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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on President Donald Trump’s remarks on Iran at last night’s State of the Union, and have the scoop of White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s address on Tuesday to attendees at AIPAC’s Congressional Summit. We profile NY-17 congressional candidate John Cappello, an Air Force veteran previously stationed in Israel, and report on a senior Council on American-Islamic Relations official’s remarks before the Ohio Senate accusing Israel of harvesting the skin of Palestinians. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Brad Sherman, Dan Mariaschin and Shira Haas.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

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In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Donald Trump maintained his tough talk against Iran, reiterating that he will use force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, even though he’s willing to explore diplomatic options to resolve the standoff.  

Trump did not — as some online had predicted — make a grand televised announcement of United States strikes on Iran during the speech. Nor did he elaborate further on his plans for the growing U.S. military might in the region, or what specifically would trigger the U.S. to utilize that military power.

“They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon,’” Trump said about Iran. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world's No. 1 sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon. Can't let that happen.”

A number of moderate House Democrats — around a third of the Democrats in the chamber — as well as the majority of Republicans stood to applaud those comments from the president. Democrats remained largely passive through much of the rest of Trump’s nearly two-hour speech.

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are set to resume in Geneva later this week.

Trump also insisted again that the U.S. had "obliterated" Iran’s nuclear program in its strikes last June, and had warned the regime in Tehran not to attempt to rebuild its weapons programs, including its nuclear program, but it has continued those efforts anyway.

“As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must,” Trump said. “And no nation should ever doubt America's resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth. … It’s really called ‘peace through strength’ and it’s been very, very effective.”

In addition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump highlighted the Islamic Republic’s manufacture of ballistic missiles, threatening U.S. allies, troops and potentially the U.S. homeland, and its sponsorship of terrorism.

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' here.

Daily Overtime brings you what we’re tracking at the end of the day — and what’s coming next.

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff addressed the AIPAC Congressional Summit taking place in Washington on Tuesday, two sources with knowledge of the event told Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik, as he prepares for the third round of negotiations with Iran later this week.

Iran issue: AIPAC led lobbying efforts against the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, including creating a new lobbying group called Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran that spent upwards of $20 million opposing the agreement. Witkoff has led the Trump administration’s negotiations with Tehran during the president’s second term, alongside Jared Kushner, and is set to hold discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Thursday.

Read the full story here.

Transparency push: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged President Donald Trump on Tuesday to explain to the public his goals in the accelerating pressure campaign and military buildup targeting Iran, following a classified briefing earlier in the day for senior congressional leaders by Cabinet officials on the developing situation in Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said Tuesday that he’s pushing for legislation to require an affirmative congressional vote prior to the U.S. reaching any nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, following a notification from the administration to Congress indicating that it is moving toward a deal that could allow Riyadh to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Sherman said during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the administration notified some House Republicans in November of plans to forge a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.

Sherman’s stance: Sherman has been a longtime opponent of nuclear cooperation with Riyadh, warning that a Saudi civilian nuclear program would be the first step toward a nuclear weapon that could one day be turned against Israel. The White House announced plans for a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia in November during a Washington visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Such a deal had previously been coupled with Saudi normalization with Israel, as had advanced weapons sales to the kingdom, but the Trump administration has de-linked those initiatives.

Read the full story here.

Moderate congressional Democrats are pushing back against claims from anti-Israel activists, sparked by recriminations over an unreleased Democratic National Committee post-2024 election analysis, that the party’s position on Israel during the war in Gaza was a decisive factor in Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Speaking to JI, the lawmakers rejected the notion that the Biden administration and Harris campaign’s approach to Israel was the decisive factor in the defeat, instead pointing to broader political dynamics.

Post-election autopsy: “I don’t think that was the issue in the election. I disagree with that conclusion,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told JI. “Israel is our country’s strongest ally in the Middle East, one of the strongest allies in the world, and I can tell you that my colleagues here overwhelmingly support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) echoed those sentiments, telling JI that “the idea that the vice president lost every swing state because she wasn’t more extreme on this issue is laughable.” He called on Democratic officials to “release the report.”

