NOTUS | News of the United States

Platner Won. Democrats Are Scared.

Igor Bobic, Christa Dutton, Alex Roarty — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:59:38 GMT

Graham Platner has faced a string of controversies that could be setting up a dream scenario for Republicans in the general election. Michael Kleinfeld for NOTUS

BLUE HILL, Maine — Democrats are projecting public confidence about the Maine Senate race in the wake of Graham Platner’s primary victory on Tuesday, insisting they can defeat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November.

Privately, however, many in the party are despondent about his chances, believing that his personal baggage has put a winnable race at risk and upended their path to securing a Senate majority next year. Some have written the contest off entirely, choosing to focus on other Senate races that are even more difficult for Democrats, like Iowa and Texas.

Everything, from deciding how to spend their money in the general election to how they navigate what members of their own party said about Platner during the primary, is now going to have an outsized role.

“Broadly speaking, donors, operatives and everybody else is taking a pretty close look at this and wondering if it’s worth it, or if there's going to be another shoe that drops either next week or in October,” said one Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It just doesn’t feel worth the investment when this guy has proven to be so untrustworthy.”

Platner spoke at his election night party Tuesday behind a podium bearing a poster reading “They Don’t Know Maine.” It’s a message that encapsulates the campaign’s argument that voters in the state will prove the naysayers wrong. But Platner’s speech was largely conciliatory, at least toward the Democratic voters who’ve been openly anxious about his viability.

"If you believe as I do that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change,” Platner said early in his victory speech. “And the reason I believe that is because I have lived it."

He acknowledged he had made “mistakes,” that he is “still far from perfect.” But, he said, “every day, I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before."

Still, he picked his targets.

"Now the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by,” Platner said. “But in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us."

Platner is looking like a dream scenario for Republicans in November. Last week, The New York Times reported on the accounts of several women who dated the oyster farmer and combat veteran, alleging past intimidating behavior toward them. His campaign also recently confirmed that he had exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women who weren’t his wife early in their marriage. That’s on top of the many inflammatory online comments he made in the past, which he’s apologized for, and a tattoo that looked like a Nazi symbol, which he’s since covered up.

Those controversies have generated speculation about the party moving to replace Platner as their nominee. State election law allows a swap as long as the primary winner drops out by July 13.

“If there’s a way to replace him on the ballot, I’d be all for it,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Illinois) told CNN on Monday, even before the primary contest that pitted Platner against Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who remained on the ballot despite suspending her campaign, had played out.

Now that he’s secured the Democratic nomination, there’s no indication that Platner is considering stepping aside. With his win on Tuesday, most Democrats are looking ahead to the general election.

That included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, who said Collins has “never been more vulnerable.”

“In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority,” the two New York Democrats said in a statement that made only a passing reference to the Maine Senate candidate.

Ahead of polls closing, party leaders were coming to terms with the idea that it wasn’t a question of whether Platner would win Tuesday, but by how much.

“I think there's sort of a bit of a parlor game in Washington about, like, what if this happened, and that next thing happened. But at the end of the day, Maine voters are pretty clear about what they think,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), who met with Platner last week, told NOTUS. “I'm sure it'll be an interesting general election, but I think he can win.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said the choice for Maine voters is clear between a candidate “fighting every day for working people in Maine” and the incumbent senator who “works to defend a lawless Trump administration and a president who says he doesn't care about Americans’ finances.”

Still, Platner faces plenty of skeptics in his party who are concerned by the wave of controversies he’s faced.

“I'm troubled by it, and that's why I'm focused on other races where I know the candidates and we can win, and we’ve got to flip the Senate,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada), who endorsed Mills in the primary.

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to win majority control of the Senate this year, a feat party operatives have considered increasingly possible amid a deteriorating political environment for Republicans.

Maine, the only 2024 blue state with a Senate seat held by a Republican running for re-election this year, had been widely considered one of the party’s best pickup opportunities, alongside races in North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.

If Democrats don’t win in Maine, the party would likely need to win an additional seat in either of the deep red states of Texas or Iowa to have a chance at the majority.

Voters in Maine are feeling the weight of the party’s chances on their shoulders.

“I think the pressure is immense,” Scott Sell, a 43-year-old multimedia producer in Rockland who voted for Platner, told NOTUS outside a voting site in the city.

“Conversations with people, especially my age, are hopeful and energetic, but I think underneath it all is like, there's a lot riding on this,” Sell said. “Flipping this Senate seat is crucial. It's a once-in-our-lifetime situation. It feels like it, anyway.”

Sell said he would not discount the strength of Maine’s older, conservative voters.

Another voter, Ken, who declined to give his last name, cast a ballot for Mills in “protest,” he said. He bemoaned that Platner emerged as the front-runner.

“The Republican attack machine is pretty strong, and I think they've got a lot of ammo against him, just based on everything that's come in,” Ken said.

Still, several voters said they were confident in Platner’s chances of beating Collins. “If someone told me I had to bet money, I would bet twice on Platner,” said Eric Vos, an independent, after casting a ballot for him.

Vos said he thinks most people in the state aren’t viewing this election in terms of which party tips the scales of power in D.C. “That’s for talking heads in D.C.,” he said.

Even strategists skeptical of Platner’s campaign maintain he can win in November, if the political environment continues to worsen for the Republican Party. But they say that, at minimum, he’s made the seat much more difficult to win than it would have been had Mills or another Democrat been the nominee.

Meanwhile, Collins’ path to keeping her seat depends on maintaining support from a cohort of mostly older moderate and independent women, many of whom vote for Democratic presidential candidates but have also been drawn to the incumbent’s more moderate brand of politics, say party strategists.

Platner’s recent controversies, they fear, will likely repel many of those voters.

“It’s the 60-year-old white ladies, who are impervious to paid communication, who have voted for Susan Collins for decades, who are going to decide this election,” said a second Democratic strategist, reflecting a broadly held view among many Democrats who work in Maine.

Maria Chase, a Platner voter in Blue Hill, arrived at a similar assessment. It almost hurt his chances of winning her vote in the primary, she said.

“I've never had to make that kind of choice before of ‘Well, do I believe this woman? Do I believe she could be lying? Would I not vote for him if I knew exactly that it was true?’” she said. “Those are questions that I haven't really had to ask myself too much.”

South Carolina Governor’s Race Heads to a Runoff

Adora Brown — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:20:43 GMT

President Donald Trump endorsed Evette late last month. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)

The Republican primary for South Carolina governor is headed to a runoff between Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and attorney general Alan Wilson, the Associated Press projects.

Because no candidate in Tuesday’s crowded primary garnered a majority of votes, the two remaining candidates will face off again on June 23 to become the Republican nominee to succeed Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited, in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in more than two decades.

President Donald Trump endorsed Evette late last month, calling her “an American Patriot” in a social media post and noting the lieutenant governor had endorsed him as soon as he announced his 2024 presidential bid. The crowded race included two House Republicans: Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace.

Mace said ahead of Tuesday’s primary that she believes she lost any chance at a presidential endorsement when she pushed for the release of the Epstein files.

“I put the likelihood of an endorsement on the line when I demanded transparency on the Epstein files. I demanded it because you deserved the truth - ALL OF IT - and as a survivor, I had to get justice for these women,” Mace said in a statement on Monday.

While Trump-backed opponents defeated several Republican lawmakers in recent primaries, including Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, his endorsements haven’t always yielded victories at the ballot box in recent weeks. Zach Lahn scored a surprising upset win over Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra in last week’s Republican primary in Iowa’s gubernatorial race.

Along with Trump’s endorsement, Evette also was backed by McMaster and former governor Nikki Haley.

The runoff winner will face the winner of the Democratic primary, state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, on November 3.

Ex-Fox News Host Steve Hilton to Face Xavier Becerra in California Governor’s Race

Manuela Silva — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:10:25 GMT

Hilton is vying to become California’s first Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served two terms. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

California’s quest to find Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successor has truly been a race of fits and starts: Some of the state’s biggest political names opted against running, a front-runner dropped out amid allegations of sexual assault, and the batch of remaining candidates struggled to find traction with voters.

But the voters have spoken following almost a week of vote counting after last Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary: Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton will advance to November’s general election, according to Associated Press projections.

Becerra finished with almost 28% of the total vote, and the Associated Press called his advancement to the November general election on Friday night. The race then turned to who would finish in the number two slot, with Hilton slowly edging out billionaire Tom Steyer with roughly 25% of the vote.

He faces long odds in the deep-blue state. California has not seen a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger left office in 2011 after serving two terms.

President Donald Trump endorsed Hilton, a former Fox News host, in early April. A day before the Associated Press called the race, the president posted to Truth Social celebrating Hilton’s advancement.

The top-two finish by Becerra and Hilton caps a primary campaign that was equally notable for the names who weren’t on the ballot.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) decided not to run. Multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct spurred the race’s front-runner, Eric Swallwell, to suspend his gubernatorial campaign in April, as well as resign his House seat.

What was left was a field of candidates that struggled to set themselves apart.

Becerra, who served as health secretary during the Biden administration and as California attorney general before that, pulled ahead in polling ahead of the primary following Swalwell’s exit, after months of languishing in the single digits. Steyer, the billionaire progressive who largely self-funded his campaign, blanketed the state in ads. Former congresswoman Katie Porter’s campaign stagnated in the polls after videos surfaced of her yelling at a former staffer and threatening to walk out of a TV interview. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan made a splash with housing and affordability proposals when he jumped in the race in January.

And then there were the two Republicans: Riverside sheriff Chad Bianco and Hilton, who for a time seemed like they might lock out Democrats in a jungle primary where the top two, regardless of party, would move on to November.

Republicans Urge White House to Name Permanent Director of National Intelligence to Free Up FISA

Avani Kalra, Hamed Ahmadi — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:13:46 GMT

Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte was an unusual choice for director of national intelligence. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Republicans are encouraging the White House to name a permanent director of national intelligence to succeed Tulsi Gabbard and prevent critical spy powers from going dark after Friday.

Legislation to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, has been held up since Friday after the Trump administration announced that Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would take over as interim director next month. Pulte was criticized by both parties as a highly partisan pick with no intelligence background.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday that he encouraged the White House to name a long-term director of national intelligence to allow FISA to be reauthorized, a consideration he said the White House is “weighing seriously.”

“We’re encouraging it –– at least I am,” Thune said. “Getting some certainty and closure on that issue about who that might be will certainly play an important role in unlocking the support that we need to get FISA done.”

Trump so far has not taken the advice, saying in a Truth Social post on Tuesday evening that Pulte would add the intelligence job to his portfolio on June 19.

Republicans have largely left the White House to negotiate a way forward with Senate Democrats after they voted not to move forward on the bill on Friday.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Pulte has “no obvious qualifications,” adding that he sees naming a permanent director of national intelligence as the only path forward for getting Democrats to support the program’s reauthorization. It would require 60 votes.

“The president’s got a choice,” Cornyn said. “If he wants the FISA reauthorization passed, that sounds like the price that they’re going to demand … By going dark, it makes this more dangerous for the country.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NOTUS on Tuesday that a new selection process is underway.

“They’re interviewing people now,” Grassley said. “They’re going to get a permanent person in.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the Democratic chief deputy whip, told NOTUS he believes naming a permanent director would be enough to move Democrats to vote for reauthorization.

“That sounds pretty good to me,” Schatz said.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the top Democrat on Senate Intelligence, said negotiations are still “ongoing,” adding that he “remains hopeful” about a path forward.

House Speaker Mike Johnson went to the White House on Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump. Johnson told reporters that he had a “productive meeting” with the president and discussed the naming a permanent director of national intelligence, but declined to share details.

“We cannot allow FISA to go dark; it'd be a dangerous prospect,” Johnson said.

House Republicans are also discussing a 45-day stopgap funding bill in case Democrats continue to oppose a more permanent extension of the program, two sources told NOTUS.

Warner did not answer questions about whether Senate Democrats would be open to a short-term extension, but the prospect didn’t garner much support in the House.

“That’s so messy,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said of the short-term extension.

“The right thing to do is to take the Bill Pulte appointment off the table,” Himes added. He said leadership has not reached out to him about negotiations yet as they’re waiting on the Senate.

The fight over Pulte follows months of negotiations over the program itself.

FISA allows the U.S. to spy on its adversaries and is essential to U.S. surveillance, but its renewal is controversial. Privacy hawks argue that Americans’ communications can be accidentally swept up and later searched without a warrant, and are pushing for more safeguards. Most Senate Democrats remain ardently opposed to voting for a program that would be overseen by Pulte.

Congress voted in April to extend FISA temporarily to give lawmakers more time to negotiate changes to put in surveillance safeguards. Grassley and Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) worked with Warner to draft a reauthorization measure that could garner some Democratic support.

The negotiated reauthorization measure includes revisions like a three-year ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital currency as well as a narrowing of the definition of an “electronic communications service provider,” two issues that delayed the April vote on the measure.

Senate Republicans Shut Down House Talk About Third Party-Line Bill

Al Weaver, Joe Gould, Reese Gorman — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:05:27 GMT

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) sees no prospects for a third reconciliation.( Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Top Senate Republicans believe the chances of a third reconciliation bill are bleak despite the plans of House leaders, who are already crafting one, even before the party’s slim border package finally limped across the finish line on Tuesday.

