iron Dome, the technology that prevents tens and tens of [thousands] of Israeli deaths from the rockets that those cowards fire at civilians,” he said.

Fetterman went on to criticize members of his party for opposing the war in Iran, saying that there were other Democrats who felt the same as him in supporting the effort but were not speaking out because doing so would be “politically toxic.” 

“Every single Democrat has already been on record saying, ‘We can‘t ever allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb,’” Fetterman said, specifically naming former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and “everyone that’s run for president” who said “we can’t ever allow that to happen.”

“Then, [President Donald] Trump happened to do something about that to prevent that. That’s why I support that,” he continued. “I’m not the only Democrat who supports this, but I’m the only Democrat that’s willing to stand up and say it’s the right thing because I know how politically toxic it is as a Democrat to support this.”

Fetterman surmised that he is the “only Democrat … perhaps left in the entire Congress” who will say publicly that recent U.S. military action in Iran “was necessary” because doing so “contradicts every single thing that every Democrat has said” about how “we can’t ever allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb.”

Fetterman went on to criticize the Democratic lawmakers who voted for the recent war powers resolutions in the House and Senate, arguing that their opposition to the war has been “celebrated” by Iranian leadership and calling their response to the conflict “absurd.”

“Iran has celebrated this,” Fetterman said of the broad Democratic opposition. “A lot of people in my party and a lot of people in the media has turned Iran into the underdog. They’re like Rudy” — making a reference to the 1993 sports movie — “and putting them up on their shoulders and cheering for Iran at this point.”

Asked to respond to Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-MI) statement that “being pro-Israel today is not about simply supporting the political or military agenda of Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, just like being pro-American should not be equated with loyalty to President Trump,” Fetterman argued that her comments on her votes for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) measures on Thursday blocking military sales to Israel were similarly “absurd.”

“She’s a Democratic senator. Why aren’t you criticizing Iran? Why aren’t you criticizing Hamas or Hezbollah or these other kinds of forces? If you have to pick a side here, criticize that. So that’s where we are as a Democratic Party, and you’re going to vote against the kinds of critical aid that Israel requires and needs in order to beat back and destroy an organization like Hezbollah. Like I said, if you have to pick a side in a war, and clearly we have a side, I’m proud to stand on the side of Israel and America.”

Pressed on if he was still committed to being a Democrat given that his comments marked his harshest criticism yet of his party, Fetterman responded affirmatively.

“Well, of course. Yeah, I am absolutely committed to [remaining a] Democrat, absolutely,” Fetterman said. “I vote 91, 92 percent the Democratic line, but I am the only Democrat now that’s proud to consistently stand with Israel, and I’m going to do that, and that’s been very damaging with my standing as a Democrat.”

“If it’s what’s necessary, I’ll be the last Democrat standing with Israel through this,” he later added.

Fetterman also predicted that the war in Iran would not go on much longer, noting that “things kind of continue to wind down,” and said it’s “important to support” the U.S. securing an outcome in which Iranian leadership “surrenders.”  

“I think these are very positive developments,” he said of Israel and the U.S. targeting Iran and their leading proxies. 

“I think it seems like it’s going to wind down,” Fetterman said. “And we’re heading to a strong end at this point.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.’” 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is no stranger to policy conversations about homeland security and terrorist attacks. As a former CIA analyst and an official at the State Department and the Pentagon, national security has been a top issue for her since her first campaign for Congress, in 2018. 

Now she must apply her policy expertise to a tragedy that is immensely personal: the attack earlier this month at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., where a heavily armed man with ties to the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah drove an explosive-laden car into the building and opened fire, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one else was killed.

“As a senator, I’ve had to rush home for five or six mass shooting events. This one was by far closest to home. Knowing the actual people, knowing the head of security, who was the one who secured my family’s events a month and a half ago, it was just particularly personal,” Slotkin, who is Jewish, told Jewish Insider in an interview in her Capitol Hill office last week.

“I think about if my own family had been in the building. I think about my own staff [who] had family members in the building. It just brought it home in a very different way. The line between who I am as a person and who I am as a leader got completely blurred and still is,” she added. 

In an emotional conversation with JI, Slotkin proposed ways for Congress and the federal government to better respond to the threat of violent, antisemitic extremism. But even as she discussed ways to take action, she spoke with alarm about the growing prevalence of antisemitism on both sides of the aisle, which she described as out of control. 

And she was clearly shaken by an attack that was potentially inches away from being much worse.

“I think it could have been one of the worst mass killing events in U.S. history were it not for the private security that happens to be very top-notch there, and everyone doing their jobs almost perfectly,” she said. “I think it just has contributed to a feeling for many inside the state that the very things that make Jewish life valuable are becoming the soft targets.” 

During Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing earlier this month, which took place days after the Temple Israel attack, Slotkin asked the former Oklahoma senator, a Republican, to work with her on improving the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program. She told JI that her conversations with him have continued.

“I don’t think we’re accurately staffed to the threat in the federal government,” she said. “My personal feeling is we’re at the level where we need, between FBI and DHS, a task force on countering antisemitic hate … Right now, we don’t have a special unit where the officers and the intel professionals get really deep on some of the the particularities of Jewish issues.” 

Congress allocated $274.5 million in 2025 to help nonprofits pay for security expenses, a figure Jewish groups believe is far too low. Slotkin wants to see more money for the program, but she also wants to improve the process for the organizations that are approved to receive those funds. 

“I think making that program, which is a very important program not just to the Jewish community, but making that more streamlined, is our responsibility,” she said. “The Temple Israel folks will tell you in detail how cumbersome that grant program is, that even when you get the money, there’s so much paperwork, so many hoops, such a lag, that it’s actually not meeting modern-day timelines.” 

Mullin said similarly in his confirmation hearing that “the amount of paperwork once you’re approved to get the funding flowing, and then the paperwork that’s followed up on is way too encompassing,” and vowed to work to “streamline” the program.

Temple Israel is one of the largest synagogues in the country and one of the best-protected. Not all institutions will be able to offer that same level of security, Slotkin warned. 

“​​Smaller institutions are just left to figure out how they could possibly protect themselves when Temple Israel became a threat,” she said. 

Slotkin is also pushing for a pilot program connected to the grant program that would give “quick reimbursement dollars for local law enforcement to help secure these locations.”

“The local law enforcement communities know how to help secure a location and know how to help secure on High Holidays or on Shabbat or all those things, but they’re often overstretched themselves,” Slotkin said. “If you pay that local police force for their extra time, it brings dollars into that police force [and] provides professional security for Jewish institutions. Nothing’s perfect, but it all just adds another layer.” 

