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Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in Lewistown, Pa., and hear his thoughts on New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s defense of calls to “globalize the intifada,” and report on White House official Seb Gorka’s comments yesterday that the U.S. isn’t pursuing regime change in Iran. We report on an Israeli initiative to provide medical assistance to Druze women who were sexually assaulted during sectarian clashes in Syria last week, and cover Sen. Rand Paul’s efforts to delay former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Kemi Badenoch, Seth Klarman and Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Don Bacon.

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Inside a coffee shop in rural Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from the bustle of Manhattan, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made his first public comments about Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday following the democratic socialist’s victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary a month earlier.

Mamdani “seemed to run a campaign that excited New Yorkers. He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him to not condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things,” Shapiro told Jewish Insider.

Shapiro’s comments come as Mamdani continues to face backlash for declining to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” and as national Democratic figures struggle to figure out how to respond to his come-from-behind victory and to assess what his nomination means for the future of the party.  

“I’ll say this about Mamdani or any other leader,” Shapiro told JI. “If you want to lead New York, you want to lead Pennsylvania, you want to lead the United States of America, you’re a leader. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democratic leader or a democratic socialist leader. You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there. You’ve got to condemn that.”

Widely viewed as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, Shapiro has steered clear of weighing in on a number of divisive national issues, preferring instead to focus on Pennsylvania, where he maintains a 61% approval rating. But national conversations, including about Israel and antisemitism, have found their way to the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg — in more ways than one.

In April, the residence was set ablaze in an arson attack just hours after Shapiro and his family had hosted a Passover Seder. Police said the alleged perpetrator was motivated by anti-Israel animus, but Shapiro has repeatedly declined to characterize the incident as antisemitic in nature, saying that doing so would be “unhelpful” to prosecutors who have not brought hate crime charges. 

Shapiro told JI the arson attack left a profound impact on him, both personally and religiously. It brought him closer, he said, to “my faith and my spirituality.” The attack, Shapiro said, has “given me a deeper, spiritual connection of my faith and a deeper connection to people of other faiths.”

Read the full interview with Shapiro here.

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JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sebastian Gorka, the White House senior director for counterterrorism and a deputy assistant to the president, said Wednesday at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but will maintain its maximum-pressure campaign on Tehran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Covering the waterfront: Gorka also said that he supports efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, suggested that he’s pursuing efforts to convince Qatar and Turkey to cut ties with Hamas and said the U.S. wants to see Syrian minority groups come to the table and join with the new Syrian government. He additionally discussed efforts to implement non-Hamas police and security in Gaza, praised Israel’s efforts to undermine Iran and its proxies and spoke about potential Iranian attacks in the U.S.

Read the full story here.

Shot down: Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) attempted to call up and pass by unanimous consent a resolution urging the United Kingdom, France and Germany to trigger the snapback of United Nations sanctions on Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action “as soon as possible,” but was blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

JEENAH MOON/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Columbia University announced on Wednesday that it reached a deal with the Trump administration to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Details: Under the terms of the settlement, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million over three years to the federal government. In addition, the university has agreed to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $21 million. A number of open civil rights investigations into the university alleging harassment of Jewish students will also be settled under the terms of the agreement, according to which the university will also abide by laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring. Columbia said it will continue to have “autonomy and authority over faculty hiring, admissions, and academic decision-making.” 

University statement: “While Columbia does not admit to wrongdoing with this resolution agreement, the institution’s leaders have recognized, repeatedly, that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents, and that reform was and is needed,” the university said.

Read the full story here.

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Amid clashes between Druze residents of Syria, Bedouins, militias supporting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian government forces in recent weeks, videos and eyewitness testimony has emerged of brutal executions, torture and rape in Sweida, a Druze town in southern Syria. A group of Israelis has been working together to provide medical aid to Syrian Druze women who were allegedly sexually assaulted, Laila Khalife, an Israeli Druze woman who is part of the initiative, told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on Wednesday. There have been reports of rape of Druze girls and women, including the rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl, though the number of victims is still unknown. 

Aid efforts: Israel began transferring NIS 2 million (over $600,000) in humanitarian aid to the Sweida area in recent days, including food, first aid kits and other medical equipment. Hundreds of Israelis donated blood to be sent to Syria. On Sunday, four Israeli Air Force helicopters reportedly reached the hospital in Sweida, which was attacked in last week’s clashes. In addition to the official aid packages, Druze Israeli women attempted to smuggle emergency contraception delaying or preventing ovulation, to minimize the likelihood of pregnancy among women reportedly raped in the clashes. However, those packages were intercepted.