House Republicans for weeks have stoked chatter about passing a third single-party measure this summer. However, those discussions hit a dose of reality on Tuesday as a pair of leading Senate Republicans publicly declared they believe a third bill ain’t happening — a decision that has scores of political and national security ramifications.

"I think it's safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, chair of the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said during a hearing Tuesday, pointing to the Pentagon’s call to pass $350 billion of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget using the process to get around a Democratic filibuster..

“So it's not an option,” the Kentucky Republican said.

Adding insult to injury for the proponents of a third bill, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) concurred.

Republican leaders have long floated a third bill as a potential item in the toolkit in order to pass priorities that didn’t make it into earlier packages, especially ahead of the November midterms, when Democrats could seize control of one or both chambers.

Talk about a third proposal kicked off in earnest last week when House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he expected to start moving on it “in the coming weeks,” with the priority issues being “fraud, waste and abuse in government.”

Republican lawmakers believe there are a number of other issues that could garner inclusion if plans move ahead, including funds for the Iran war and other tax-related items.

However, after a push to approve a narrow second bill to provide funds for border protection turned into a hellish and complicated process, members have been left with a sour taste in their mouths. This is giving them little hope that another package has enough support — especially those who have been most vocal in pushing leaders to move one.

“I want to do a third reconciliation package,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) recently told reporters. “When people boldly declare we’re going to do a third reconciliation package, I generally tell them, ‘I hope you’re right.’ But in the meantime, back off the crank. It’s not looking real good.”

“We’ve had a lot of trouble with number two,” Kennedy continued. “I see the world as it is, not as I want it to be.”

Allies of leadership agree.

“I think we should do it. … I also think it’s going to be a heavy lift,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), a top backer of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Republican lawmakers had hoped for a pain-free process to pass the border and ICE package, with Thune reiterating early on a plan to keep the bill targeted just to immigration enforcement funding. That went sideways after the White House demanded money to secure Trump’s planned ballroom and the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was announced, blowing up Thune’s plans.

The final bill Congress finally approved was almost identical to the initial measure Republican leaders laid out at the start of the process, but it came after weeks of divisions inside the conference about how to handle the president’s requests.

Republican senators are already citing the potential hurdles for a third bill. Daines noted there’s no clear consensus about what the bill would tackle, which only compounds the difficulty for leadership.

“There would be a pretty long list of items, and that creates probably one of the challenges of getting it done,” Daines continued, citing an old adage from former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee).

“The more rocks in the backpack, the harder to get to the top of the mountain,” he added.

The timing would also generate more headaches since Congress is just five months out from the midterm elections and Republicans are reeling as the public increasingly disagrees with Trump’s handling of the Iran war and the economy.

That was on display in the upper chamber last week as Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), John Husted (R-Ohio) and Collins — all of whom face difficult reelection bids in November — , voted for a number of Democratic amendments going after the “anti-weaponization” fund and the ballroom security dollars.

Even Thune cast doubt on the chances of a third bill, telling reporters on Monday that last week’s tumult made it “evident … that's going to be hard" to get 50 votes for one.

The possible collapse of a third bill would also have a major impact on the U.S. military and the defense industry.

Hawkish Senate Republicans have publicly griped for weeks about the White House’s defense funding request. That frustration boiled over in an Air Force budget hearing when McConnell — one of the administration’s chief critics on the issue — made his grim assessment.

McConnell has been arguing that the $350 billion chunk includes core defense priorities that deserve to be in a regular budget, which sets priorities for multiple years, and not reconciliation, which is a single-year funding package. He called the administration’s strategy “a recipe for major disruptions in the very possible event that party-line reconciliation fails.”

Among them is $17 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense system, a marquee program spearheaded by Trump himself. There’s also billions for multiyear munitions purchases, part of a giant effort from Pentagon leaders that promises to restock the military’s dwindling arsenal to boost defense jobs and balance sheets.

“This is especially mystifying for multiyear procurement contracts. I mean, the need to budget for them annually is right there in the name,” McConnell said. “The administration’s choice to structure an ambitious $1.5 trillion dollar request in this way is yet another missed opportunity to put key aspects of our common defense on a stronger and more enduring fiscal footing.”

Collins, at Tuesday’s hearing, ripped the Trump administration’s bifurcation of F-35 fighter jet purchases along similar lines. She noted that Pratt & Whitney’s facility in Maine had invested in a new engine factory that employs 2,300 people, but the regular budget request included only $10 million for engine upgrades and put the remaining $144 million for the project into reconciliation.

“Here’s my concern: The administration is proposing that a significant portion of funding for both of these modernization programs be done through a third reconciliation bill, a bill that may never happen,” she said. “What is the impact on these programs if they are not fully funded in fiscal 2027, and what are the impacts on the defense industrial base?”

Over in the House however, Johnson keeps talking up the idea of a third bill.

At an elected leadership meeting on Monday, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Maryland) pitched using reconciliation to pass the hyper-partisan portions of appropriations bills, a source told NOTUS.

Harris — who is an appropriator — proposed the third party-line bill as the way to get funding priorities through without having to go through the appropriations process. Johnson appeared open to the idea, one source said, but it was unclear if he actually grasped the magnitude of what was being floated.

Other Republicans believe Johnson is serious about trying to pass a third reconciliation bill, but say it is a fool's errand.

“Where's the jelly in the middle of the donut? What's the enticement for me? Every one of the ideas that's put forward is something that is punitive to the states that all the front liners are in,” one House Republican told NOTUS of a third reconciliation bill.”

Republicans Pass Bill Boosting Immigration Enforcement

Stephen Neukam — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:29:43 GMT

Congress passed funding for the Customs and Border Control, which patrols the U.S. border wall in Nogales, AZ. Charlie Riedel/AP

House Republicans on Tuesday narrowly passed a party-line bill that provides $70 billion for immigration and border agencies, despite lingering concerns over not blocking President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.

“The bill we have in the House does not have any funding for a weaponization fund,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday. The bill, however, does not explicitly ban the fund’s creation as some lawmakers had hoped.

The spending legislation passed through the budget reconciliation process, which allowed it to move without the threat of a filibuster. House Republicans voted, 214-212, to send the bill to Trump, who is expected to sign it.

The House action comes after the immigration funding package was derailed in the Senate last month after the Justice Department announced a settlement between Trump and the IRS over a leak of his tax documents.

The proposed deal would have created an “anti-weaponization” fund that Trump could use to make direct payouts to victims of political weaponization, an idea that drew opposition from both parties and criticism that it was a “slush fund.” Republican senators raised concerns that the fund could be used to compensate Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.

Amid those worries, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week that the DOJ would not create the fund. With that promise Senate Republicans were able to beat back multiple floor amendments that would have limited or blocked the fund through the reconciliation package.

Trump himself has contradicted Blanche, saying on Meet the Press on Sunday that the “anti-weaponization” fund remains a “great idea” and he would be disappointed if it did not move ahead. His comments did not weaken support for the fund in the House.

But House moderates are still working to prevent such a fund. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) and Tom Suozzi (D-New York) are collecting signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill that would ban the “anti-weaponization” fund. If a majority of House lawmakers signed onto the petition, the chamber would have to vote on the proposal.

The reconciliation accord funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, both of which were left out of a deal with Democrats in April to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Senate Democrats have refused to fund ICE and other agencies without reforms from the administration. That stalemate left DHS closed for over two months earlier this year. The GOP circumvented that opposition by moving the funding through reconciliation, and those dollars will be enough to cover the agencies through the end of Trump’s term.

The final bill did not include public funding for the construction of Trump’s White House ballroom, after it initially proposed $1 billion for the project. The push to include federal funding for the ballroom was also met with bipartisan pushback, after Trump first said he planned to pay for the East Wing addition with private donations.

Social Security Is in Worse Shape Than Previously Projected: Report

Torrie Herrington — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:25:55 GMT

George Walker IV/AP

A new report compiled by the trustees who oversee Social Security projects that the program, which issues payments to millions of retired and disabled Americans, will run out of money to issue full benefit payments by 2032 — a year earlier than previously projected.

The trustees, which include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, suggested that fewer immigrants and low fertility rates would exacerbate Social Security’s financial issues over the next decade. Both would shrink the number of working-aged people paying into the program.

The report also states that as a result of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s tax legislation last year, less income tax will be paid on Social Security benefits. Therefore, the program’s trust fund will “receive lower levels of revenue in the future from income taxation of Social Security benefits.”

While the analysis estimates that Social Security payments will exceed the sum of its reserve funds by 2032, it will not be completely bankrupt as money will continue to flow into the program’s trust fund via payroll taxes. The trustees, all close allies of President Donald Trump, predicted in their report that the government would need to cut monthly Social Security benefits by 22% beginning in 2032 to keep the program running.

Social Security benefits go out to 70 million Americans. And, according to the left-leaning think tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security keeps more Americans out of poverty than any other program in the country.

Myechia Minter-Jordan, the CEO of AARP, said in a statement that the latest report “should be a wake-up call” and that “Congress needs to act."

“Americans have worked hard and paid into Social Security their entire lives, and they deserve to count on it when they retire,” she said. “No family should see any cuts to what they’ve earned in Social Security. ”

The trustees also called for legislative action, but did not suggest specific remedies that lawmakers should pursue.

“Lawmakers have many options for changes that would reduce or eliminate the long-term financing shortfalls,” the report reads. “Taking action sooner rather than later will allow consideration of a broader range of solutions and provide more time to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.”

Reconciliation Three Point No

Marissa Martinez — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:18:39 GMT

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:18:39 GMT https://www.notus.org/final-notus-newsletter/reconciliation-three-point-no

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) is seen in an elevator as she departs a vote at the U.S. Capitol on the 20th day of a government shutdown, Oct. 20, 2025. Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP

Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for June 9, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

THE LATEST

Is Reconciliation 3.0 dead? Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said as much during an Air Force appropriations hearing today — comments that have scores of political and defense-related ramifications.

“I think it’s safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill, so it’s not really an option,” McConnell said.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Missouri) said today he’d also be a “no” if tax provisions aren’t included, though he’d “love for the speaker to say tax is going to be a part of it.”

The Republican Study Committee met last night to discuss targets for a new package — which could increase military and defense funding and target government “fraud” — and Speaker Mike Johnson says JD Vance is directly involved. But House Republicans already face a tight afternoon vote on the Senate’s reconciliation bill that would fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

Donald Trump indicated he is not inclined to replace Bill Pulte as the director of national intelligence, Politico reports. The president made his comments during a private afternoon meeting with Johnson about Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act holdups — contradicting Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s comments this morning that the administration is “weighing seriously a long-term pick.”

House Democrats have said they will not vote with Republicans to extend a key FISA provision this week because of Pulte’s appointment.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said earlier today that the White House has been “consistent” in saying Pulte would not be a full-time nominee.

THE ADMINISTRATION

Trump said there will be a military response following a U.S. helicopter crashing yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz, which the military says was caused by an Iranian drone. Both pilots had been rescued and were “fine,” the president said today.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in National Park Service funding is sitting in limbo at the Department of the Interior as staff work through a backlog of 1,400 active grants.

The Trump administration has warned more than 500 hospitals in letters that they are failing to provide the public with basic pricing information, saying it keeps health care costs higher than they should be. Failure to comply comes with penalties as high as $2 million annually.

THE HILL

Black Democratic candidates are coordinating to defeat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), who is running in a historically Black district after Florida redrew its congressional maps to bolster Republicans’ chances.

The Government Accountability Office found serious oversight problems at the country’s largest immigration detention center, including unsanitary conditions and inadequate health assessments.

Some lawmakers are threatening to withhold their DCCC dues after the House campaign arm spent $135,000 on what appears to be a failed effort to boost a preferred California candidate in last week’s primary.

The NRSC presented senators with polling today that found tight races for Republicans in Nebraska, Alaska, Maine, Ohio and Iowa, two sources told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman.

THE PRESIDENT’S TEAM

https://x.com/GusSaltonstall/status/2064410935100371270

Thank you for reading! Today’s newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe and Andrew Burton. If you liked it, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please sign up — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at finalnotus@notus.com.
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Political Reviews Are Causing a Huge Grant Backlog at the National Park Service

Eric Katz, Anna Kramer — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:57:58 GMT

The Interior Department has consolidated grants management into Secretary Doug Burgum’s office. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Hundreds of millions of dollars in National Park Service funding is sitting in limbo at the Department of Interior, awaiting a political review that longtime agency staff say has put a stranglehold on the agency’s work.

The park service is currently experiencing a backlog of 1,400 active grants pending approval as of early June, according to information from an internal database provided to NOTUS.

Those awards are worth $362 million and include projects such as deploying nonprofit youth programs to clear trails, sending groups to prevent washouts in parks during persistent rain and surveying wildlife. Interior employees and grant recipients cautioned that prescribed burns and fuels reduction ahead of wildfire season could also get stuck in the backlog. An NPS grants employee said there were fewer than 10 active grants backlogged in the system two years ago.

The grants are being held up in a process that resembles the widely panned approval system at the Department of Homeland Security under former Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership, which required her signature on all grants worth more than $100,000. Noem’s replacement, Secretary Markwayne Mullin, undid that policy when he assumed the role.