The real issue, Slotkin pointed out, is antisemitism — and she said the playbook used to address extremism before a person becomes radicalized should be better applied to fighting antisemitism. 

“I think there’s a much bigger problem and question about, How do you deal with rampant antisemitism that’s just become normalized on both the left and the right, and sort of stop what we call the ladder of escalation when a person first starts? This is a very classic radicalization ladder that we see for groups like Al-Qaida,” said Slotkin.

She described the ladder like this: a “normal civilian” sitting on their computer who gets radicalized online, then posts hateful content to their profiles, before vandalizing a Jewish institution and perhaps getting into verbal or physical fights, which might then give way to plotting extremist violence. 

“We have to figure out how to stop and intervene before people start climbing that ladder,” she said. 

“I think [the attack] contributed to this feeling for some that this problem is completely out of control, but the threat is now coming from both the left and the right and from mentally ill people in the middle, and we are not positioned properly to deal with that threat,” Slotkin said. “I don’t think anyone in the Jewish community feels like we have figured out the best way, in particular, to deal with left-wing antisemitism. The Jewish community is pretty used to dealing with white supremacy and threats from the right.”

One day after the attack, Slotkin attended Shabbat services with the Temple Israel community. The gathering was held at Shenandoah County Club, which is located across the street from Temple Israel and serves the Chaldean community, a group of Iraqi Christians. A ballroom in the country club was where parents, teachers and children gathered when they were evacuated from the synagogue during the attack. 

Amid the bleak news that followed the attack, Slotkin wanted people to remember what the Chaldeans did. 

“I literally could not contain my emotion when the community was giving a standing ovation as they brought in the religious leaders, Iraqi American men in religious garb, to thank them,” said Slotkin. “In our hour of greatest need, they did not flinch. And I think Jews in our community for three generations will remember that.” 

As the U.S. deploys thousands of Marines to the Middle East and President Donald Trump continues to send mixed messages about whether he plans for a ground invasion of Iran, one GOP senator said he’s hoping the administration does not take that step.

“I would hope it wouldn’t come to that,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Jewish Insider on Friday, when asked about the possibility of a ground operation in Iran.

Hawley has previously argued that the war should wrap up quickly and said that deploying ground troops might require an affirmative congressional war authorization. His comments suggest that a ground invasion could cause further fractures among Republican lawmakers over the war.

Trump gave conflicting answers last week on whether he plans to send U.S. troops to Iran, saying at one point that he was “not afraid” to deploy troops, but saying later in the week that he did not plan to do so.

Already, a small number of other congressional Republicans are growing hesitant about the effort.

“I wish that the president would figure out a way to end the war. I think it’s becoming more challenging every day in terms of how you end it,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said earlier this week.

Murkowski also said, before reports emerged of a potential $200 billion supplemental funding request for the war, that the funding level requested might “provide its own level of shock.”

And Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said she would oppose any additional funding request for the conflict.

But other Republicans are standing firmly by the administration.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said that he’s not concerned about the possibility of placing troops on the ground.

“The president is doing what he needs to do, he’s got to protect American freedom, he’s got to destroy their nuclear weapons, their ability to hit us with ballistic missiles,” Scott said. “He’s doing the right thing.”

In his nomination hearing to be secretary of homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he will aim to “streamline the process” for grants, including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) aimed at helping harden religious institutions, amid heightened antisemitism and increased threats during the ongoing war in Iran. 

The NSGP has faced persistent challenges, including severe underfunding, controversial new conditions and, most recently, delays tied to the ongoing partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. 

When pressed by senators on the need to unlock NSGP funding in the wake of the violent attack at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit last week, Mullin agreed that the process should be streamlined and said he would aim to “cut out the redundancies” and “amount of paperwork.” 

“The Jewish community is spending about a billion dollars a year privately securing their own institutions,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). “No religious group should have to spend that amount of money on their own security in the United States of America. So I would just ask for your help in reforming the Nonprofit Security Grant Program so it’s agile, so you don’t have to win the grant and then still do 100 pieces of paper.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) echoed those sentiments, noting that the “length of time it takes to get a response” is concerning, especially for “locations that are higher risk than others.”

“Synagogues and temples have been one of those very high risk locations that are out there,” Lankford said, referencing the attack at Temple Israel. “That location happened to be one of the locations where there’s also been this nonprofit security grant to help harden that facility.”

“We have multiple challenges here,” Lankford added. “One of them is, when the decision is made, they make a request, go through the paperwork, get approval to be one of those locations that we say we need to harden this location. Once the approval is done, it may take months to over a year just for the dollars to actually come on it because there’s more bureaucratic hoops to go through.”

In response, Mullin agreed, “there’s a better way to do this.” He added that while he may have political differences with some of the lawmakers on the committee, this issue “isn’t one” of them and that he would be “laser focused and get this resolved.”

“The amount of paperwork once you’re approved to get the funding flowing, and then the paperwork that’s followed up on is way too encompassing,” Mullin said. “Taking years to get reimbursed is not acceptable. Taking months to get reimbursed is not acceptable.”

Mullin was also pressed on the threat of terrorist attacks domestically amid the DHS funding lapse and ongoing conflict in Iran. 

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), cited several recent incidents that had “potential terrorist ties,” including the antisemitic attack at Temple Israel in Michigan whose perpetrator had family ties to Hezbollah; a school shooting at Old Dominion University earlier this month, which is being investigated as an act of terrorism; a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, which is being investigated as having ties to the Iran conflict; and the detonation of bombs in New York City. 

“Is this a good time for the Department of Homeland Security to be shut down and unfunded?” Hawley said. 

“It’s a horrible time,” Mullin replied. “It’s devastating to the morale of the men and women we have tasked to keep care, take care of all of us, all the homeland, regardless it’s a blue state or red state.”

Sen. Richard Bumenthal (D-CT) pressed Mullin over whether he would approve the deportation of Iranian dissidents who could face death or punishment upon being returned to Tehran. The Trump administration has deported Iranians back to Iran from the U.S. on several deportation flights after a deal between the two governments was reached. 

“Before the war in Iran began, the Trump administration negotiated a back-channel agreement, a deal with the Islamic Republic to deport Iranian nationals, including asylum seekers and dissidents,” Blumenthal said. “I have no doubt you share my outrage about the treatment of Iranian nationals who were deported, possibly to torture and death in Iran. We should not be sending Iranian dissidents and asylum seekers back to Iran, wouldn’t you agree?”