Read the full story here.

DIRK WAEM/BELGA MAG/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee criticized Republican-led efforts to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the House’s draft 2026 budget bill for the State Department and other foreign programs, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Back-and-forth: The exchanges underscore the continued support among some prominent Democrats for restoring the U.S. relationship with the scandal-plagued UNRWA, more than a year after U.S. aid to the group was first halted following allegations that some UNRWA staff participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The budget bill includes a continued ban on aid to the agency and calls on the State Department to put together a plan to replace it. During an Appropriations Committee meeting yesterday, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) particularly questioned the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, describing it as a “‘death trap for starving Palestinians.”

Read the full story here.

Mideast matters: A bipartisan group of experts urged members of the Senate Foreign Relations Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism subcommittee on Wednesday to support efforts to keep the U.S. engaged with Israel and other allies in the Middle East. The experts, including former Trump and Biden administration officials, warned that a U.S. retreat from the region would create a vacuum quickly filled by American adversaries, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

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Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Don Bacon (R-NE) on Wednesday announced the reintroduction of the STOP HATE Act, which aims to crack down on antisemitism on social media. The legislators announced the bill’s reintroduction at a press conference alongside Anti-Defamation CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Countering terrorism: The bill, which was first introduced in November 2023 but failed to progress in the previous Congress, would require social media companies to publicize specific policies on their standards and restrictions for their platforms by designated terrorists, report to the federal government on content flagged and/or removed under these policies and publicly report on incidents incidents in which violate these policies.

Read the full story here.

MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is delaying efforts to confirm former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations over Waltz’s previous support for a continued U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. Paul told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Wednesday he would not vote to support moving Waltz out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a favorable recommendation, as is generally a standard part of the confirmation process. 

What this means: Paul’s concerns forced the committee to delay a vote, scheduled for Wednesday, to advance Waltz’s nomination. Paul said he would vote to advance the nomination with a neutral recommendation, which would allow Waltz to move forward for consideration from the full Senate but would be an unusual black mark on Waltz’s nomination. Unless Waltz picks up Democratic support, the committee vote would be tied — preventing the nomination from moving forward — without Paul’s backing.

Read the full story here.

Next-Gen Hard-liners: In The Wall Street Journal, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh caution that the next generation of Iranian leaders could pose significant threats to both the U.S. and Israel. “They are drawn from militant groups such as the Paydari Front and the second tier of the Revolutionary Guards. They look to guidance from the likes of the religiously obsessional Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator who abjures compromise. They are found in the security organs, occupy seats in parliament and run their own education centers. They have created their own underground shadow government and ideological ecosystem. … Indeed, the rising generation of the Revolutionary Guards have defined themselves by their willingness to brutalize their countrymen repeatedly. And these guardsmen have had two other core commitments: the A-bomb program and the proxy war strategy devised by their fallen hero, Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard dark lord whom an American missile felled in Baghdad in 2020.” [WSJ]

Where’s Marco?: The Financial Times’ Guy Chazan looks at Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ideological evolution as he has moved to embrace broad swaths of President Donald Trump’s worldview. “As a senator, Rubio was a fervent advocate of American overseas assistance, of Washington’s long-standing alliances and the power of US diplomacy as a force for good in the world. He would stress the need to stand up to dictators and support dissidents campaigning against authoritarian regimes. Yet he has since embraced Trump’s Maga ideology, with its isolationism, impatience with foreign aid and determination to drastically shrink the federal workforce. … But allies dismiss the idea Rubio has changed, insisting that on key issues he has been remarkably consistent. Far from abandoning his values, they say, he has championed them, influencing Trump to adopt a more hawkish posture towards countries such as China, Iran, Russia and Venezuela.” [FT]

If Dems Gain Power: In The Atlantic, Paul Rosenzweig considers how a future Democratic presidential administration could employ the same tactics as the Trump administration vis-a-vis sweeping policy shifts, department reorganizations and mass firings. “What lies ahead, then, is a new era of pendulum swings, replacing the stability of the postwar governing consensus. Ahead is a cycle of retributive prosecutions and whipsaw funding decisions. America may see entire Cabinet departments alternatively created and closed every four years while the presidency goes from policy to anti-policy — enforcing DEI in one administration, perhaps, and prohibiting it in the next. The country would, in effect, return to the time before the Pendleton Act, when the entire federal workforce turned over with each successive administration, rewarding cronyism at the expense of expertise.” [TheAtlantic]