The Interior Department, however, has only reinforced its political review process, according to documents obtained by NOTUS and several employees familiar with the matter, three of whom said the issue has become worse in recent months.

At NPS, all grants valued at least at $50,000 must go through two political appointees — the assistant secretary for policy, management and budget and the assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks — for approval before the agency awards them. That process follows an internal review by NPS leadership.

In an early June email to grants management staff, one official described the process as adding new layers that “explains why reviews have been taking longer.” Another official described the process as “updates” to and reminders of the current Interior review process.

The Department of Government Efficiency first set up a $50,000 review threshold last year for all grants and for cooperative agreements, which are legal partnerships between the park service and states, tribes and nonprofits. Some version of that review has remained in place since DOGE officials departed Interior last year, three employees and two NPS grant recipients told NOTUS.

But one staffer described the recent mandatory inclusion of two assistant secretaries for all approvals at that level as “a big step up” from previous policy.

As a result, the backlog of grants has built up under President Donald Trump and accelerated in recent weeks. One park service official told NOTUS that over the past year, several organizations that depend on agency funding have warned that they are at risk of layoffs and possible closure when grants are delayed.

An official at a nonprofit organization that relies on NPS grants also said it experienced no delays in receiving funds under past administrations, but the wait times have jumped because of the added layers of review.

That person said the changes affected groups selected to work on projects across Interior's purview, such trail maintenance, boardwalk repairs at Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, specialized masonry and woodworking for historic preservation, invasive species removal and even preparations for wildfire season.

“It can make the lead time very short, or make it so you can’t do the project,” the nonprofit official said.

A U.S. Geological Survey employee said the reviews at their agency, which have been in place since last year, have bogged down processing so significantly that there are concerns that funds will expire and be returned to the U.S. Treasury before they’re spent. Congress appropriated some money to USGS in fiscal year 2025 on a two-year basis, meaning it is set to expire this September.

The guidance from earlier this month instructed employees to describe “tangible benefits to parks” when making a request and to describe links to applicable presidential and secretarial priorities to justify the spending. Employees can submit their requests for awards up the chain once a week and were instructed to spell out all acronyms.

Trump signed an executive order last year requiring more political oversight of the grant-making process across government. Last month, the Office of Management and Budget proposed codifying the mandate that senior political appointees review any potential award for compliance with "the president's policy priorities" and that they avoid any diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

While that rule is for now still a proposal, OMB has already been forcing the park service to explain how grant programs align with Trump administration priorities in order to get funding, according to the federal apportionments database.

Jeff Mow, who spent more than two decades as an NPS superintendent, most recently leading Glacier National Park, said large, congressionally funded projects in parks often require groundwork and consultations with partners to help the agency carry them out. He said the political reviews would likely slow that type of work to a crawl.

“It will bog the system down, to have a pile of these on someone’s desk to just sit there,” Mow said.

Interior is managing its grants backlog with a significantly reduced staff. The agency shed 13,000 employees last year, or 20% of its workforce, including 4,000 workers at NPS. The department has also consolidated grants management and several other back-end functions away from individual bureaus and into Secretary Doug Burgum’s office.

In a statement, an Interior spokesperson said Trump was elected with a mandate to bring accountability to the federal government and the department’s changes would “streamline internal processes” and “reduce unnecessary bureaucracy."

“Reviewing significant expenditures before funds are obligated is a common-sense stewardship measure that taxpayers expect from their government,” the spokesperson said. “The real question isn't why Interior is reviewing taxpayer-funded expenditures. The real question is why anyone would object to making sure taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly.”

DHS drew significant bipartisan pushback when Noem required her signoff for any spending above $100,000. The review process caused significant delays in releasing much-needed disaster aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and other major natural disasters, frustrating federal employees and infuriating lawmakers from the affected congressional districts, NOTUS previously reported. Sometimes critical Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts, lost in the review process, expired before they could be renewed.

Mullin quickly limited his reviews of spending to contracts worth more than $25 million.

U.S. Launches Strikes on Iran Following Attack on Military Helicopter

Jenna Monnin, Joe Gould — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:23:45 GMT

“There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media. Mark Schiefelbein/AP

The U.S. launched strikes against Iran on Tuesday, just hours after President Donald Trump promised to “respond” to the Monday night attack that brought down an Army Apache helicopter that was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Central Command said the “self-defense strikes” were initiated at 5 p.m. ET under Trump’s direction, in direct response to the attack.

“The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” U.S. Central Command wrote in a statement on X.

The White House did not respond to requests for additional details about the strikes. It remains unclear whether there were any casualties.

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, appeared to defend his country’s decision to shoot down the helicopter, citing broken U.S. “commitments.”

“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we'll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse you saddled!” Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X just minutes before Trump said the U.S. was planning a response.

The president’s promise of retaliation followed comments he made to reporters early Tuesday that the helicopter pilots had been rescued and were “fine.”

U.S. Central Command also said Tuesday that American forces rescued the crew members of the Army AH-64 Apache after the aircraft went down near the coast of Oman. Central Command said the soldiers, who were picked up within two hours of the downing, were in stable condition.

The helicopter was struck by an Iranian Shahed drone, which is what brought it down, CNN reported.

The rescue marked the first operational use of an uncrewed surface vessel to recover U.S. personnel at sea. A Navy drone vessel rescued the pilots and transported them to a separate location on the water, where they were picked up by a helicopter.

"The surface drone that assisted in last night's rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet's Task Force 59. The Task Force began fielding these drones in theater in late March," Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesperson, said in a statement.

Trump demanded Monday that Israel and Iran “immediately stop ‘shooting,’” as the nations traded long-range missile strikes for the first time since the U.S. agreed to a ceasefire with Tehran in April.

“Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Though Iran and Israel paused attacks, both sides cautioned that fighting could resume if there are further ceasefire violations.

Trump has reportedly said he would consider ending the ceasefire with Iran if Tehran kills American troops, suggesting a willingness to tolerate smaller skirmishes for weeks or months to avoid a broader war in the Middle East.But there’s increasing political pressure for the White House to end the war.

On Wednesday, the House passed a measure that seeks to halt Trump from taking further military action in Iran.Public opinion remains against the conflict. Nearly 60% of Americans say the U.S. made the wrong decision in using military force against Iran, according to a Pew Research Center survey published Tuesday.

Among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party, 70% said the U.S. made the right decision in attacking Iran. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 90% say it was the wrong decision.A group of 38 Senate Democrats is refuting the Trump administration’s assertion that the Iran war has “terminated” and demanded more information about the legal argument behind the administration’s claim.

The lawmakers, led by Sens. Adam Schiff of California, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Chuck Schumer of New York, pointed to the ongoing naval operations, bombings, blockades and strike campaigns that have been ongoing since Feb. 28 to argue the war never stopped in a letter Monday.

Black Democrats Are Scrambling to Find Someone to Run Against Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Oriana González — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:09:04 GMT

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz angered Black Democrats in Florida and Washington when she decided to run for reelection in a newly drawn district previously represented by Black lawmakers. Susan Walsh/AP

Black Democrats in Florida and Washington are infuriated with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Two weeks after Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) announced she will be seeking reelection in Florida’s new 20th Congressional District, four Black Democratic candidates competing in the race are hoping to stop her from winning the nomination in a district that has historically been represented by a Black lawmaker.

Democrats were surprised by the senior Democrat’s move, which followed Gov. Ron DeSantis signing legislation that redrew the state’s congressional maps in an effort to bolster Republicans’ chances to pick up seats in the 2026 midterms. Wasserman Schultz’s current district was effectively eliminated.

In a four-hour meeting on Monday in Pompano Beach, the four candidates — former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness, rapper Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus McCormick and activist Elijah Manley — voted 3-1 to consolidate behind one candidate to defeat Wasserman Schultz.

“It was a long conversation,” Manley — who declined to say who voted against consolidating — told NOTUS. “We had to get real, egos had to be put aside.”

“We had to be honest with ourselves, you know, maybe the math is not mathing with all of us in the race,” Manley added. He told NOTUS that the candidates cross-examined each other during the meeting, with each having to explain what their strengths and weaknesses were.

The candidates did not decide who they would back in the Aug. 18 primary, but Holness said he expects candidates to make a decision by “no later than Wednesday morning” because some candidates are considering filing for different congressional races or potentially for statewide offices, and they might need a few days “to get our paperwork to Tallahassee to finalize what we’re doing.” He did not name which candidates are considering those options.

The filing deadline in Florida is on Friday.

The backlash against Wasserman Schultz started shortly after she announced her reelection bid last month: The Florida Legislative Black Caucus denounced her candidacy; Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke said she did not encourage Wasserman Schultz to run in the district, despite Wasserman Schultz’s suggestions to the contrary; and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has twice declined to endorse her in the race.

Clarke told NOTUS the CBC has not yet made a decision on whether its political operation will back Wasserman Schultz. Rep. Nikema Williams, a member of the CBC PAC’s board, said they are waiting to see which candidate will be selected to run against Wasserman Schultz and will then consult with Florida members “to make sure that we discuss what their preference is.”

But, she added, “I also know that right now, Black representation has been under attack.”

“At a time when we are fighting for Black voices and Black representation, I think that it is important that we look at this as the big picture, making sure that we are not giving up spaces where we need Black representation because it's being erased across the country,” Williams continued, referring to the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and decided that race-based redistricting is unconstitutional.

When asked on Monday if he had made a decision on whether to back Wasserman Schultz, Jeffries told reporters, “Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been a highly productive, hard working, conscientious member of the House Democratic Caucus for more than 20 years and is now a very important member of the leadership team.”

“I’ll leave it at that,” he continued.

Last week, Jeffries said that candidates have “the right to run where they see fit,” but he added that “we all recognize the sensitivities of the moment in terms of an unprecedented Jim Crow white assault on Black political representation that has been unleashed by the Supreme Court's outrageous decision to gut the Voting Rights Act.”

Wasserman Schultz told NOTUS that she has had “tremendous response across the district” and “very positive support” since she announced her candidacy.

“My seniority, my service on the Appropriations Committee, my being in a leadership role on the Appropriations Committee, as well as on Leader Jeffries’ leadership team, that's something that will enable me to be the best candidate that we'll be able to deliver on Day 1,” Wasserman Schultz added.

CBC members are privately frustrated about Wasserman Schultz’s decision to run in the district. Three members, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, told NOTUS they find it unlikely that CBC PAC will back Wasserman Schultz in the race.

One member said the CBC “will probably just stay neutral” instead of backing anyone in the race.

“Usually in stuff like that, especially when we’re dealing with an incumbent, that’s usually the case,” the lawmaker added. “I can’t imagine we’ll want to get involved in it.”

Another CBC member described Wasserman Schultz’s decision to run as a “clusterfuck that didn’t have to happen.”

DeSantis’ office told Florida state legislators that he targeted the old 20th district — which was formerly represented by Cherfilus McCormick, who resigned due to an Ethics investigation but is still running for reelection — because it previously was an example of “racial predominance.” The new congressional map, DeSantis’ office said, “does not take race into consideration at all.”

Still, Florida’s newly redrawn 20th Congressional District remains a majority minority district, with a 42% Black population. For that reason, some Black Democrats question Wasserman Schultz’s candidacy in the race.

The Black candidates in the race argued the district should be represented by a Black Democrat.

“The understanding is this: that this district being a majority minority seat, 76% that is, that the person representing the district should have the lived experience of the majority of the people in the district,” Holness told NOTUS.

Holness said that he had given Wasserman Schultz data that showed she could win in Florida’s new 22nd Congressional District, where he said the congresswoman’s home is located. He told NOTUS that the two of them spoke last Monday and he told her he was “disappointed” in her decision to run in Florida’s 20th District.

“She followed me a little bit and says, ‘Look, this is not personal. I want to preserve seniority.’ I said, ‘But you could win 22,’” Holness recalled. He added that ultimately Wasserman Schultz told him, “Well, I made my decision.”

Wasserman Schultz, who confirmed that she spoke with Holness last Monday, told NOTUS Holness did not provide an “accurate” description of the conversation.

“I didn't say I wanted to preserve my seniority, that doesn't make any sense,” Wasserman Schultz said. She said that she told him “that it's imperative that our community have someone who has the clout and the seniority to be able to deliver for the district immediately, as opposed to any of the other candidates who would be freshmen and would be starting from the beginning.”

Polling for the FL-20 race has been limited. Wasserman Schultz’s campaign released a poll of 400 likely voters in late May that showed the congresswoman had 52% of the vote against others running, though the campaign did not release the names of the other candidates it tested. The campaign did not respond to NOTUS’ requests to see the number breakdown.

Manley told NOTUS he’s trying to convince the other candidates that “I have the best chance of beating Debbie.” He added that he will “be able to bring the resources to fight her in the primary.”

Manley leads the four candidates challenging Wasserman Schultz in fundraising, having raised over $779,000 between January and March, according to recent campaign finance data. Holness and Cherfilus McCormick have each raised over $300,000 in that time frame, and Campbell roughly $40,000. However, Wasserman Schultz leads her Democratic opponents in fundraising, having raised over $2 million this year.