Mullin was noncommittal, arguing that he didn’t know “the specifics” behind the incident. 

“Before I can talk about hypotheticals, I would need to know the reasons behind it,” Mullin said. “But I don’t want to deport anybody that’s here legally and most definitely not individuals that have done everything possible to be a contributor to society.”

“We know that our enemies want to infiltrate us and use our rules and generosity against us, so I don’t know the specifics of their background,” Mullin added. “But I will be happy to look into it.” 

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a leader in the House on antisemitism and NGSP funding who attended Mullin’s hearing, told Jewish Insider that DHS needed “new leadership,” and signaled an openness to working with Mullin on the issue.

“We don’t agree on everything, that’s for sure. But, after a decade of working out together most mornings, and finding bipartisan solutions to some of the toughest issues, Markwayne and his family have become very good friends,” Gottheimer said. 

During the hearing, Mullin also noted that Gottheimer is “a friend” and that he would “run through fire for the guy.”

“When Josh asked me to join a bipartisan group called No Labels, that’s when we really started seeing that there’s a lot of common ground that we can work together on,” Mullin said. “We can set the differences aside, and we can work together. In fact, our daughters are writing a book together about bipartisanship.”

Mullin’s prospects for confirmation remain somewhat in question, given apparent opposition from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who leads the committee where Mullin’s nomination vote will take place. Paul’s opposition traces to personal animosity between the two colleagues, as well as what Paul described as Mullin’s “anger issues.” 

Mullin recently called Paul a “freaking snake” and said that he “understood” why Paul’s neighbor had attacked him, an assault that resulted in serious injuries and a prison sentence for Paul’s neighbor. Mullin refused to apologize at the hearing, to Paul’s outrage. 

“I was shocked that you would justify and celebrate this violent assault that caused me so much pain and my family so much pain. The record will show a lack of contrition, no apology and no regrets for your support. You completely understand the violence that was perpetrated on me. You’re unrepentant,” Paul said. “I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.”

“We can have our differences,” Mullin replied. “It’s not going to keep me from doing my job as secretary of homeland security.” 

Paul threatened during the hearing to cancel the vote, scheduled for Thursday, on Mullin’s nomination. If Paul refuses to allow a vote, that would effectively block Mullin’s nomination, even if he otherwise has the necessary support to advance.

The Kentucky senator and committee Democrats also raised questions about a classified trip Mullin claims to have taken to a combat zone while he was a member of the House, the details of which Mullin refused to discuss in public during the hearing, alleging that the trip was classified. Committee members retired to a secure room to discuss the trip after the hearing.

If a vote is held, Mullin will need the support of at least one Democrat on the committee in order to advance without Paul’s support. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has previously expressed his intention to support Mullin, and urged Paul and Mullin to move past their feud during the hearing.

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.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned Saudi Arabia that the escalating tensions with the United Arab Emirates risk benefiting Iran at a critical moment in the Middle East, addressing the nations’ leaders directly in remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“As to MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and MBZ [UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan] — knock it off, Saudi Arabia, knock it off,” Graham said from the stage. “I’m tired of this crap.”

Graham also urged “anybody who will listen in the Middle East — don’t let this moment pass,” and warned that the rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia is “emboldening Iran.” He added that “MBZ is not a Zionist,” pushing back against criticism in Saudi Arabia of the Emirati leader’s ties to Israel. Among other escalatory rhetoric out of the kingdom, a prominent Saudi academic publicly accused Abu Dhabi last month of aligning itself too closely with Jerusalem and acting as “Israel’s Trojan horse in the Arab world.” 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have increasingly been at odds in recent months as the two U.S. allies have backed different sides in several regional conflicts and Riyadh continues to pivot away from its role as a moderating force in the region. 

“Be smart, but don’t be locked down with fear,” said Graham. “I know they [the UAE and Saudi Arabia] got differences in Yemen and they got differences in Sudan, but we got to think big picture,” he said. “To any leader in the region that doesn’t understand you’re on the verge of history, history would judge you poorly.”

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia conducted an airstrike in late December 2025 against what Riyadh said was an Emirati arms shipment linked to the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC). Hours after the strike, the Emirati government announced it would withdraw its remaining troops from the country.

The two countries have also diverged in Sudan, where Riyadh has embraced Islamist-aligned factions while the UAE has aligned with rival forces. The Gulf states have also taken opposite sides in Somalia, with the UAE quietly supportive of Somaliland, while Saudi Arabia condemned Israel for recognizing the region’s independence.

Graham’s remarks in Munich come as the South Carolina senator remains an outspoken advocate of expanded cooperation between Israel and Arab states and has repeatedly emphasized countering Iran as a central U.S. objective in the region. On Monday, Graham met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his Jerusalem office during a trip to Israel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cornyn added that he would not underestimate Crockett.

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

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) called on Qatar to extradite Hamas operative Khaled Mashaal to the U.S., telling Jewish Insider on Wednesday that the leader has the “blood of Americans on his hands.”

Mashaal, who is under U.S. indictment on terrorism-related charges, appeared this past weekend at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, where he rejected the U.N. Security Council-backed plan for Gaza — a move that could further complicate U.S. efforts to advance Phase 2 of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace initiative.

“[Mashaal] is responsible for plotting the brutal massacre of Americans and Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023,” said Budd. “He should absolutely be extradited to the U.S. to face justice for his appalling crimes, not walking free to make public appearances in Qatar calling for Hamas to maintain its weapons and deny foreign intervention in Gaza.”

Budd also told JI that he wants to see Qatar crack down on the content disseminated by state-backed Al Jazeera.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said that he wasn’t familiar with Mashaal’s case in particular, but told JI that “one would like to see the that Qataris, who are supposed to be helping us out, participate or cooperate with us when we’re trying to bring terrorists to justice.”

Also featured at the forum was Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in July 2025. Appearing by video, she told forum attendees that humanity has a “common enemy” in Israel.  

Middle East policy experts have cautioned that Qatar’s hosting of prominent Hamas and U.S.-sanctioned individuals allows those figures to circumvent U.S. restrictions, while promoting anti-American sentiment. The U.S. does not currently impose any direct sanctions on Qatar. 

“The Qataris are not inherently violating U.S. sanctions by inviting these guys to speak,” said Natalie Ecanow, senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But, she added, “that’s not to say that this isn’t a latent disregard for U.S. sanctions by a country that’s supposed to be an ally and a partner.”

Ecanow said it is “not the first time” the Qataris have “thrown a finger in the face of American sanctions.” She noted Doha’s significant and long-term investment in Russia’s energy sector amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as Qatar’s continual hosting of Hamas officials.