Read the full story here with additional comments from Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

Building on a monthslong battle between the Trump administration and the University of California, the Department of Justice filed a suit on Tuesday against the university system, alleging that its Los Angeles campus failed to protect Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

The allegations: The 81-page DOJ complaint, filed in California’s Central District, alleges that since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, UCLA “has ignored, and continues to ignore, gross and repeated violations of viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Jewish and Israeli faculty have been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted, and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images.” The suit alleges, “Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home, and even leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment.”

Read the full story here.

Jewish groups condemned testimony by the executive director of the Ohio branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations at a recent state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing during which he accused Israel of harvesting skin from deceased Palestinians, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Haley Cohen report. Khalid Turaani testified on Feb. 18 against Senate Bill 87, which would see Ohio adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, asserting that “Israel has the largest human skin bank in the world.” 

What he said: “Where do you think they got all this skin from?” Turaani continued. “They have more human skin than China and India. They are literally skinning the dead bodies of my brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he said, without offering evidence. “And if I call them Nazis, your law is going to punish me.” Turanni claimed as his evidence a report by Israel’s Channel 10 from March 2014, though no such report exists. The conspiracy theory of Israeli organ harvesting originated in 2009, when a Swedish tabloid published falsehoods that the IDF kills Palestinians to provide organs to Israeli hospitals, and has been repeated by Palestinian media for years. 

Read the full story here.

Democrat John Cappello, an Air Force veteran, brings experience as a senior U.S. military official in Israel to the race against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in New York’s 17th Congressional District, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. But, entering the race later than most other competitors and lagging behind in fundraising, he has significant ground to make up before the June primary.

Background: Cappello spent six years working as a military official in the U.S. Embassy in Israel, from 2010-2016, first as the Air Force attache and later on missile defense issues. After his time in the military, Cappello became a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, before going on to found his own foreign policy-focused groups. During his first three years at the embassy, Cappello worked under then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, helping to set up and escort delegations of American military officials and business leaders; in his second three years, he helped run the Missile Defense Agency liaison office.

Read the full interview here.

AI in the Gulf: In Foreign Policy, Steven Cook examines the geopolitical calculus being made by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as the Gulf nations increasingly lean into the AI space. “If they become critical partners with some of the United States’ biggest tech companies in artificial intelligence, it is a lock that the United States will guarantee their security. The folks in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha will not need formal U.S. security guarantees. AI is the mother of all insurance policies. … By making themselves essential in the U.S. effort to win the artificial intelligence competition, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar ensure that their own adversaries become Washington’s adversaries as well. No geopolitical competitor is going to mess with these countries so long as the United States has a vested interest in the preservation of their current leaders. It is good to be on Team America.” [FP]

Go Slow on Iran: In The Atlantic, Thomas Wright, who served as senior director for strategic planning in the Biden administration’s National Security Council, posits that the U.S. can slow-walk its decision on whether to move forward on a deal with Iran. “The United States does not need a comprehensive deal with Iran now. In fact, such an agreement could be counterproductive. The more ambitious the nuclear concessions demanded of Iran, the greater the economic relief required to secure them. A comprehensive nuclear deal that requires Iran to abandon enrichment entirely would almost certainly involve sweeping sanctions relief. That would unlock tens of billions of dollars, reopen global markets, and offer the regime a path out of isolation. Paradoxically, it could provide a lifeline just as internal pressures are mounting. A ‘zero enrichment’ deal could have the unintended effect of prolonging the very system it seeks to constrain.” [TheAtlantic]

Not Very Catholic of Them: The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik, reflecting on his conversations at the recent convening of the newly created Judeo-Christian Zionist Congress, raises concerns about the rise in antisemitism among younger members of the Catholic Church. “The new antisemitism, Catholics I spoke with said, seemed to be a function of the new digital meme culture — fractured, algorithmic, always blurring the dotted line between the earnest and the faux-earnest. And it had a way, with all that content, all those words and unverifiable statements and carefully edited clips, of making the uninitiated feel as if they knew something, had been granted access to some eternal truth that had somehow eluded the older, wiser, more knowledgeable.” [FreePress]

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WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES 

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TAYLOR HILL/FILMMAGIC

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