Congress’ Watchdog Finds Major Lapses in Oversight at ICE Facility

Jackie Llanos — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:20:40 GMT

Three immigrants have died while detained at Camp East Montana. Morgan Lee/AP

Congress' watchdog identified serious oversight problems at the country’s largest immigration detention center, including unsanitary conditions and inadequate tuberculosis screenings and health assessments.

A new Government Accountability Office report follows an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspection that found dozens of safety violations at Camp East Montana.

Three immigrants have died at the tent detention center near the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, since it opened in August. City officials also reported two cases of tuberculosis and 18 COVID-19 cases earlier this year, The Texas Tribune reported.

“ICE did not identify these issues because it did not inspect the facility prior to housing detained noncitizens there, as required by ICE policy,” the report states. “After the facility opened, ICE reported additional problems, including gaps in medical services, the loss of a loaded firearm, and unsanitary conditions, among other issues.”

In March, the Trump administration dumped the contractor it had hired to run the facility, Acquisition Logistics LLC, which didn’t have experience operating detention centers before landing the $1.3 billion contract.

ICE repeatedly warned the contractor about problems, including a document in February that said evidence associated with the homicide of Geraldo Lunas Campos was missing or destroyed, according to the GAO report. ICE’s investigation of Campos’ death is on hold because of an ongoing criminal investigation.

A security guard at the detention center also lost a loaded gun in January that hadn’t been found as of March. ICE documented the contractor’s inadequate weapon control.

Democratic lawmakers Sens. Jack Reed (Rhode Island), Gary Peters (Michigan), and Dick Durbin (Illinois) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (Mississippi) requested the report from GAO.

Durbin called the report damning.

“We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign truly is,” he said in a statement. “Not only is the Administration often wrongly detaining people, those detained are experiencing conditions that shock the conscience.”

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Maine Man

Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:01:00 GMT

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:01:00 GMT https://www.notus.org/newsletters/the-maine-man

Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a town hall at the Franco Center in Lewiston, Maine, on Oct. 15, 2025. Libby Kenny/AP

Today’s notice: Democrats have a Trumpesque candidate — how do they talk about it? Trump’s big night in New York. Democrats continue to shed voters. Paying back SBF’s donations. And: More must reads from the NOTUS Metro team.

THE LATEST

Democrats’ Trump moment is here: Few people expect Graham Platner to end tonight without the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine. While there have been some reminders in recent days from Gov. Janet Mills’ supporters that she’s technically still on the primary ballot, Mills effectively dropped out of the race weeks ago and left the nomination to Platner.

NOTUS’ Christa Dutton reports on what comes next: Democrats have to rally around a guy who has given many of them pause in the closing weeks of this primary. “In a way it’s, ‘Do you believe in redemption?’” Ann Leamon, the co-chair of the Waldoboro Democrats, told Christa in Maine.

Leamon sees attacks on Platner from Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ camp as rank hypocrisy. “I get really tired of Democrats being held to some lofty moral standard when Republicans are just ‘boys will be boys,’” she told Christa.

This is a bit of a simplification. It was Democrats like Mills who were warning most of this year that Platner had a long and disqualifying history. Now he is (most likely) their nominee and they have to do what Republicans have done for a long time: wriggle out of uncomfortable questions about their high-profile political outsider.

“His wife stands by him, and I don’t think we have any option but to trust that at this point,” one Democratic voter in Brunswick told Christa.

Others were more wary of buyers’ remorse. “There are some things that are worrisome,” said another voter at Platner’s town hall Sunday night. “There’s worry about the general election, there’s also worrisomeness about character, whether or not in six years we’ll have to mount a primary.”

Open tabs: Dems place $30 million bet on reshaping 2028 House maps (Axios); Nithya Raman Beats Out Spencer Pratt to Challenge LA Mayor Karen Bass (NOTUS); OpenAI Files to Go Public in Test of Investor Appetite for Top AI Startups (WSJ); New World Screwworm Spreads Beyond Texas (NOTUS)

From New York

Bronx cheer for the president: It’s not a bit — Donald Trump is actually a New York Knicks fan. But the city he’s long since moved out of was not happy to see him back, even in a moment of high spirits. “The pool counted two middle fingers and one thumbs down,” read the report of the motorcade’s drive into Madison Square Garden last night.

Loud boos could be heard on the TV broadcast when Trump’s face was shown on the jumbotron during the national anthem. That could be more “go home” energy, or just the New York way of saying thanks after security requirements for his visit snarled traffic, canceled a watch party and forced people to get to the arena two hours early. The Knicks also lost.

From the campaign trail

Democrats continue to lose voters across battleground districts, according to an analysis from House Republicans’ political arm, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Christa Dutton report.

Jaw-dropping numbers: After the 2020 election, Democrats had a 733,000 voter-registration edge on Republicans in 28 swing districts, the analysis found. But in the nearly six years since, the party has lost 737,000 voters there, giving Republicans a small 4,100 voter-registration edge. Republicans lost voters too, but the sheer scale of the Democratic losses means Republicans have the registration advantage.

What this means for 2026: It gives some credibility to the Republican argument that their candidates can outperform their historical midterm disadvantage with an assist from the public’s distaste for the Democratic Party brand.

Replacing Rep. Frederica Wilson: As NOTUS first hinted last month, Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones is jumping into the primary to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent today. “When Congresswoman Wilson said that she was retiring, what better way than her former student … to be able to pick up that baton,” Jones told NOTUS’ Oriana González. Jones participated in the 5,000 Role Models program Wilson launched while a member of the Miami-Dade school board.

From the Hill

FISAround and find out: The deadline for renewing a key piece of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is Friday. Conservatives have been demanding significant changes for months, making its prospects for a long-term renewal before Trump put Bill Pulte in charge of national intelligence slim. Two sources told NOTUS’ Kadia Goba that there are now only around 10 Democrats who would vote for an extension — a typically bipartisan affair — with most of them saying there’s no way they’d support even a short-term patch with Pulte in that role.

Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to meet with Trump today and plans on talking about Pulte and the path forward (if there is one) on FISA, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports.

From the White House

Trump’s AI surprise: When the president told reporters on Friday that he had “a meeting scheduled in the very short, in the very near future” with the leading AI companies to discuss plans for the U.S. government to take a stake in them, the companies in question had no idea what he was talking about, NOTUS’ Jeff Stein reports. As of yesterday, the White House had provided no details about when or where the executives of the companies would be meeting with the president.

From the fundraising world

Friends don’t let friends form PACs together: There could be trouble. NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno has all the drama from the Existentialist Republic PAC, launched by former Democratic congressional candidate Chris Armitage and his friend, Clifford Michael Pickens. There’s an accusation of theft and a lack of overall funds raised. The two men are not friends anymore.

NOTUS METRO

Sign up for our new local newsletter. NOTUS has added some of the best reporters covering D.C.-area news, sports and culture. Sign up for the NOTUS Metro Newsletter now!

D.C.’s turn to wait: NOTUS’ Martin Austermuhle reports that the results for the District’s first ranked-choice election could take days.

What Jayden Daniels needs to do: Dan Pizzuta writes for NOTUS on how the Commander’s star QB can get back on track.

The feeling is mutual: Thomas Floyd talks to Washington Spirit superstar Trinity Rodman about her love for the region — and the region’s love for her.

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

President Trump has seemed rather sulky lately, writes Dana Milbank for NOTUS Perspectives. The problem may be that the American people are failing to thank him sufficiently. If only they would show more gratitude.

NEW ON NOTUS

The slow return of SBF’s political donations: Years after his conviction, political groups are still (slowly) surrendering the money dumped into Democrats and Republicans alike by former crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, NOTUS’ Mark Alfred reports. Groups still making payments include EMILYs List’s super PAC arm, Senate Majority PAC and more.

NOT US

What Trump Delivered for Amazon, by Josh Eidelson for Bloomberg
How Josh Gottheimer is plotting his next act in politics, by Riley Rogerson for Politico
What Chris Rabb’s win in Philly could mean for the 2028 Democratic battle to replace John Fetterman, by Sam Janesch for The Philadelphia Inquirer
Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse, by Heidi Blake for The New Yorker

BE SOCIAL

At least they agreed on something?

https://x.com/SenatePPG/status/2064146312333758546

Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS Newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please sign up — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.com. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.com.

The newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe, Kate Nocera and Andrew Burton. Photo of Graham Platner by Libby Kenny/Sun Journal via AP.

Correction: A previous version of this newsletter misstated the entity that EMILYs List's super PAC arm paid. It paid the FTX Recovery Trust. It also misstated which elections Sam Bankman-Fried contributed to, which were all prior to FTX's bankruptcy in 2022.]]>

Two Friends Formed a PAC. Now One Has Accused the Other of Theft.

Taylor Giorno — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:41:00 GMT

Matt Slocum/AP

An upstart political committee is grappling with the consequences of mixing money and friendship.

In a letter to the Federal Election Commission last week, the Existentialist Republic PAC accused its former treasurer, Clifford Michael Pickens, of misappropriating more than $7,400.

But Pickens told NOTUS that it’s all a misunderstanding and he had failed to respond to PAC founder Chris Armitage’s repeated inquiries and a legal demand letter because of “personal family issues.”

Armitage is now considering whether to press charges against Pickens.

A NOTUS review of federal documents and separate interviews with Pickens and Armitage reveals how their longtime friendship devolved into accusations, incriminations and ghosting.

It hadn’t always been this way. Armitage told NOTUS that he had been friends with Pickens for more than a decade when he tapped him to be treasurer of the Existentialist Republic PAC, which was formed on March 2, according to FEC records.

Armitage, a former Democratic congressional candidate, told NOTUS that he launched the political committee to conduct civic outreach on issues he cares about, including universal health care. The website describes the PAC’s goal as electing leaders “who believe in evidence-driven action and accountability.”

During March and April, Pickens was slow to respond to Armitage’s messages and repeatedly told Armitage he was having trouble opening a bank account for the committee, according to Existentialist Republic PAC’s letter to the FEC.

Because of their friendship, however, Armitage told NOTUS he initially gave Pickens “a lot of leeway.”

But the FEC sent Existentialist Republic PAC a letter on May 1 warning that it had not filed its mandatory quarterly campaign finance report. Concerned, Armitage contacted ActBlue, the omnipresent Democratic fundraising platform that Existentialist Republic PAC uses for its fundraising.

ActBlue told Armitage that eight checks payable to Existentialist Republic PAC and issued between March 23 and May 1 had been deposited in a bank account — even though Pickens had told Armitage he was unable to set up an account for the PAC, according to the committee’s letter to the FEC.

The checks had been sent to Pickens’ personal address, which doubled as the committee’s address of record.

On May 15, Armitage filed paperwork with the FEC to remove Pickens as treasurer.

Two days later, Existentialist Republic PAC sent Pickens a formal letter via mail, email and text demanding a full accounting and return of the committee’s funds, according to the committee’s letter to the FEC. The committee also said it was preparing complaints with the FBI, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the Office of the Arizona Attorney General.

While the committee has not yet filed a campaign finance disclosure, Armitage told NOTUS that the $7,400 was “almost everything” the committee had raised.

“Honestly, I feel dumb,” Armitage told NOTUS.

Armitage said he simply wanted to ask Pickens: “Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

After NOTUS spoke with Armitage, the two men spoke to each other.

Both Armitage and Pickens told NOTUS that their call was brief, and Pickens told Armitage he would send him the disputed money.

Pickens told NOTUS in an email that Armitage’s accusations are a “surprise.” He said he had personally covered the cost of building the committee’s website and paid the social media manager “when Chris could not pay.”

Pickens also called NOTUS on Friday as he drove from Washington state to Arizona in a “truck packed full of stuff.” Pickens said he had “ignored a lot of people in my life” while separating from his spouse and making several major repairs on a property he was selling.

Pickens told NOTUS that he had deposited the checks from ActBlue into his marketing business account. When NOTUS asked Pickens if he spent the funds on any personal expenses, he said he had not — and that he would send Armitage the funds when he returned to Arizona.

When contacted for comment, ActBlue pointed NOTUS to a policy that states it can suspend or terminate access if it suspects an individual or committee has used the platform for illegal or unethical activity and will work on a “case-by-case” basis to gather information related to any recent allegations of criminal activity.

A source familiar with the matter told NOTUS that Pickens is no longer permitted on ActBlue and has been added to a list of individuals monitored for any potential new activity on the platform.

“I am so sorry that this even got to this point, and I understand that it's my fault for not communicating with him, but I've just been going through a lot,” Pickens told NOTUS.

Why didn’t he just decline his friend’s offer to become the Existentialist Republic PAC’s treasurer?

“I don’t know,” Pickens said.

Pickens is not listed as the treasurer on any other federal political committees, but the Libertarian Party website lists Pickens as the chair of the Washington state affiliate. The Libertarian Party confirmed he is the chair of the affiliate but declined to comment on the matter.

Dave Mason, a former Republican FEC chairman, told NOTUS that Pickens had violated campaign finance law prohibiting the commingling of funds for a PAC and any other account. When asked if the committee had an obligation to file a police report, Mason said the committee only had to report to the FEC where the money went and if it was returned.

But, he added, typically “the FEC expects people to file a police report.” The FEC only has two of six commissioners currently and would need at least four to open a case. It’s unlikely that the agency would use its limited resources to pursue a case over the small dollar amount.