“The Qataris say that they were asked by the Americans to host Hamas. I have not seen documentation to prove that,” said Ecanow. “Hamas leaders have been living there for over a decade, and they amass multi-billion dollar fortunes.” 

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat and senior fellow at FDD, called the forum in Doha a “convention of enemies of America,” telling JI that the decision to give Hamas leaders a platform is “thoroughly obnoxious.” 

“The fact that this is happening doesn’t seem to me to be a significant evolution from what has been completely normal practice in Qatar throughout the year and during the Trump administration,” said Fitton-Brown. “How do you have a close relationship with Qatar when it evidently supports Hamas?”

Ecanow said Doha’s actions are especially troubling as a country that is supposed to be a U.S. partner. During Trump’s second term, the White House has worked to strengthen bonds with Qatar; the president visited last May and signed an executive order in September that regards “any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.” The two countries also finalized an agreement in October that allows Doha to build an air force facility in Idaho.

“These guys are supposed to be our allies,” said Ecanow. “It’s not just some random country that’s disrespecting U.S. sanctions. It’s a major non-NATO ally. It hosts the largest American military base in the region and invests billions of dollars in the U.S. education system.” 

Michael Jacobson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the issue has become a “continuous source of angst and irritation in Washington circles.” He said that entities and individuals in Qatar are involved in “sanctionable activity.”

“I’m sure there’s still Qatari entities and individuals involved in trying to send money to Hamas,” said Jacobson. “It’s interesting that this administration has sanctioned many entities and pushed other governments to sanction entities tied to Hamas and its fundraising, meanwhile I don’t think there’s been any in Qatar that have been sanctioned over the last year.”

Jacobson described the issue as a “long-standing problem” and said the Trump administration’s inaction is “telling,” adding that there is “certainly stuff you could sanction if you wanted to.” However, he also argued that the U.S. relationship with Qatar does carry upside.

“It’s not like [Qatar is] doing nothing to help us,” said Jacobson. “They did serve as a liaison to Hamas, and they were able to, with the Turks, put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages and agree to a ceasefire.” 

Regardless, analysts suggested that the Trump administration is unlikely to alter its current approach to Doha.

“It would have to be something really headline-grabbing that would have the president look at it and say, ‘Hang on a minute,” said Fitton-Brown. 

“In my view, the nearest we’re going to get to [sanctions] is going to be some of the actions of the Qatari state in U.S. academia, where they’re putting money into universities with completely unacceptable conditions about not criticizing Qatar or appointing totally unsuitable faculty,” said Fitton-Brown.

He added that Qatar’s influence in education “crosses over with some of the anti‑Israel, anti‑Jewish, anti‑American manifestations on U.S. campuses that have certainly been a focus of concern from this administration.”

Even if Washington stops short of imposing new penalties, Fitton-Brown argued that the larger strategic question about Qatar’s role in the U.S. and the region remains unresolved.

“[Qatar] is not a friend,” said Fitton-Brown. “At best it’s a frenemy, and at worst it’s actually a systematic and insidious and sustained threat to America, its way of life, and its values.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) abruptly ended his meeting with Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, on Thursday after Haykal declined to refer to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Graham met with Haykal in his Senate office for a planned discussion on the latest military developments in Lebanon and the LAF’s approach to Israel and Hezbollah. The South Carolina senator wrote on X that he asked the Lebanese military official at the start of the meeting if he viewed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and did not appreciate the response he received. 

“I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Chief of Defense General Rodolphe Haykal,” Graham said. “I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon.’ With that, I ended the meeting.”

“They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the U.S. Marines. They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 — for good reason,” he added. “As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them. I am tired of the double speak in the Middle East. Too much is at stake.”

Haykal has been in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. lawmakers and Trump administration officials. Aside from Graham, Haykal met with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively. Haykal also met with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and officials at the CIA, the Pentagon and the National Security Council.

He was previously slated to visit the U.S. in November, but scrapped the trip after Graham and others canceled their meetings over a statement Haykal released weeks prior that blamed Israel for the unrest in Lebanon without mentioning Hezbollah. Graham, who has visited Lebanon multiple times in the last year to encourage the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah and stabilize its border with Israel, warned in numerous statements responding to Haykal at the time that his position toward U.S.-Lebanon relations would likely shift if changes were not made. 

“It is clear that the Lebanese Chief Head of Defense — because of a reference to Israel as the enemy and his weak almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah — is a giant setback for efforts to move Lebanon forward,” Graham wrote on X in November. “This combination makes the Lebanese Armed Forces not a very good investment for America.”

“The idea of the Lebanese military joining forces with Hezbollah to combat Israel would put in jeopardy everything that I and many others are trying to do to help Lebanon move forward,” he cautioned in another tweet. 

The U.S., along with Graham, has been pushing Lebanon to follow through on its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, made as part of the Trump administration’s ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024. The first phase of the deal, which went into effect in November of that year, called for the Lebanese military to remove Hezbollah from the territory south of the Litani River, near Israel’s border, by the end of 2025. The second phase would then focus on Hezbollah’s disarmament north of the Litani. 

The Lebanese government announced it accomplished that goal in early January, though Israel has disputed that claim, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying, “Efforts made toward this end by the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese Armed Forces are an encouraging beginning, but they are far from sufficient, as evidenced by Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm and rebuild its terror infrastructure with Iranian support.”

Graham said while in Israel in late December that the “trend lines in Lebanon” were “optimistic” following months of public statements from several senior Lebanese government officials calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed. 

“If you want peace, deal with the people who do not. Take them out of the game. Get your head out of the sand,” Graham said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “If you want a peaceful Lebanon, you need to find a way to deal with Hezbollah because they don’t want peace with Israel. They want to destroy Israel. Most people in Lebanon don’t want to destroy Israel.”

Sam Brownback, the former U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom and a former GOP senator, warned Wednesday that, unless Syrian minority groups are allowed to maintain their own security forces, they face a likely genocide by government-aligned forces.

The stark warning is a repudiation of the policies of the new Syrian government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, which had pushed for full integration of minority-led forces into the Syrian military and most recently launched a military offensive against the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Defense Forces, largely forcing a Kurdish surrender.

Forces aligned with the Syrian government have also carried out massacres of Druze, Alawite and Christian minorities since al-Sharaa’s rise.

The Trump administration has remained largely supportive of the al-Sharaa government, even as critics have accused it of essentially abandoning the U.S.’ longtime Kurdish allies to the Syrian government onslaught.