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration is opening an investigation into Harvard’s eligibility in the U.S.’ Exchange Visitor Program after a previous effort to revoke the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program status was blocked by a federal judge…

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Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said he plans to run for reelection to his House seat, and will forgo a gubernatorial bid, clearing a path for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY); Stefanik, who has been mulling a challenge to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, said after Lawler’s announcement that she will decide in November whether to make a bid for the state’s top job… 

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Greg LoGerfo, the acting coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, described antisemitism as a key motivator for current terrorist threats globally at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing; he also committed to reviewing the Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist group, for a potential terrorist designation…

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Stanford suspended the co-op status of a campus residence after a Title VI investigation conducted by the university found that students were asked to leave an event at the Kairos housing co-op based over “the presence of ‘Zionists’ in the group”...

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The Knesset overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution calling for Israeli annexation of the West Bank…

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Aaron David Miller considers the role President Donald Trump could play in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to remain in power, amid the threat of potential new elections… 

Brazil said it is finalizing efforts to join South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of commiting genocide in Gaza…

A Norwegian man who had previously worked as a security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo was charged with spying on both the U.S. and Norway on behalf of Iran and Russia; Mohamed Orahhou, who was arrested in November, is believed to have taken and shared intelligence regarding the embassy and employees of Norway’s intelligence services…

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi suggested that Tehran could withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if European powers reimpose sanctions on the country; speaking to reporters in New York, Gharibabadi said that Iran will soon allow a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had previously been banned from the country, to travel to Tehran for conversations aimed at resuming inspections…

EDUARD KRYZHANIVSKYI/MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF UKRAINE

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar (left) and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha (right) on Wednesday paid their respects at the memorial to the victims of the Babyn Yar massacre during Sa’ar’s visit to the country, which also included a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

GILBERT FLORES/VARIETY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Actress, best known for her role as Nomi Segal on the Freeform comedy drama "Grown-ish," Emily Taryn Arlook turns 35... 

Philanthropist and former U.S. ambassador to Romania, now senior counsel at Covington and Burling, Alfred H. Moses turns 96... Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who worked for ABC News and CBS' “60 Minutes,” Lowell Bergman turns 80... Israeli physician, author and playwright, he is the younger brother of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Iddo Netanyahu turns 73... Political consultant known for his role in both of President Obama's presidential campaigns, Joel Benenson turns 73... Retired Los Angeles-based business and real estate attorney, Michael Jeffrey Bordy... Radio anchor and reporter on both CBS nationally and NYC's WCBS, Michael Sugerman... Member of Congress (D-FL) until 2022, he previously served as the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist turns 69... Russian businessman and Chairman of the Board of Patrons of The Conference of European Rabbis, Boris Mints turns 67... Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Judge Patty Shwartz turns 64... Presidential historian, professor at McGill and senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Gil Troy turns 64... Director of donor development for AIPAC, he is a retired NFL player who played for the Packers and the Cowboys where he won in Super Bowl XXVII, Alan (Shlomo) Veingrad turns 62... Founder of the Migdal Oz seminary for women in Gush Etzion, she is a granddaughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Esti Rosenberg... Film director and producer, Douglas Eric Liman turns 60... Partner in Frost Brown Todd and author of The Liberal Case for Israel, he was the first-ever Jewish statewide elected official in Kentucky (state treasurer), Jonathan Miller turns 58... Author, he writes the “My Ride” column for The Wall Street Journal on exotic cars, A.J. Baime turns 54... Mayor of Asheville, N.C., she was elected in 2013, 2017 and 2022, Esther E. Manheimer turns 54... Actress, writer, podcaster and comedian, Jamie Denbo turns 52... President of Access Computer Technology in West Bloomfield, Mich., he is a rabbi, entrepreneur and social media expert, Jason Miller turns 49... President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas... EVP and CFO of Morgan Stanley, Sharon Yeshaya turns 46... Actress, screenwriter and director, Lauren Miller Rogen turns 43... Member of the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester (N.Y.), Aviva M. Futerman Schochat... Co-founder and partner at Orfin Ventures, Adam Finkel... Media director at Access Brand Communications, Sarah Citrenbaum... CEO and founder of Learned Hand, building AI tools for judges, Shlomo Klapper...