The FEC declined to comment.

“This is the kind of thing that happens when people rely on friends and informal procedures,” Mason said.

Alleged embezzlement or misappropriation from political campaigns and committees happens with some frequency. In the recent past, several once-trusted treasurers have admitted to or been accused of stealing funds from major trade associations and unions — as well as sitting members of Congress.

Pickens told NOTUS that he hopes his friendship with Armitage can recover.

“I have no hard feelings against him. He did what he felt he needed to do,” Pickens said. “I love Chris. He's awesome. I support everything that he's doing, and I'll continue to support him.”

When NOTUS asked Armitage if the friendship could recover, he said, “I don’t know.”

“I feel like I'd be an idiot to ever trust him again,” Armitage said.

He said the Existentialist Republic PAC is on “pause right now” while he handles the situation, but “we’re gonna get stuff done.”

As of Monday, Armitage said he was still waiting for the funds Pickens had promised him. Pickens sent NOTUS a screenshot of a wire transfer Monday evening as evidence he transferred some of the money — $3,500 — to Armitage.

Results for D.C.’s First Ranked-Choice Election Could Take Days

Martin Austermuhle — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:40:00 GMT

Ranked-choice voting was approved by D.C. voters in November 2024. Annabelle Gordon/Sipa USA via AP

Election night parties might not be the same this year in D.C., in part because candidates may not know whether they’ve won their races until days later.

D.C. election officials have started to temper expectations for the city’s first foray into ranked-choice voting, warning that results in many races may remain up in the air for at least five days after the June 16 primary.

“When you get 20,000 to 40,000 [mail] ballots on Election Day, it is not possible to process those on election night,” said Monica Evans, the executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections, at a recent press briefing. “That really shifted when we started using mail ballots, because once you return a ballot that is properly postmarked by Election Day, we have 10 days to receive and count that ballot.”

The potential delays in reporting results for the hotly contested and highly consequential primary could draw unwanted attention from Republicans in Congress and the White House, which have significant power over D.C. and have been critical in the past of how the city manages its elections.

Those delays are linked to two factors, election officials say: how ranked-choice voting works, and the fact that some two-thirds of D.C. voters use mail ballots, many of which are dropped off on Election Day or received in the days after.

Ranked-choice voting, which was approved by D.C. voters at the ballot box in November 2024, is changing how voters cast ballots and how those ballots are counted.

Unlike the traditional way of voting, where a voter picks a single candidate for each race, in a ranked-choice system, a voter can rank up to five candidates per contest. If any candidate gets more than 50% of first rankings after the first round of counting, they win. But if no one reaches 50%, the lowest-performing candidate in the race is eliminated and the rankings from their supporters’ ballots are reapportioned among the remaining candidates. These tabulation rounds and eliminations continue until one candidate clears the 50% threshold.

D.C. election officials say that after the polls close on June 16, they will report the number of first-choice rankings each candidate gets based on mail ballots that were received before Election Day and in-person votes cast that day or in the weeklong early-voting period that kicked off June 8.

But they say that any subsequent tabulation rounds may not happen until June 21, largely because a significant number of mail ballots traditionally haven’t been received until Election Day or immediately after.

“We just want to have the majority of the votes processed before we start running rounds of tabulation to cut down on inaccurate shifts,” said Evans.

For context, there were 98,221 ballots cast in the 2024 primary. Roughly 70,000 of those were mail ballots, and around 33,000 of those were left in ballot drop boxes on Election Day. Another 7,750 were received by the elections board in the mail on Election Day or during the 10-day period after.

Evans said that the elections board can process only so many ballots at a time, largely because voter signatures on every mail ballot are checked against what the board has on file.

“I keep telling people that the long pole in the tent is not ranked-choice voting. That can be done instantaneously. It is the board’s decision to wait until mail ballots come in,” said Lisa Rice, the executive director of Grow Democracy D.C., the organization that advocated for the ballot initiative that introduced ranked-choice voting to the city. “I credit the board with trying to provide transparency and accuracy for folks. Do I want results quicker? Absolutely.”

The timing of results in cities and states that use ranked-choice voting varies. In New York City, for example, waits for tabulation rounds and results have been similar to the ones projected for D.C. In Maine and Alaska, which both use ranked-choice voting for statewide races, results have also taken up to a week.

But according to FairVote, an organization that supports the use of ranked-choice voting, the majority of jurisdictions that use the method release results on Election Day or the next day. San Francisco, which held a local election earlier this month, reported ranked-choice voting results the same night.

“We know there is absolutely an interest in getting results sooner rather than later,” said Evans, adding that election board staff would work to process ballots as quickly as possible to get to tabulation rounds.

The possibility of delayed results could play into the hands of Republicans in Congress and the White House, who wield significant power over D.C. Last year, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-New York) introduced a bill that would ban the use of ranked-choice voting in D.C. elections, and the House voted to overturn a D.C. law that allows noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida) took to social media last week to criticize the elections board for sending a mail ballot to a former tenant of his D.C. apartment. “All anyone would need to do is fill it out, sign it, and send it back,” he wrote. (D.C. verifies signatures on mail ballots, and voting with someone else’s mail ballot is a felony.)

“I think the important thing is for us to get it right and be accurate, so my request to voters is to be patient,” said Christina Henderson, an at-large Independent D.C. Council member who was one of the first proponents of ranked-choice voting in the city’s legislature.

That sentiment was echoed by mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie. “The most important outcome from our democratic process is that every ballot is counted and every voter’s voice is respected,” he said.

His principal opponent, the Democratic Council member Janeese Lewis George, said that her campaign is urging supporters to cast their ballots early, either by dropping off mail ballots before Election Day or voting early in person.

“Everybody is a bit nervous about how long it will take to get through the rounds of tabulation,” she said. “The more people we know vote, the more decisive we feel it will be to declare a winner in the race.”

Why Trinity Rodman Chose to Stay in D.C.

Thomas Floyd — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:25:00 GMT

In April, Trinity Rodman became the youngests NWSL player to celebrate her 100th regular season appearance. Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire/AP

Trinity Rodman’s California roots run deep. The Washington Spirit forward was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and broke through as a buzzy prospect for the SoCal Blues soccer club. She split her high school days between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano. Until Rodman was 18, she only knew sunshine, freeways and the Pacific coastline.

But Rodman, who turned 24 last month, has now been based in the D.C. area for a quarter of her life. The personal growth, the core memories, the foundational relationships — so many of the experiences that shaped her into a global star have come during her time in the District.This past winter, a protracted contract saga ended with Rodman inking a deal to remain with the Spirit for another three years.

From time to time, she will ask her mother: “Is it bad to say that D.C. feels like my hometown and not California?’”

“She’s like, ‘Don’t say that!’” Rodman laughed. “But this is my home, and every single time I drive to the games, I’m super excited. It feels like I’m going to hang out at my best friend’s house.”

It’s not hard to see why the Audi Field faithful worship Rodman. In her debut season in 2021, Rodman claimed NWSL rookie of the year honors and steered the Spirit to its first league championship. By the time the World Cup arrived in 2023, she was a starter for the U.S. national team. A year later, Rodman teamed up with Sophia Wilson and Mallory Swanson to form the “Triple Espresso” front line that spearheaded the Americans’ run to an Olympic gold medal in Paris.

So, even after an injury-plagued 2025 campaign, Rodman’s first foray into free agency dominated women’s soccer headlines. Could the Spirit afford to retain her under the NWSL’s salary cap? Or would she follow U.S. teammates Naomi Girma, Alyssa Thompson and Emily Fox in leaving the league to accept a big-money offer from a European team?

Trinity Rodman (6644x4429, AR: 1.50)

Amid negotiations, the NWSL introduced the “high-impact player rule” that allowed clubs to exceed the salary cap to secure certain stars. Before long, it was informally dubbed the “Rodman rule.” A month later, Rodman re-signed with the Spirit in a reported three-year, $6 million deal that made her the highest-paid player in women’s soccer history.

“They didn’t want me to go,” Rodman said of the NWSL and the Spirit. “They were being selfish about it, which I think speaks to what I’ve been trying to achieve here and within the entire league. It just makes me very happy, outside of all the other things that came with [the contract], just knowing that fans wanted me to succeed — but didn’t want me to succeed somewhere else.”

With a 2-1 win against the Seattle Reign on May 30 at Audi Field, the Spirit entered the NWSL’s monthlong midseason break at 6-2-3 — good for fourth in the 16-team league.

Now, she has joined the national team for two international friendlies against 2027 World Cup host Brazil. After making just one appearance for the U.S. in 2025, Rodman has gotten back in a groove wearing the red, white and blue, logging eight matches and scoring two goals this year.

trinity rodman,Leicy Santos (6000x4000, AR: 1.50)

“She’s settled. She’s happy,” U.S. coach Emma Hayes said. “I think knowing her future is a big weight off her shoulders.”

Star Qualities

When Rodman celebrated her 100th regular-season appearance for the Spirit with a 4-0 win over the Kansas City Current on April 24, she became the youngest NWSL player to hit that milestone. Her elite statistics — more than 30 goals and 20 assists in her career — are matched by her marketing influence: Her No. 2 jersey is the NWSL’s bestseller, and she has more than 750,000 followers on Instagram.

“Seeing how young she is getting 100 games, it’s kind of insane,” Adrián González, the Spirit’s coach, said. “So I call her a veteran. … She wants to help the team, and she wants to fight and she wants to compete.”

Rodman marked that 100th match with her first goal and first assist of the season after a five-match drought. She found the net in the next two matches and added two more assists as the Spirit surged up the standings.

“I’m happy with where I’m at,” Rodman said. “But at the same time, I wish I could score and assist every game.”

Rodman maintains staggering standards, even after physical struggles in recent years. A lingering back injury limited the winger during Washington’s run to the 2024 NWSL final, then led her to step away from the club for more than three months last season as she sought treatment abroad. She was later sidelined by a knee injury, returning for just two cameos off the bench in the playoffs as the Spirit’s season ended with another championship game defeat.

dhz260124033_pry_vs_usa (3825x2550, AR: 1.50)

When healthy, Rodman is a menace. Propulsive on the ball, with the pace to blow past defenders and the footwork to confound them, she creates all kinds of mismatches in wide spaces. Closer to goal, her attacking instincts and finishing touch make her as lethal as they come.

“Her acceleration, her change of direction, her technical ability are all really world class,” said Haley Carter, the Spirit’s president of soccer operations. “But I think what makes her truly special is her decision-making at speed and her creativity. She processes and sees the game at a really, really elite level, recognizing when to take defenders on, when to combine with their teammates, when to exploit space in behind.”

Rodman’s teammates are also quick to emphasize her value in the locker room, where she is a chatty and endearing presence. Postgame interviews are often brimming with introspection and self-aware shtick, her infectious personality off the field matching her entertainment value on it.

“She’s so bubbly, always smiling, laughing, dancing, just bringing a lot of energy to the group,” Spirit defender Esme Morgan said. “She kind of brings that vibe and just carries a lot of excitement from herself to the rest of us.”

‘The Rodman Rule’

After her new contract was announced in January, Rodman explained her decision in simple terms: She wasn’t done in Washington.

“I wouldn’t be the player I am today without Audi [Field], and without this experience here,” she said last week. “That has shaped me to be who I am today, on and off the field. That connection within D.C. has just stuck with me, and it feels like my home.”

Finalizing that arrangement, however, was no easy task.

Accommodating Rodman’s salary was tricky for a Spirit squad that also features such stars as Italian striker Sofia Cantore, Colombian playmaker Leicy Santos and reigning NWSL defender of the year Tara Rudd. An initial bargain struck between Washington and Rodman was vetoed by NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman for purportedly circumventing the salary cap. When the league introduced the high-impact player rule, the players union filed a still-unresolved grievance and advocated for raising the salary cap.

Y. Michele Kang (5190x3460, AR: 1.50)

“I’m thankful that the league pushed through a solution that enabled us to keep Trin here in D.C. and to keep Trin within the league,” said Carter, who was tasked with negotiating the deal for Washington. “That’s important for the NWSL, and important for the women’s game here in the U.S. I do think it’s unfortunate that we have to come up with such creative mechanisms to be able to pay players what they’re worth.”

The negotiations marked an inflection point for the NWSL, a 14-year-old circuit increasingly threatened by Europe’s top leagues. Rodman hopes that her deal not only sets the stage for her U.S. teammates to stay put but also shows younger players they can achieve their career goals Stateside.

“I always looked at the national team and the players that I looked up to as, like, untouchable, unfathomable idols,” Rodman said. “Now, being in this position where I do have the ability and the power to find that connection and to show [young girls] that it’s possible, and that it’s not a Rodman rule or a one-player thing, is very important to me.”

Spirit owner Y. Michele Kang shared that sentiment.

“Trin’s contract is certainly benefiting from [the rule], but it was not just for Trin,” Kang said upon announcing the deal. “It’s much bigger. It’s for the league-wide effort.”

But Carter has been careful not to heap too much responsibility on Rodman for shaking up the women’s soccer landscape.

“You’ve got to remind her that there’s a burden that comes along with being the first to do something and kind of remind her not to let that burden weigh too heavy on her,” Carter said.