“The new administration in Syria is purging religious minorities, threatening and killing them,” Brownback said at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “These groups must be allowed to maintain their own security forces, or I guarantee you today, a genocide will happen in Syria like happened in Iraq to the Yazidis and Christians.”

Brownback urged the U.S. to pressure the Syrian government to change course.

“One Syria — not talking about breaking Syria — but the people there, the Druze, the Alawites and Christians, have to be able to provide their own security,” he said. “The Kurds are our best allies. We’ve got to keep standing with the Kurds. They will protect religious minorities and they need to be able to have their own security.”

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), who questioned Brownback on the issue, said that he and “many” of his colleagues “struggled” with the idea of repealing the Caesar Civilian Protection Act, the last major sanctions targeting Syria, but ultimately did so on the promise of continued congressional oversight.

In the Senate, a bipartisan pair of lawmakers is pushing to reverse course and re-institute sanctions in response to the attack on the Kurds..

Brownback also warned that there are “early warning signs of a Muslim-on-Christian war … brewing across Africa,” and that the U.S. needs to get out ahead of it. He pointed to Nigeria as a starting point of this conflict, with its government backed by China, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia engaging in persecution of Christians.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) accused the Trump administration, and colleagues on the Hill, of turning a blind eye to what he described as attacks on the Christian community in “Palestine, including Jerusalem” by Israeli government forces and Israeli settlers.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) warned on Thursday that the U.S. would need to reevaluate its relationship with Saudi Arabia if Riyadh makes a long-term pivot against efforts to normalize relations with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested this week that Saudi Arabia’s increasing rapprochement with Turkey and Qatar would be a nonstarter for continued normalization efforts. Leading Saudi figures and media have also recently taken a strongly anti-Israel and antisemitic tone, which Netanyahu said provides aid to anti-Israel forces.

“If they’re reversing course on normalization, all bets are off for almost everything, including a defense treaty and other kinds of agreements,” Blumenthal told Jewish Insider. “I would very much regret it, and I think they would too in the long run, because it goes against all of the long-term goals of the kingdom to turn a leaf on terrorism and restore or reimagine their economy with less dependence on oil.”

He added that he “would be very surprised” if Riyadh actually makes such a pivot “and I hope that this indication of a change in course is just a short-term flip.”

Pressed on signals that Riyadh’s long-term vision may be shifting — given Saudi Arabia’s deepening ties to Turkey and Qatar and its recent plans to scale back some of the landmark megaprojects that were part of its Vision 2030 push — Blumenthal said he believes that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s plan remains the same.

“I think there continues to be a long-term strategy in MBS’ mind, but there’s no question we need to be very clear-eyed that there are reactionary forces, and frankly antisemitic elements, in the regime,” Blumenthal said. “And we’re going to see those elements bubble up and potentially resist progress — and hopefully not prevent it. But we need to be very mindful of the mantra ‘trust but verify’ when dealing with Saudi.”

Two Republican senators offered a more optimistic view on the future of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said that “every conversation I’ve had with Saudi Arabia is that they’re interested in normalization,” and that he would have to hear from Riyadh directly before judging the consequences of any potential change in direction.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said that he didn’t have a strong read on Saudi Arabia’s current stance on normalization, but that he continues to believe that it is in the U.S.’ and the world’s interest.

“That brings long-term stability to the region,” Lankford said. “It’s been one of the main dividing points in the region is this absurd belief that Israel’s not even a country should be recognized. We don’t break through that until everybody just acknowledges everybody’s sovereignty.”

A bipartisan group of senators wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urging him to “surge resources to quickly enable critical internet freedom support” to protesters in Iran, pointing to funding cuts that have stretched resources for such programs.

“Today, many of the NGOs and technology providers that maintain these tools are facing closure due to funding cuts and more importantly, fewer Iranian citizens can share their videos and messages with the world and each other,” the letter warns. “Without the continuous operation of internet freedom programming carried out by the State Department and Open Technology Fund, millions of Iranians will lose their last secure window and voice to the outside world.”

The lawmakers, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), warned that if U.S. programs fully lapse, regime-controlled programs and state media will step into the gap, “giving the regime near-total control over the digital space and putting users at far greater risk.”

“As we watch brave Iranians take to the streets, it is clear that supporting the Iranian people’s access to information is not a partisan issue but a matter of national security, as well as meeting legislative requirements for a strategy for promoting internet freedom in Iran,” the lawmakers said, pointing to existing legislation mandating the State Department to expand internet access in Iran. “The United States must pair its maximum pressure on the regime with maximum support for the Iranian people.”

The letter comes at a time when Congress has offered few of its own strategies to respond to the wave of protests around Iran — which, according to Rubio, have now largely been put down by the regime.

Such efforts to promote free internet access to the Iranian people, amid efforts by the regime to impose an internet blackout, have emerged as a key area of bipartisan agreement.

Much of the U.S.’ global communications programming, including funding for promoting internet access, was slashed last year amid cutbacks to various foreign aid programs. Some prominent Republicans have criticized the administration, saying that government-sponsored news programming and communications assistance have failed to meet the moment in Iran.

The letter emphasizes the “long-standing and bipartisan commitment” to supporting internet freedom programs, which are “more important than ever as the people of Iran protest against the regime in record numbers.” The legislators noted that prior administrations have, for two decades, supported various anti-censorship and internet freedom tools in Iran, and that Congress passed legislation in 2024 supporting such programs.

“Without U.S. leadership, an entire generation of Iranians would have remained in the dark — and the most powerful source of pressure against the Islamic Republic, the Iranian people themselves, would have been neutralized,” the letter reads.

It notes that the existing U.S. programs allowing a small number of Iranians to remain online had “proved decisive” during the Israel-Iran war last summer to demonstrate the division between the Iranian people and the regime, and said that expanded internet access now “would put a spotlight on the increasingly securitized atmosphere that is cracking down on dissent.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called on Saudi Arabia to end what he described as its “attack on the United Arab Emirates” and slammed the country’s silence regarding the Syrian government’s campaign against the Kurds, demanding the kingdom use its influence to “keep the region from falling further into chaos.”

Graham made the comments in a post Tuesday morning on X, hours after announcing his plans to introduce legislation this week imposing sanctions on any government or group involved in targeting Kurdish forces in Syria. Syrian government forces have recently led a campaign against the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, resulting in the loss of SDF control over parts of the country’s territory. 

“As previously stated, I am trying to work with the administration and regional partners to prevent a bloodbath in Syria against our Kurdish allies,” Graham wrote. “It is now time for the region to change their ways and man up for decency.”

