In the family business of foreign policy, Donald Trump, Jr. displaces Jared Kushner

Colby’s proximity to the new power center is underscored by the sherpa guiding his nomination, Arthur Schwarz, who is also an adviser to Donald Trump, Jr. and Vice President JD Vance. Colby’s hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet (Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker has cited paperwork delays), but Republican allies of Israel on the Senate Armed Services Committee — including Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. — are expected to scrutinize his nomination closely.

In a previously unreported letter, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, an influential umbrella group, wrote to the chairman and ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee over “serious concerns” about the nomination among its constituents. In the letter, CEO William Daroff suggested a dozen questions for committee members to ask Colby, half of them about Iran. The letter also repeatedly cites former Fox host Tucker Carlson, whose proximity to the Trump Administration has become a sore spot due to his conversations with critics of Israel and revisionist historians.

“In a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, you suggested that a military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons lacked a ‘clear connection to American interests.’ Can you elaborate on why you believe preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is not directly tied to U.S. national interests?” reads one question.

Another three questions focus on Michael DiMino, who has been named deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and would report to Colby. DiMino has criticized the US-Israel relationship and raised questions about US interests in the Middle East.

The letters echo a ripple of concern among US allies of Israel about a digitally-savvy, libertarian-leaning, foreign policy group Defense Priorities that has become a pipeline into the new administration, a rift reported last month in Jewish Insider.

One of the administration’s Republican critics described a low-grade “panic” in pro-Israel circles at the composition of the Defense Department: “It’s Pete and then 30 blogging, podcasting, isolationist ideologues.”

But the foreign policy winners in Trump’s Washington see their new strength as the product of post-Iraq shifts in US priorities.

“There’s a generational change happening,” said Reid Smith, vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together, the network created by the Koch family. (Stand Together is also an investor in Semafor.) “Looking at Gabbard and Hegseth and Vance — all those guys are jaundiced by the wars in the Middle East.”

In another time, the rift might have posed a serious threat to Colby’s nomination. But with the Senate GOP offering little resistance to anyone not named Matt Gaetz, Colby is making gains internally among Republicans.

Colby’s team has lined up Jewish support, and won the endorsement of the Republican Jewish Coalition last week. Nor has the Trump administration backed away from DiMino, or from State Department appointee Darren Beattie, who was denounced by the anti-Defamation League. (“The playbook’s not working like it’s used to — these guys would have been fired ten years ago,” said American Conservative editor Curt Mills, an ally of Colby and Carlson.)

Colby’s allies see Cotton as the likeliest Republican to push the nominee hard on these issues and on questions about other Pentagon staff at confirmation hearings, though no one expects Cotton to vote against the nomination. (A spokesperson for Cotton declined to comment on Colby.)

Colby didn’t respond to an inquiry. Schwarz, the Washington, DC lawyer assisting his confirmation, declined to discuss the nomination. But in conversations with skeptical senators, one Colby ally and one critic said his supporters have made the case that he believes in a US policy of removing impediments to Israeli use of force, and stressed that he did not have anything to do with the other appointments.

The nomination of Colby is further bolstered among Republicans by another point: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a staunch supporter of Israel, and the key questions of US foreign policy will be answered in the Oval Office, not in the Pentagon’s E-ring. From the White House, President Trump has questioned whether Palestinians can even remain in Gaza and Tuesday issued an ultimatum to Hamas on releasing hostages.

“It’s tough to have this fight when Trump is the most pro-Israel president anyone can imagine,” a leading Colby critic acknowledged.

In the first Trump administration, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, emerged as the face of his deal-making approach to foreign policy. That strategy resulted in the Abraham Accords, which sought to reorient US policy toward pragmatic, wealthy Gulf States and away from endless formal peace talks. (DiMino has said that leaving Palestinian issues out of the accords was a “massive mistake.”) Kushner shaped American global policy, was seen as a reliable interlocutor for foreign leaders and domestic allies, and helped guide a bureaucracy where figures like tough Iran policy lead Brian Hook filled key roles.

In the second administration, Kushner has been spotted by tabloids dining in Miami Beach, managing a Saudi-backed investment business, and offering behind-the-scenes advice to friends who ask for it. Hook was not only left out of the administration but stripped of security protection that had followed Iranian assassination threats, a move that alarmed even his critics.

The role Kushner played in influencing the direction of foreign policy, people involved in the appointment process said, has shifted toward Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s eldest child, who is the hub of a new power axis that includes Carlson and Vice President Vance, and whose allies include Colby.

“It was very clear from the start that Don, Jr. had veto authority,” said a person familiar with Kushner’s point of view. “Jared didn’t want to test that.”

And Trump’s son has, in turn, channeled a combination of his father’s foreign policy instincts and the MAGA mopping up operation on its opponents inside the Republican Party.

“Don Jr. is laser-focused on keeping neocons out of government because he sees them as the faction who coalesced behind Haley and tried to dislodge his father from the Republican nomination,” said one of his allies.

Trump and Hegseth’s views and instincts appear likely to dominate defense policy for now. But the appointments of Colby and his allies, and Trump, Jr.’s rise, point to a shifting future for Republican foreign policy.