Trinity Rodman (8256x5504, AR: 1.50)

If Rodman is feeling that pressure, she isn’t showing it. She has started posting more vlogs to her YouTube page, documenting her day-to-day. By sharing these small moments — playing Fortnite, spoiling her rescue dog, furnishing her new Northern Virginia home, hanging out with her niece and nephew — Rodman finds she’s both connecting with fans and centering herself.

“To just watch it back, it’s wholesome for me,” she said. “I don’t get a moment to really process my life.”

Rodman hopes to do more of that during the NWSL break, which she plans to spend tagging along with boyfriend Ben Shelton — the world’s No. 5-ranked men’s tennis player — as he prepares for Wimbledon. The NWSL campaign will resume July 3, and Rodman will once again focus on bringing a trophy back to her new hometown.

“From my teenage years to now, I feel like I’ve grown with D.C. and with Audi and with this team and organization,” Rodman said. “I just don’t feel like I’ve finished everything yet.”

Three Ways the Commanders Can Get Jayden Daniels Back on Track

Dan Pizzuta — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:20:00 GMT

Quarterback Jayden Daniels is entering a pivotal third season in Washington. Nick Wass/AP

Two seasons ago, Jayden Daniels ran away with the offensive rookie of the year award and led an imperfect Washington Commanders team to the NFC championship game. In his second season, injuries limited him to seven games, and Washington sputtered to a 5-12 record.

Daniels’ health is the primary concern for most Commanders fans. But even when the quarterback was on the field in 2025, his performance didn’t come close to that of his rookie season. In 2024, Daniels ranked seventh among all quarterbacks in expected points added per play — a good measure of a QB’s impact on his team’s chances of winning. He fell all the way to 27th last season, per TruMedia.

That shift has set up a pivotal third campaign for Daniels, one that will feature a new offense under first-time coordinator David Blough (replacing Kliff Kingsbury, who was shown the door following the team’s offensive struggles). We don’t yet know how the 30-year-old Blough will design Washington’s offense. But it seems likely he will draw on systems he played in, including those of Bears coach Ben Johnson and Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell — two of the most respected offensive minds in the league.

Here are a few things the Commanders can do to get Daniels back on track:

Get Under Center

Both Blough and coach Dan Quinn have already alluded to this change. Over his two NFL seasons, Daniels has one of the lowest rates in the league in snaps under center — meaning he has operated out of the shotgun formation on the vast majority of plays.

It might sound counterintuitive, but having a quarterback operate from under center can actually create more opportunities to extend plays, find deep throwing lanes downfield and scramble for big gains — all things that rank among Daniels’ biggest strengths.

Running plays from under center offers several advantages. For starters, it allows for a running game that is much more diverse. The extended time from snap to handoff gives the running back more time to read the line of scrimmage or potentially find wider lanes on the outside.

But the biggest difference comes in the play-action passing game. Last season, there was a big efficiency boost on play-action passes under center league-wide, when compared to play-action from the shotgun.

Blough could take a page or two from former systems and coaches he’s played under, such as Johnson. Last year, the Bears had the highest EPA per rush on early-down running back carries from under center. Part of that was due to a powerful offensive line, but the attention to detail in blocking and execution made those runs work.

That success spread to the play-action game. Chicago quarterback Caleb Williams — who was drafted one pick ahead of Daniels in 2024, and similarly thrives on his ability to create big plays out of structure — went from 28.8% of his snaps under center as a rookie to 48.4% in his second season, while his play-action rate went from 16.5% to 31.9%. The under-center play-action game created space for Williams in the pocket. That allowed Williams to find more open throwing windows deeper in the middle of the field, and also left room for Williams to scramble if things broke down.
https://bsky.app/profile/danpizzuta.bsky.social/post/3mmx5yajnw22hPlaying more under center would be a transition for Daniels, but others have done it. Baltimore Ravens star Lamar Jackson has increased his use of under-center plays nearly every year of his career, going from sub-10% rates over his first few seasons to 29% and 33% in the past two. He has become one of the league’s best quarterbacks on play-action plays from under center.
https://bsky.app/profile/danpizzuta.bsky.social/post/3mmrbb6d5vs2aAll of this can play into Daniels’s strengths, giving him more freedom to create on longer-developing plays and from deeper pockets.

Establish the Pocket

Daniels is always dangerous on the move, but a quarterback’s most reliable plays come from a clean pocket. Quarterbacks with 200 or more dropbacks in 2025 averaged 0.06 EPA per play with a 45.5% success rate. From a clean pocket, that same group averaged 0.23 EPA per play with a 51.5% success rate. That’s about equivalent to a jump from a middling quarterback (i.e. 2025 Baker Mayfield) to an MVP candidate (i.e. 2025 Drake Maye).

There were two problems with Daniels’ 2025 performance from the pocket. For one, less than half (49.6%) of his plays came from a clean pocket, which ranked 35th in the league. He ranked 32nd in EPA per play in those situations.

The blame for this should be spread around. His drop rate (the percentage of catchable passes that were dropped by receivers) more than doubled, from a league-average 4.1% in 2024 to a league-high 9.8% in 2025. Dropped passes can erode a quarterback’s trust in the offense and his receivers, causing him to try to make more plays on his own. Unsurprisingly, Daniels led the league in plays outside the pocket (31.4%) and scramble rate (15.7%) last season, both of which increased from 2024.

Setting up Daniels to play more from the pocket should create more opportunities for success within structure and allow him to be more deliberate about making plays with his legs, rather than running out of necessity.

Reconnect With Terry McLaurin

The Commanders’ struggles with dropped passes last fall underscores a bigger issue: They lack offensive firepower and desperately need star wide receiver Terry McLaurin to bounce back from a down season.

During the 2024 season, the Daniels-McLaurin connection was one of the most electric in the league. McLaurin was the rookie’s trusted target for big plays and the need-to-have-it downs. Daniels completed 67.3% of his passes to McLaurin, totaling 944 yards on 104 targets.
https://bsky.app/profile/danpizzuta.bsky.social/post/3lqb5dmpt622aBut in 2025, the pair played just 138 snaps together, as McLaurin (who missed a chunk of training camp due to a contract dispute) struggled through a quad injury and Daniels also missed time. Daniels completed 52.6% of his throws to McLaurin on 19 targets.

Blough has said he wants to build Washington’s offense around feeding McLaurin, with the goal of creating explosive plays. Washington needs the receiver to find something close to his 2024 form in order for Daniels to return to his perch as one of the league’s best quarterbacks.

Democrats Argue Backing Platner Isn't Like Backing Trump

Christa Dutton — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:14:00 GMT

The dynamics at play in the closing days of Graham Platner’s primary campaign are familiar to anyone who has followed national politics in the last decade. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

WALDOBORO, Maine — The dynamics are familiar to anyone who has followed national politics in the last decade: a populist on his way to trouncing the establishment candidate in a primary, and a party whose members are betting on a less-than-perfect frontrunner with obvious momentum.

This isn’t President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It’s Graham Platner, the favorite in Maine’s closely watched U.S. Senate primary, and Democrats.

And in the state, voters say that despite those similarities, the situation is not the same for a number of reasons ranging from the nature of the controversies to how the politicians have navigated the fallout.

“There are big differences, despite the background,” Paula X, a member of the Waldoboro Democratic Town Committee, told NOTUS at one of the organization’s meetings Monday night. “Platner owns what he did, he talks about it, he explains it, he's not proud of it, and he is working on being better.”

On Tuesday, voters will choose between Platner and the other leading candidate Gov. Janet Mills, the candidate reluctantly coaxed into the race whose campaign largely fizzled. Democrats are resigned to the reality that they’re likely to enter the general election against Sen. Susan Collins with Platner, a candidate facing backlash.

Among the controversies Platner has had to respond to are past derogatory remarks on Reddit, which he apologized for, and a tattoo that looked like a Nazi symbol, which he subsequently covered up. In response to reporting about extramarital sexting, he and his wife have been open about their marriage not being perfect and how they see a counselor. In response to New York Times reporting about intimidating behavior toward past girlfriends, Platner said, “I take responsibility for all of that, and wish I had been better.”

That accountability is why some supporters say they’re willing to stick with him now.

“Trump never claimed to have changed,” said Briana Markoff, a voter in Brunswick, Maine, who identifies as a democratic socialist. “He never came out against misogyny after he said he wanted to grab a woman by the pussy. Platner has said very clearly that he's learned a lot, he's grown a lot. His wife stands by him, and I don't think we have any option but to trust that at this point.”

In response to an inquiry from NOTUS, the campaign sent a press release highlighting news interviews with Maine voters saying that they value Platner's authenticity and will continue to stand behind him.

At a town hall Friday night, Platner said his past was being used against him.

“Maine, you have my back,” he said. “As every single piece of [my] past and journey gets dug up, litigated and weaponized, you have my back.”

Trump faced an entirely different set of allegations against him as a candidate, ranging from the “Access Hollywood” tape that threatened to tank his 2016 campaign to being convicted in the midst of his 2024 campaign of falsifying past business records. There are countless other controversies that have given Republicans reason to think twice, only to rally around him.

“I get really tired of Democrats being held to some lofty moral standard when Republicans are just ‘boys will be boys,’” said Ann Leamon, the co-chair of the Waldoboro Democrats, who said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the town or county party.

Leamon acknowledged that Platner’s controversies make him a risk for the party.

“Of course, you'd like a choir boy. Who wouldn't like a choir boy?” she said. “But it's the internet age, it's the ‘everything's out there’ age.”

Yet, she said he has better odds of beating Collins than Mills. A few months ago, Platner would have been a “no-brainer” candidate that could beat Collins, Leamon said. The recent allegations shake that up.

“Now he's giving people things to think about,” she said. “In a way it's, ‘Do you believe in redemption?’”

Several voters NOTUS spoke to in Maine said that the issues surrounding Platner concerned them, but they appreciate that he’s acknowledged his mistakes and apologized. They say he’s pushing a message that resonates with them. And, they really want to beat Collins.

“Some people are comparing [Platner] to Trump as being sort of a rebel who says what he wants and stuff,” said Rebecca Waddell, a Democrat in Waldoboro. “He's clearly much more educated, he's much more rational.”

Even one Democrat who planned to vote against Platner in the primary said she saw the situation as completely different.

“Those people chose to support an immoral human in order to get immoral policies through,” Lindsay Livingston, who is not voting for Platner due to his tattoo and past remarks, said about Republicans. “So, no, I don't think that's the same thing as hoping and trusting someone who's promising more moral policies.”

Democrats Keep Losing Voters in Swing Districts

Alex Roarty, Christa Dutton — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:13:00 GMT

A sign directs voters where to cast their ballots at Manchester Elementary School on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Omaha, Nebraska. Josh Funk/AP

Democrats hoped the 2024 election was their electoral low point.

In terms of one key metric, it wasn’t.

A new analysis of party-registration trends from the House Republicans’ political arm shows that, since the last presidential election, Democrats have continued to bleed voters in more than two dozen key House districts considered battleground seats this year. In most of those seats, Republicans have made gains with registered voters, making those areas more favorable to them ahead of this year’s midterm election.

It’s another sign of the Democratic Party’s deep and ongoing popularity issues since losing the last presidential election, when it sank to some of its lowest approval ratings on record.

“The battleground map keeps moving in Republicans’ direction, and this data shows House Democrats are running out of places to hide,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which conducted the analysis and shared the results with NOTUS, in a statement. “Republicans are welcoming voters with open arms, expanding the electorate, and building long-term strength in swing districts while Democrats continue losing ground cycle after cycle.”

In 28 congressional districts considered general-election battlegrounds, Democrats lost a total of more than 275,000 registered voters, an average of 10,000 voters per district. That’s according to the NRCC’s analysis, which found the number of registered Democrats shrinking in 27 of the 28 districts surveyed from November 2024 to May of this year.

The Democratic declines were steepest in battlegrounds like North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis; Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan; and a trio of GOP-held seats in Iowa’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd Districts (held by Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, outgoing Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, respectively) — all of which are expected to be hotly contested in November.

Another battleground, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, held by outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, has alone seen Democrats lose more than 23,000 registered voters in the last year and a half.

A voter’s partisan registration does not necessarily indicate how they will vote in any given election, and Republicans will still have to overcome deep dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and ongoing concern about the economy to have success in the general election. Democrats have also shown recent voter gains in some states like Pennsylvania, reversing the registration trend for the first time in years.

Party strategists brushed off the analysis.

“Republicans are being rejected in election after election since Trump returned to the White House — and Democrats are overperforming by double digits,” said Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“In primaries across the country this year, Democrats are turning out at levels consistently dwarfing the turnout in Republican primaries,” Shelton went on. “Incomplete, cherry-picked data by the delusional hacks at the NRCC won’t change the reality on the ground: Democrats have the momentum, formidable candidates with cross-party appeal, and — most importantly — the American people on our side. We will take back the House majority in November.”

All but one district included in the analysis, Colorado’s 3rd, is considered a competitive House race by the Cook Political Report. The analysis doesn’t include some battleground districts in states that don’t have partisan registration, like Texas or Wisconsin.

It also doesn’t include some key districts, like California’s 22nd Congressional District and Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, that are less Republican leaning and considered “toss up” races by Cook.