“To Saudi Arabia: I have tried to work hard to chart a new path for relations between your country, the United States and the region,” he continued. “I have tremendous respect for many of the changes that have been embraced. However, the Kingdom’s attack on the United Arab Emirates and their silence regarding the Syrian government’s constant assault on the Kurds has to change.”

Last month, Saudi forces carried out airstrikes in southern Yemen targeting what they said were weapons shipments from the United Arab Emirates to UAE-backed separatists, escalating tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and prompting the UAE to announce a withdrawal of its remaining forces from Yemen.

The South Carolina senator continued, “Please understand that I am smart enough to know that Saudi Arabia has influence on the Syrian government, and I expect them to use it to keep the region from falling further into chaos.”

Graham, who has been closely engaged with the Saudis while lobbying the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel, said earlier this month that he would be “dramatically rethinking” the “nature of” the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states if they “intervened on behalf of Iran to avoid decisive military action” by President Donald Trump against the Iranian regime.

“All the headlines suggesting that our so-called Arab allies have intervened on behalf of Iran to avoid decisive military action by President Trump are beyond disturbing. The ayatollah’s regime has American blood on its hands. They are slaughtering people in the streets,” Graham said at the time. 

“If it is accurate that the Arab response is ‘action is not necessary against Iran’ given this current outrageous slaughter of innocent people, then there will be a dramatic rethinking on my part regarding the nature of the alliances now and in the future.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, after Netanyahu linked the terror attack in which 15 people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, to Canberra’s support for a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu highlighted in a speech on Sunday that he had warned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that Canberra’s recognition of a Palestinian state was fueling antisemitism and endangering Australian Jews. Netanyahu further accused Albanese of failing to take action against antisemitism.

Sanders issued a statement in response on Tuesday: “No, Mr. Netanyahu. Speaking out on behalf of the Palestinian people is not antisemitic. Opposing the disgraceful policies of your extremist government is not antisemitic. Condemning your genocidal war, which has killed more than 70,000 people — mostly women and children — is not antisemitic. Demanding that your government stop bombing hospitals and starving children is not antisemitic.”

He said that “we must continue to oppose antisemitism and all forms of racism and bigotry. At the same time, we must demand a world in which international law and human rights are respected by all governments, without exception.”

Sanders opted against signing onto a joint statement issued Monday by Jewish Senate Democrats condemning the Sydney attack. Asked about his decision not to join the collective statement from Jewish Senate Democrats, a Sanders spokesperson pointed JI to Sanders’ comment on Sunday mourning the attack, in which the Vermont senator called antisemitism “a disgusting and cowardly ideology” that is “growing worldwide” and added, “we must be equally committed to fighting all forms of” bigotry. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) vote Wednesday night, with a majority of Senate Democrats, in favor of a resolution to block a shipment of automatic weapons to Israel is fueling renewed frustration with the senator within the Georgia Jewish community, setting back efforts by the senator to repair ties with Jewish voters who objected to similar votes last December.

Ossoff’s relationship with Georgia’s sizable Jewish community could be a critical deciding factor in his reelection campaign next November — with a tight margin of victory expected in the swing state, significant changes in Jewish voting patterns could help decide the election.

The Georgia senator alienated many in the Jewish community by voting in December for two of three resolutions to block aid shipments to Israel. In subsequent months — after a group of Jewish donors expressed support for Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as a potential challenger — Ossoff reached out to Jewish community leaders and groups to work to repair ties, with some success.

Many leaders said at the time that he was making progress but had more work to do to fully regain their trust. Those efforts hit a stumbling block in June after Ossoff — whose second child had just been born — took nearly a week to comment on the war between Israel and Iran.

Ossoff said, of his votes on Wednesday, that he had voted for the resolution to block the automatic weapons to send a message to the Israeli government objecting to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as due to concerns that the weapons would be provided to police controlled by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a controversial figure even in pro-Israel circles.

He said he voted against a second resolution blocking a sale of bombs and bomb guidance kits, because those weapons are necessary to strike targets throughout the region attempting to launch missiles and rockets at Israeli civilians. Ossoff had similarly opposed a resolution on bombs and guidance kits in November, while voting for two other resolutions to block other weapons transfers. 

Norman Radow, a major Democratic donor in Georgia who spoke to Ossoff on Wednesday evening after the votes, told Jewish Insider, “I’m disappointed with him and he knows it. And I think he knows that a vast majority of the Jewish community feels the same way.”

Radow said that Ossoff’s justifications for his vote on the assault rifles resolution didn’t hold water for him and his logic was “sophomoric.” The Democratic donor said he’d argued to the senator that Ossoff had overstated the extent of violence in the West Bank and of starvation in Gaza. 

And he said he told the senator that non-binding efforts condemning Hamas and its backers are ineffectual, as compared to the real impacts that cutting off military supplies to Israel would have. 

He indicated he appreciated the senator’s call.

“I’m disappointed in his behavior, but I can’t say it’s a surprise. We’ve seen this before,” Cheryl Dorchinsky, the founder of the grassroots Atlanta Israel Coalition, said. “It’s insane to me that anyone would think that voting against weapons to Israel during a war is a good idea, regardless of who’s in power.”

She said she feels adrift from both political parties. “When people that I see going into politics as having hopefully an interest in doing the right thing fail us as a people, it just kind of breaks my heart,” Dorchinsky said. She argued that Israel should not be a partisan issue, and blamed “bad actors” trying to turn it into one.

“While I wish [Ossoff] would have voted against both of [the resolutions], I’m very pleased he voted against [the one on bombs and bomb guidance kits],” Dov Wilker, who serves as the regional director of the American Jewish Committee in Atlanta, said. Wilker also said he was “disappointed” that the state’s other senator, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), had voted for both of the resolutions.

Another Jewish Democratic donor in Georgia said, “The yes vote with Sanders, who only wants to destroy the U.S.-Israel relationship, is concerning [and] emboldens the terrorists to continue to reject the ceasefire that was agreed to by Israel. It’s exactly what Hamas wants.”

Rabbi Joshua Heller of Atlanta’s Congregation B’nai Torah told JI that, while he does not endorse candidates, he’s heard in conversations that “a lot of folks who had previously been strong supporters of [Ossoff’s] in the Jewish community are not happy about the stands that he has taken.”

Heller said that, in conversations with him about such positions, Ossoff and his staff have highlighted actions he has taken in support of Israel, “and that is true, but every time a vote like this comes around, there is a break in trust and that becomes harder to restore.”