But the ongoing registration losses for Democrats underscore how Republicans are fighting much of the 2026 midterm in increasingly conservative areas — a rightward lean that could help the GOP fortify itself against losses even in a difficult environment.

“The national Democratic brand is just very bad,” said David Kochel, a veteran Republican strategist. “And it hasn’t gotten any better.”

Democrats have steadily lost registered voters since the 2020 presidential election: From 2020 to 2024, the number of registered voters declined by 2.1 million across all 30 states that track voter registration by party, The New York Times reported. Republicans gained 2.4 million voters during that period.

According to the NRCC’s analysis, Republicans’ total number of voters also declined by nearly 50,000 across the 28 districts. But because the Democrats lost so many more voters, the Republican Party increased its marginal registration advantage over Democrats by an average of 1.5 percentage points since 2024 — a swing of nearly 230,000 voters total.

Compared to the party's registration numbers in 2020, the Democrats' losses are even more stark. The analysis found that after the 2020 election, Democrats had a 733,000 voter-registration edge on Republicans in these 28 districts. But in the nearly six years since, the party has lost 737,000 voters there, giving Republicans a small 4,100 voter-registration advantage.

The analysis includes districts all over the country: Arizona’s 1st and 6th; Colorado’s 3rd and 8th; Florida’s 9th, 14th, 22nd and 25th; Iowa’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd; Maine’s 2nd; North Carolina’s 1st; Nebraska’s 2nd; New Hampshire’s 1st; New Jersey’s 7th and 9th; New Mexico’s 2nd; Nevada’s 1st and 3rd; New York’s 3rd, 4th, 17th and 19th; and Pennsylvania’s 1st, 7th, 8th and 10th.

In North Carolina’s 1st District, the most competitive one in the state, Republicans steadily decreased the gap between their registration numbers and Democrats’. In 2018, Democrats outnumbered Republican registrations by nearly 22 percentage points. Republicans have trimmed that down to an nearly 4 percentage point difference, as of May 2026.

“That's really indicative of what we've seen both locally as well as nationally, where Democrats are out of touch,” said Jason Simmons, the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. “Their policies are no longer representative of the values of North Carolinians, and especially eastern North Carolina.”

The diminishing margins are due to new voters joining the party as well as “refugees from blue states” who are moving to North Carolina, Simmons said. The 1st District also added several conservative counties when the state Legislature redrew its lines last fall.

The district, which spans the northeast part of the state from the Virginia border to the coast, hasn’t elected a Republican to Congress since 1883.

Political Committees Are Still Forfeiting Crypto Kingpins’ Tainted Contributions

Mark Alfred — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:03:00 GMT

Numerous political committees had to surrender money donated by FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried and associates. Seth Wenig/AP

In 2022, it took less than a week for the multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange FTX to collapse into bankruptcy, prompting politicians and political groups to quickly promise refunds of donations given to them by the company’s soon-to-be-indicted executives.

The path to restitution, however, has been anything but swift. It took years for most organizations to reach agreements to repay the tainted funds following negotiations with the Justice Department and FTX’s lengthy bankruptcy proceedings.

That slog means major political groups that support the campaigns of Democrats and Republicans alike are continuing to pay out millions of dollars during the 2026 midterm campaign, harming their bottom lines at a time when they’re fighting for control of Congress.

The situation is especially hurting Democrats, who on balance have raised less cash than their Republican counterparts this cycle and have surrendered far more FTX-related settlement money.

Overall, negotiations have resulted in a mix of FTX-linked settlement payouts — some still being made to this day — and other obfuscated payback agreements that leave unclear how much tainted money various groups may retain or were ever obligated to give back.

Over a dozen largely Democratic-aligned groups reached agreements in November 2024, with some quickly repaying all funds they had taken over the years from FTX or its executives. Among those organizations was the House Majority PAC, the primary super PAC supporting Democratic House candidates, which surrendered $6 million to the U.S. Marshals later that month, according to federal records.

Others have been far slower to make such agreements or return the funds they received.

EMILYs List’s super PAC arm, Women Vote, made its most recent payment to the FTX Recovery Trust this April: $650,000. It had received $2.25 million from FTX’s then-head of engineering, Nishad Singh, and has an outstanding balance of $650,000, federal filings show.
Nishad.Singh (4032x3024, AR: 1.33)Women Vote and dozens of other organizations that NOTUS reached out to did not respond to requests for comment.

Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic Party’s aligned super PAC supporting Senate candidates, had accepted a total of $3 million from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Singh. So far, it’s surrendered $2 million to the U.S. Marshals across two payments in December 2024 and December 2025 — leaving $1 million still outstanding.

“Senate Majority PAC entered into an agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service to return these funds and we continue to meet that schedule,” committee spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “It has always been and remains our intent to return 100% of the funds.”

Democratic groups across the country received tens of millions of dollars from FTX and its leaders — far more than what Republican-aligned organizations received.

“Pursuant to a settlement agreement, the Michigan Democratic Party returned 100 percent of the funds received from FTX,” spokesperson Leah Leszczynski said in a statement, adding that it forfeited the cash last year.

The primary super PAC backing Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, Future Forward, made its latest payment to the recovery funds in February 2025, forfeiting $3.35 million.

In July 2025, FTX agreed to drop lawsuits against six largely Republican-aligned political groups after seeking to recoup donations it had sent their way. The terms of the dismissals were not made public, making it unclear how much each organization may have agreed to forfeit.

Among them were the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund — both Republican super PAC powerhouses — which respectively paid out $825,000 in July 2025 and $1.05 million in August 2025.

Of the six, only American Prosperity Alliance, a nonprofit linked to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, responded to NOTUS’ inquiries, confirming: “All payments have been made.” It did not specify a payment amount.

Bankman-Fried, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for various crimes, including financial fraud, formally applied for a pardon from President Donald Trump on Monday.

Nithya Raman Beats Out Spencer Pratt to Challenge LA Mayor Karen Bass

Manuela Silva — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:56:07 GMT

Nithya Raman will advance to the November election against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Raman beat out former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary election, according to The Associated Press. Jae C. Hong/AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Nithya Raman will advance to the general election against incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, beating out reality TV star Spencer Pratt after nearly a week of vote counting.

Raman, a Los Angeles City Council member, held a lead of about 22,000 votes on Monday night over Pratt, according to The Associated Press, with roughly 93% of the votes counted.

"I’m incredibly honored that voters have given us the opportunity to advance to the general election for Mayor of Los Angeles,” Raman wrote in a statement issued shortly after the primary was called.

“Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues.”

Because no candidate claimed a majority of the votes, the top two vote-getters now advance to November’s ballot. The race is officially nonpartisan.

Pratt, a former star of “The Hills,” was endorsed by President Donald Trump heading into the race; Trump had claimed without evidence that the slow vote count meant the election was “rigged.”

“Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election,” Trump said during an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

One of the reasons the vote count is slower is because much of California votes by mail, which means ballots can take longer to inspect.

Bass is vying for reelection despite harsh criticism about her leadership, stemming in large part from her handling of last year’s deadly wildfires.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Bass, who served as speaker of the state Assembly and in the U.S. House before becoming mayor, just days before the primary. That backing followed an endorsement in early May by former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Raman — a progressive candidate who was recommended, but not formally endorsed, by the Democratic Socialists of America — has been on the City Council for six years. She had previously endorsed Bass weeks before announcing her own mayoral bid in February.

Pratt has made himself an outsize presence in the race since jumping into it in January. He targeted Bass from the earliest days of his campaign, saying that “business as usual is a death sentence” for the city. He lost his Palisades home in last year’s wildfires, laying the blame for the widespread devastation at Bass’ feet.

New World Screwworm Spreads Beyond Texas

Tyler Spence — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:25:35 GMT

The New World screwworm, eradicated in the United States in 1996, has now been confirmed in New Mexico after initial detection in Texas last week. Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP

The New World screwworm has spread beyond Texas, with a new confirmed case in New Mexico, the Department of Agriculture announced Monday, just five days after the parasite was identified in the United States for the first time in six decades.

A dog in Lea County, New Mexico, located on the Texas state line, tested positive for the parasite, and the USDA believes it to be an isolated case.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins insisted the confirmed cases — which now include two calves and a goat that tested positive in Texas — haven’t caught the department off guard, but acknowledged that the agency's current tools to fight the parasite need to be ramped up. The screwworm is a fly larva that eats living flesh, mainly in livestock, but it can also spread to wildlife, pets and, in rare instances, humans.

Currently, the U.S. produces 100 million sterile flies a week, which helped eradicate the pest in the country in 1996. Rollins says these flies will be used to eradicate screwworm again, but the country needs between 400 million and 500 million flies a week.

“Our goal is to have enough sterile flies deployed and out into Texas and wherever else this happens to be before the summer season pops up,” Rollins said in a press conference.

Rollins said a new facility in Mexico that can produce sterile flies will be operational by the end of the month.

Rollins also continues to blame the Biden administration for the arrival of the screwworm, claiming without evidence that open border policies and the illicit movement of cattle contributed to the spread inside the United States. The Biden administration implemented port closures for livestock in 2024 to prevent the spread of the parasite. After the beginning of Trump’s second term, the ports were reopened and closed multiple times.

Rollins said models projected the flies would reach the U.S. by last summer. “We bought ourselves an additional year to prepare for this moment,” Rollins said Monday.

The parasite has been moving north through Central America and Mexico for several years with recent cases detected near the U.S.-Mexico border. The USDA confirmed a case in Coahuila, Mexico, about 25 miles south of the Texas border, on Tuesday.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, has criticized the Trump administration and the USDA, arguing the response has not been strong enough. The Trump administration shut down animal disease-tracking programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development, including screwworm tracking, in March 2025.

Miller has raised concerns about farmers not self-reporting because they’re concerned their animals will be quarantined, which Rollins, when asked, called “an unserious comment” from an “unserious commissioner.”

‘Subject to Ignorance’

Marissa Martinez — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:50:06 GMT

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:50:06 GMT https://www.notus.org/final-notus-newsletter/subject-to-ignorance

Federal agents stand outside immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits federal building, Friday, March 6, 2026, in New York. Yuki Iwamura/AP

Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for June 8, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

THE LATEST

Donald Trump’s administration will seek to revoke the citizenship of 17 American citizens accused of immigration fraud — the largest effort yet by the U.S. government to employ rarely used denaturalization powers.

The administration says the immigrants had failed to disclose unlawful behavior, including fraud or drug charges, during their naturalization proceedings. Trump denaturalized an average of 42 individuals a year during his first term, marking a huge jump from the 11 average cases that occurred annually between 1990 and 2017.

Iran and Israel have halted attacks after the two countries traded fire yesterday. Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again this morning, asking him to stand down on attacks like Sunday night’s strikes to avoid further disrupting peace deal negotiations — another sign of increasing division between the U.S. and Israel since the war began in February.

Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that the final talks are proceeding, “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.”

THE ADMINISTRATION

A federal judge struck down the administration’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, finding it was an unconstitutional tax that bypassed congressional authority.

Trump’s name was removed today from the Kennedy Center’s website following a court ruling, with the building signage and other items soon to follow.

The IRS tapped IT and HR staff members to process taxes this year, despite not having any experience. It’s not going well.

The president could face a hostile environment at tonight’s New York Knicks game against the San Antonio Spurs. He is expected to watch from Knicks owner James Dolan’s suite in Madison Square Garden.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be watching from a separate area and paid for his own ticket, a spokesperson noted.

THE HILL

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is off the table unless the administration drops its appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. The spy program is due to expire on Friday.

Trump again called for the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, to be fired in a Truth Social post — motivated not by ongoing reconciliation troubles, but the SAVE America Act.

THE COURTS

A federal judge will go through audio and transcripts of Joe Biden’s conversations with a ghostwriter — which the DOJ wants to make public — by tomorrow. The Heritage Foundation, which is suing for access to the recordings, today asked for an evidentiary hearing to directly cross-examine Biden, whose team opposes the request.

Former crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried has applied for a pardon after completing his prison sentence for an elaborate fraud scheme.

AN IMPOSTER AMONG US

https://x.com/AnnaBower/status/2064028899814645932

AI Anxiety Could Bring Back Oklahoma's Legislature

Adora Brown — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:30:11 GMT

It’s not clear yet when a special election would be called, but in a statement to NOTUS, Stitt’s office emphasized his desire to address the issue. Nick Oxford/AP

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is considering calling a special legislative session to address the use of artificial intelligence in campaign advertisements.

Oklahoma is one of many states that has yet to regulate the use of generative AI, and the continued push for regulation from the governor reflects a growing concern across the country about how AI could affect the midterms. Stitt spoke to CNN on Monday about issues specific to the governor’s race in his state, like attack ads that could confuse voters about what positions certain candidates back.

“When I started seeing some AI-generated ads politically attacking people, putting them in different situations with people, I just thought, listen, we need to make sure that the voters have accurate information and the truth still matters in Oklahoma,” Stitt, who is not running for reelection, told the outlet. “And we need transparency. We want to make sure that the voters aren‘t confused about what they‘re seeing.”

AI has become increasingly present in campaigns, and has even become a regular tool used by President Donald Trump to criticize his opponents.