He said that in conversations with Democratic Jewish voters, many onetime Ossoff supporters are “having second thoughts, at this point,” and that there is a real “challenge in his relationship with a lot of folks in the Jewish community right now.”

“No Jewish community is monolithic, but I definitely see a lot of folks in the community who are troubled by this,” Heller said.

Ossoff still maintains supporters in the Jewish community who back his stance on this week’s resolutions.

Beth Sugarman, a prominent J Street member in Georgia, told JI, “The Jewish community has diversity of opinions, but the people I know think Jon Ossoff is thoughtful and represents us well and his statement and split vote was a good reflection of where the community is. The senator’s statement and split vote was thoughtful and exactly what the community believes.”

J Street supported both of the resolutions to block aid.

Cary Levow, a supporter of pro-Israel causes and candidates, said, “I support Senator Ossoff and know of other Jewish Georgians who understand that Jon’s approach to the Gaza humanitarian issue is genuine.” 

“Senator Ossoff has voted for over $20 billion in aid to Israel, has family living in Israel and has spent a significant amount of time in the country,” Levow continued. “I think Jon has represented the Jewish community well and I have zero concern about a senator who is critical of how [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] Bibi is waging this war.”

Larry Auerbach, a Georgia lawyer and Ossoff supporter, said, “Senator Ossoff has done what the vast majority of Georgia’s Jewish community has asked him to do to represent us well by standing up for protecting the Israeli people’s security and saying that the extremists in the Netanyahu administration can’t continue like this.”

National Republicans see Ossoff’s positions as an opening to peel off Jewish voters in the upcoming senatorial election. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has seized on Ossoff’s November votes to block aid to Israel, again slammed him on Wednesday.

“Jon Ossoff is a radical leftist who time and again refuses to stand with Georgia’s Jewish community,” NRSC spokesperson Nick Puglia said in a statement. “He’d rather please the pro-Hamas extremists in his party than stand with Israel and Jewish Georgians. In 2026, voters will send him packing.”

Radow, the Democratic donor, argued that Ossoff’s votes were “bad politics,” though he said he’s not sure any of the current or prospective Republican candidates can beat Ossoff.

“He’s kowtowing to Bernie Sanders — that does not win elections in Georgia,” Radow said. “The only thing that Jon’s got going for him right now is the Republican field of candidates is pretty weak. … I want him to win, and he’s not winning my vote right now, and he’s not going to win a lot of people’s votes supporting Bernie resolutions.”

He said that whether he ultimately supports Ossoff next year will depend in part on which Republican ultimately ends up as the nominee against him.

“It’s certainly going to be an interesting race, and my vote is still up for grabs,” Radow said. “I’m not going to be a knee-jerk Democrat on this issue.”

He urged Ossoff, going forward, not to show public daylight with Israel, “stop playing secretary of state” and keep disputes with the Israeli officials behind closed doors. And he called on the senator to consult with Jewish community members before critical votes like this one, rather than reaching out afterward to explain his votes.

Dorchinsky said that she would “never say never to anything,” when asked if Ossoff could win her support at this point, and that she’ll “be paying attention” and make her final decision when she’s in the voting booth next year.

“He has a responsibility to represent us all, and if he actually started to, I would be thrilled. As of right now, I’m clearly not,” Dorchinsky said.

A Jewish leader in Georgia agreed that a key deciding question for wary Jewish voters will be who the Republican Party nominates to run against Ossoff in 2025.

The leader told JI he thinks that Ossoff’s vote for the assault rifles resolution could help him “thread the needle” more easily than other resolutions and represented a more “considerate” approach, given the Ben-Gvir connection. “I think the majority of American Jews are not fans of Ben-Gvir,” the Jewish leader said.

“I think that if he is consistent with his messaging around the specific nature of why he voted against the assault rifles, I think it’ll help people that are more on the fence with him, but want to vote for him — versus those that are just against him,” the leader said.

But, the leader continued, “that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to buy it,” and noted that many members of the community are unhappy with the vote. 

They  said the vote is particularly “not going to help” Ossoff among Jewish community members upset by his delay in commenting on the Iran war, “but those that were able to give him some grace that he finally said something — this will help them.”

Heller was more skeptical that Ossoff’s vote-splitting approach would satisfy anyone, saying he thinks the strategy won’t help Ossoff with supporters of Israel who don’t believe in stopping weapons shipments nor with opponents of Israel who believe in cutting off all aid to Israel.

Georgia is used to political dynasties. The daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn and the grandson of President Jimmy Carter have both run for statewide office in recent years, while incumbent Senator David Perdue is the first cousin of former governor and current Trump cabinet member Sonny Perdue. But Georgians aren’t used to dynasties coming from other parts of the country.

Democrat Matt Lieberman is hoping to change that in 2020. The suburban Atlanta businessman and son of former Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) is the first candidate to jump into Georgia’ special election for the U.S. Senate. The seat is currently held by Johnny Isakson, who will resign at the end of the year. Isakson’s departure, announced earlier this year, will prompt Republican governor Brian Kemp to appoint a replacement who will try to hold the seat in a non-partisan special election in November 2020.

Lieberman enters the race as a relative political unknown, despite his famous father. Howard Franklin, a Democratic political strategist in Georgia, told JI that he didn’t think Lieberman’s entry would keep other well-known names out of the race. Lieberman had not even been on the radar of well-connected Democrats in the state until recently.

In an interview with Jewish Insider earlier in October, Lieberman joked that he was winning “in a blowout” as the only declared candidate in this race. A businessman and former principal at a Jewish day school, Lieberman said he hadn’t expected to run for office, despite his upbringing. “Honestly, I thought about it at a much, much younger age coming out of law school, and I hadn’t thought about it in 20 years,” said the Democratic Senate hopeful. “I have not been positioning or angling for this. I am truly running as an outsider as a fed up citizen of Georgia and for the fed up citizens of Georgia and I think I got to a point where a lot of us are right now, I couldn’t take it any more I felt compelled to get up off of my butt and do something.”

Lieberman is running as a mainstream Democrat who supports impeaching Trump and implementing a public option to allow Americans to buy into a government-run health care plan. This proposal was almost passed during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, but was blocked by objections from then-Senator Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman’s relationship with his father will likely present some issues with liberal voters. In addition to blocking progressive goals like a public option, the senior Lieberman broke from the Democratic Party first by successfully running for re-election as an independent in 2006 and then by actively campaigning for John McCain during the 2008 presidential election.

Matt Lieberman recognized the challenge that comes along with having a high-profile politician as a father, telling JI, “for voters here in Georgia who like [Joe Lieberman], I hope they’ll give me a little bit of an extra hearing, and for the people who really don’t like him I would just remind them that technically speaking we are two different people and I think they’ll give me a hearing as well. Honestly, I think ultimately people are fair in that regard, even if they have no intention of supporting you, I think they will hear you out so I think people will do me that courtesy because it’s what engaged citizens ought to do so.”

Former Senator Lieberman’s reputation has left a number of progressive activists skeptical, however. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a progressive Democratic activist group, told JI, “Joe Lieberman is the corporate war-monger past of the Democratic Party. I don’t know anything about his son, but voters don’t love insider legacies and don’t love corporate greed and don’t love the Iraq War — so Joe Lieberman’s reputation likely won’t be helpful in this campaign.”

Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks and a leading progressive activist, used even stronger language with JI. “The sins of the father should not be passed on to the son but neither should any degree of credibility,” he told JI. “Why are we having a conversation about this guy? Because of his last name and only because of his last name. I’m tired of these wannabe royals in America. His policy positions are milquetoast, which does run in the family. Apparently, we’ve gotten the Liebermans to a public option, give us a couple of more generations and we might finally get them to single payer.”

Regardless of initial skepticism, Matt Lieberman is already using his family background to amplify his progressive message. In his campaign announcement video, he tied the controversial 2000 Florida recount to Stacey Abrams’s defeat in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race, one that Abrams has claimed was stolen. Lieberman has declined to go that far, telling JI, “I think there were enough problems that were identified in the election to make a reasonable person not just worried but frustrated that it wasn’t run in a better way with fewer problems.”

On foreign policy, Lieberman expressed concern that Trump had “completely sold out” the Kurds, whom he described as a “reliable [and] heroic ally of the United States under difficult circumstances.” In his view, “we should be sticking by our allies.” Lieberman went on to “extend that thought to the issue of our alliance with Israel and one of the concerns it’s fair to have when it comes to this president is that no one really knows where he is going to be tomorrow on an issue and why he’s going to be there and that’s problematic.”

Lieberman struck far more equivocal notes about the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. “I think the Iran nuclear deal could have been better,” said the Senate hopeful. “I will say only as a lay person, only as a citizen, that the benefit of delaying Iran’s nuclear capability may well have been outweighed by the cost of freeing up enormous sums of money for Iran to wreak havoc.” Lieberman added “I think any future deal would need to look at what that experience has been and would look at what Iran has done with the funds that were opened up to it and take that into much more serious consideration given actual events that have transpired.”Before the election can happen, Lieberman still has to find out who his opponent will be. Republican Governor Brian Kemp, whom Lieberman parodied in his first campaign ad, will appoint Isakson’s replacement by end of the year. The special election will be a jungle primary in which candidates from all parties will compete against each other in November 2020 to serve the remaining two years of Isakson’s term. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, a runoff between the top two finishers for the seat will be held in January 2021.

Westerville, Ohio — In a heated debate Tuesday night, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) bore the brunt of the attacks from rival candidates after taking the lead in national and early state polls.

On a crowded stage of 12 presidential hopefuls, the Massachusetts Democrat faced barbed questions about her health care and tax policies from more moderate rivals including South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

Buttigieg, who launched a web ad attacking Warren for her support for Medicare for All before Tuesday’s debate, tried to portray her as a classic Washington politician reluctant to acknowledge the tax increases that would come as part of the plan. Warren has emphasized that costs will go down “for hardworking middle-class families” as part of legislation intended to provide free health care coverage to every American. 

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has long boasted of “writing the damn [Medicare for All] bill,” acknowledged that taxes would go up, but “for virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less — substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expansions.” Klobuchar praised Sanders “for being honest” and then accused Warren of not telling Americans “where we’re going to send the invoice.” Klobuchar defended her comments after the debate, telling reporters, “I wasn’t sharply attacking anyone, I was making my case about why I’m the best candidate.”

Although in past debates, Warren had been attacked by centrist candidates for her support for Medicare for All, that criticism came from long-shot candidates like former Congressman John Delaney (D-MD) and former Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO). The Massachusetts Democrat emphasized her health care policy as a moral position and said that “the issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the health care industry.”

Warren faced attacks from rivals on a variety of other topics: Businessman Andrew Yang criticized her support of a wealth tax, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) attempted to pin her down on foreign policy and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) went after her for refusing to call on Twitter to delete President Donald Trump’s account.

Warren also had a tense exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden. After Warren touted her efforts to create the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) during the Obama administration, Biden noted his own efforts at the time, telling her, “I went to the floor and I got you the votes.” In response, Warren pointedly thanked Barack Obama for his efforts.

The debate also featured the first extended discussion of foreign policy in the six presidential debates of the 2020 cycle, and came days after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria as the Turkish military launched an invasion of the country.

Gabbard, who has defended the regime of Bashar al-Assad, served as a foil for the other candidates on stage, criticizing “regime-change wars” and attacking “the mainstream media” and politicians from both parties for having, along with Trump, the “blood of Kurds” on their hands. Gabbard’s comments prompted a fierce rebuke from Buttigieg about the president’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces. “Part of what makes it possible for the United States to get people to put their lives on the line to back us up is the idea that we will back them up, too,” said the South Bend mayor, who served a tour in Afghanistan as a Navy reservist. “This president has betrayed American values. Our credibility has been tattered.”

Elizabeth Warren argued, “I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East.  I don’t think we should have troops in the Middle East but we have to do it the right way, the smart way.” Warren’s comments were strongly criticized by fellow senator Chris Coons (D-DE) after the debate. Coons, a Biden supporter, told reporters that Warren’s statement “showed a striking degree of naïveté or ill preparedness.”

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke clashed with the other candidates over his support for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons. O’Rourke, whose hometown of El Paso, Texas, was the site of a mass shooting in August, insisted that if assault weapons “are too dangerous to sell, they are also too dangerous to own.” He sparred with Buttigieg, who said that the Texas Democrat was focused on “purity tests,” arguing that O’Rourke had no clear plan for how he would take assault weapons away from their owners. O’Rourke also faced criticism from former HUD Secretary Julian Castro. “I am not going to give these police officers another reason to go door to door in certain communities, because police violence is also gun violence, and we need to address that,” Castro said.

Democrats did find common ground in the first debate since the beginning of the impeachment inquiry against Trump. On stage Tuesday night, there was unanimous support for the impeachment inquiry centered around Trump’s effort to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Only hours after the former vice president’s son admitted to bad judgment in an interview with ABC News, his father insisted on the debate stage “my son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong.”