Stitt first said he would call this legislative session after the Make Oklahoma Great Again PAC created an AI-generated campaign ad in May that made it seem like a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mike Mazzei, was pictured hugging Hillary Clinton. Mazzei is the Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.

In a post on X, Stitt referred to the attack as “dishonest, swamp-style politics.”

It’s not clear yet when a special election would be called, but in a statement to NOTUS, Stitt’s office emphasized his desire to address the issue.

“He has been clear that if deceptive AI‑generated campaign content continues in Oklahoma, he will seriously consider bringing lawmakers back to address it,” Tevis Hillis, press secretary for Stitt, said. “Governor Stitt believes Oklahomans deserve the truth in their elections, not computer‑generated smears designed to mislead voters.”

The governor’s race in Oklahoma to replace Stitt is one of the state’s most high-profile contests this primary season. Mazzei is running against several candidates who have already held state-level office, including current Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, former public safety officer Chip Keating and the former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, Charles McCall.

Stitt said on CNN that his priority is creating a system of disclosure or disclaimer. He said that when AI is used in advertisements, voters should be aware that what they’re viewing is not authentic.

On Friday, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission met to discuss how to handle deepfakes and AI use in campaign materials. The committee plans to work with state lawmakers to determine how to enforce these rules, according to the Oklahoma Voice.

Stitt’s comments on Monday show his continued interest in addressing AI, especially given that the state Legislature adjourned nearly two weeks early in May.

“I really believe that the voters need confidence that when they go to the ballot box, let’s really have a debate about ideas and what direction you want to take the state or the country or your city in,” Stitt said on CNN. “Your imagination can run wild with you. And we want to make sure that that doesn’t happen in our political elections here in Oklahoma.”

Oklahomans will cast their ballots in the primary elections on June 16.

Trump’s Plan to Meet With AI Companies Was News to AI Companies

Jeff Stein — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:23:07 GMT

President Donald Trump has faced backlash from some of his supporters around the idea of partially nationalizing tech firms. Mark Schiefelbein/AP

President Donald Trump said he had a meeting with major artificial intelligence companies on the books to discuss the government acquiring shares in their firms. That was news to the companies, three people familiar with the matter said.

Leading AI companies were blindsided by the president's announcement last Friday that he would meet with "all the big" firms about taking "pieces" of their companies, "possibly as soon as next week."

"I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, in the very near future, with — did you know that? — all of the companies,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “And we’re talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI.”

The leaders of those companies learned about the meeting from the president’s comments to reporters, according to the three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. As of Monday afternoon, the White House had provided no details about when or where the executives of the leading AI companies would be meeting with the president.

In a statement, a White House official said it continues “to proactively engage across government and industry.”

The confusion about Trump’s meeting announcement highlights the broader uncertainty facing the tech companies after the president suddenly called publicly for their partial nationalization. The proposal for the government to take an equity stake in major AI companies would be among the most consequential federal interventions in the private sector in modern history.

Leading AI firms would stand to lose billions of dollars from forking over public shares to the government, and doing so would raise a raft of novel regulatory, legal and financial challenges that could upend their business models. It’s also not clear if AI companies themselves agree on whether allowing the government to take equity in the industry is a good idea.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pitched the idea of turning over shares in his company to Trump in early 2025 and discussed the matter again with senior officials in recent weeks, NOTUS first reported. But as of last week, Anthropic had not yet discussed the idea, according to a fourth person familiar with the matter, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private talks.

Anthropic's $900 billion valuation has made it the most valuable AI company in the world and would qualify it as one of the leading AI companies by any measure. Trump claimed on Friday to “have spoken to all of them” about the idea.

Spokespeople for OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and Google declined to comment.

The president has faced backlash from some of his supporters around the idea of partially nationalizing tech firms. Seeking dominance over China in the race for AI supremacy, the White House has been wary of imposing too many regulatory barriers on the industry, despite widespread alarm in the defense and cyber industries about their potential destabilizing impacts. Becoming a major shareholder in the companies would mark a major reversal of that general administration policy, at least according to some of the president’s most ardent supporters in the tech world.

“Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward,” said David Sacks, the president’s former AI czar, in a post on X. “... America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.”

Still, the AI companies themselves may have a more difficult time publicly opposing the president if the administration gets serious about the idea. To a greater degree than any recent president, Trump has moved to claim equity shares for the government in a range of American firms — including a 10% share of Intel that the president has extolled — and said that he wants to execute similar deals moving forward. The AI companies are dependent on the federal government for logistical and regulatory support, and resisting Trump’s push to take shares could force them into a confrontation they may prefer to avoid.

"There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public," Trump told reporters. "It would be a beautiful thing.”

Trump Administration Moves to Revoke Naturalized Citizenship From 17 People

Jenna Monnin — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:52:41 GMT

The Trump administration “maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Monday. John McDonnell/AP

The Justice Department moved to strip 17 individuals of their citizenship for “serious offenses,” filing denaturalization actions in U.S. district courts around the country. Trump administration officials say the immigrants failed to disclose unlawful behavior during their naturalization proceedings.

The Trump administration “maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Monday in a press release about the DOJ’s actions.

Officials told CBS News, which was the first to report on the denaturalization push, that it’s the largest effort yet by President Donald Trump to revoke citizenship.

Many of the 17 individuals were convicted on fraud or drug charges, officials said, while six were convicted of or pleaded guilty to sexual abuse involving children.

Denaturalization occurs when an “individual's status reverts back to the status held before becoming a U.S. citizen,” according to a recent congressional overview of the process.

Between 1990 and 2017, the U.S. filed an average of 11 denaturalization cases a year. The Trump administration identified 384 foreign-born Americans to target with denaturalization proceedings in April, according to a report from The New York Times.

Trump denaturalized an average of 42 individuals a year during his first term in office and committed to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility” during his second presidency.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term that empowered his administration to reinvigorate the push to “identify and take appropriate action” against individuals who violate the federal denaturalization statute — including those who “unlawfully procured” citizenship.

“American citizenship is a privilege, and it must be earned honestly. If you come here, break our laws, and lie in your immigration proceedings, you forfeit that privilege,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the press release.

The individuals targeted in Monday’s announcement hail from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Jamaica, India, the Dominican Republic, Somalia, China, Congo, Trinidad and Tobago and the Philippines.

Among them is Neeraj Sharma, who is accused of fraudulently signing and filing 11 H-1B visa petitions through a staffing company.

The Justice Department announced last month it was seeking to denaturalize 12 individuals. That group hailed from many of the same countries as the latest group, but some individuals in last month’s push were accused of “providing material support to a terrorist group” and “committing war crimes.”

The Pentagon Changed Its Religious Classifications After Outrage From LDS Lawmakers

Joe Gould — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:43:23 GMT

Sen. Mike Lee said previously that the Pentagon's religious classification change was "repugnant." Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP

The Pentagon on Monday backtracked on a disputed religious-affiliation policy that sparked a backlash from members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Republican lawmakers, saying the list had contained a “mistake” that “has been fixed.”

The statement, posted by a Department of Defense account on X, came hours after Sen. Mike Lee said he had personally appealed to President Donald Trump on the issue. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been left outside a list of Christian denominations used in military personnel records.

“I just got off the phone with President Trump,” Lee, a Utah Republican and Trump ally, posted on X. “We discussed the Pentagon’s ‘Christian list’. I won’t speak for him, but I’m thrilled about where this is heading. We’re most fortunate that President Trump (1) loves Latter-day Saints, and (2) is our commander in chief. Stay tuned.”

The Pentagon confirmed last week that it reduced more than 200 religious affiliation codes to 31. The list included more than 20 categories labeled “Christian,” but placed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a separate category.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell defended the May 20 memo last week, saying the changes were intended to simplify religious-affiliation tracking and help military chaplains better understand the makeup of the force.

But on Monday, the Pentagon distanced itself from the document, calling it “leaked.”

“The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” the statement said.

Under the list the Pentagon posted Monday, religious denominations were generally listed by name rather than grouped under “Christian” categories, a change that removed the distinction that had roiled several LDS members in Congress.

Lee, who had called the initial change “repugnant,” posted Monday that he was “grateful to @SecWar Hegseth for correcting the error.”

Fellow Utah Sen. John Curtis, who also spoke out against the policy change previously, posted in approval.

“Thank you to the @DeptofWar for listening to our concerns, engaging thoughtfully and respectfully with my office on this issue, and for delivering a swift correction,” Sen. John Curtis, a Mormon and Utah Republican, wrote in a post afterward.

Utah Republican Reps. Mike Kennedy and Celeste Maloy and Arizona Democrats Rep. Greg Stanton and Sen. Ruben Gallego also previously spoke out against the list.

Kennedy said the classification is “wrong and needs to be corrected,” while Maloy wrote that members of the church “are Christian.” Stanton said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth owed the public “an honest explanation.”

The Pentagon “needs to correct the record. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints truly are Christians. I happen to be a member, and first and foremost I believe in Jesus Christ. We are Christians,” former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, said in a post.

The controversy touches on a longstanding debate over the place of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints within Christianity. Church members identify as Christians because of their belief in Jesus Christ, while some other Christian denominations have historically argued that theological differences place the faith outside traditional Christian orthodoxy.

The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum signed by Anthony Tata, the Pentagon’s personnel chief.

Tata’s 2020 nomination for a senior Pentagon post collapsed amid backlash over anti-Muslim comments and social media posts calling former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” — comments he later said did not reflect his views.

Hegseth has faced criticism from some church-state advocates over his public use of Christian language in official Pentagon events and policies, hosting prayer events at the Pentagon and describing military operations in religious terms.

The IRS Moved IT and HR Staff to Process Taxes. It's Not Going Well.

Eric Katz — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:04:01 GMT

Jon Elswick/AP

The IRS tapped information technology and human resources staff with no experience in taxpayer services to process returns this year, starting them off with nine weeks of classroom training to prepare them for the new roles.

They listened to tedious lectures for eight hours a day, five days a week, according to several employees detailed to process tax returns. When it came time to take their assessments, they said, it was difficult to retain all the information their instructors had offered.

Many people didn’t: At least several hundred of the more than 1,000 employees on the details failed their initial certification exams, agency officials told staff in a recent town hall meeting, a transcript of which was obtained by NOTUS.

Some of these reassigned employees could face disciplinary action if they fail to improve their results. All of them are facing an uncertain future at the agency — including what could be a long-term move to roles they never wanted.

Staff who were moved to taxpayer services had primarily worked in high-level IT and HR jobs, and told NOTUS they found the training for entry-level work demeaning and boring.

“While entry-level work is better than no work, myself, like others, didn't build a career in IT to process tax returns while having no idea the term,” one reassigned employee said.

The IRS reassigned the employees to the entry-level work of processing taxpayer documents earlier this year after workforce cuts led to a crunch ahead of tax filing season.

The IRS has shed around 25,000 employees — about a quarter of its workforce — since President Donald Trump took office, mostly by offering incentives for staff to leave. More than 8,000 of the departed employees worked in processing tax returns, providing customer service by phone or in person, or in other roles directly related to filing season. The IRS had hoped the reassignments would help stabilize its most public-facing operations in the wake of those cuts.

Joe Ziegler, whom the Trump administration promoted to senior advisor at the IRS after he alleged to Congress the agency had mishandled Hunter Biden’s taxes, told reassigned employees during the recent town hall that they should appreciate their new roles out of love for the organization.

“I know I've heard from a lot of people that this is low-grade work. ‘It's not what I need to be doing,’” Ziegler said, according to the transcript. “I need you guys to think about this from a different perspective.”

He said employees should approach their assignments “from a different mindset of, ‘how am I gonna do my job to the best of my abilities, because that's what I want to do for the agency that I love: the IRS.’”

In a statement, the IRS said the certification process would ensure the reassigned employees have the skills they need to “deliver quality service” to taxpayers, and those who failed their tests would receive further coaching. It did not address the potential for disciplinary action.

“The Internal Revenue Service is focused on providing the best possible experience for taxpayers and employees,” the agency said, adding the reassignments “are helping improve service for taxpayers.”

The IT and HR employees detailed to process tax returns weren’t in place before the April 15 filing deadline that marks the end of the IRS’s busiest time of the year, even if they received their certification on the first try. Most still aren’t fully trained.

Those who failed the initial certification exam will have a second chance, the IRS said. If they fail that as well, the IRS said it would allow them to work cases without assistance to prove their aptitude.

Three IRS employees on the details said few of those workers passed their second test. In addition to the threat of discipline, agency officials said employees would have their overall performance evaluated on how active and cooperative they were during their training.

Alex Kweskin, the head of human resources at the IRS, told employees last month he sympathized with their situations.

“I know that it's a challenge to be detailed,” Kweskin said. “We recognize the challenging year that it has been.”

Kweskin told the reassigned employees they could apply to other job openings in the IRS if they were not happy, or leave the agency altogether.

“We don't want to handicap you in any sort of way to hold you into the detail,” Kweskin said.

Ziegler told employees, however, that they could not return to their old jobs and their initial 120-assignments would be extended. Officials said they would assess the state of the agency’s case backlog, which has been in place for several years, before deciding how long the involuntary details would continue.

Several employees said they expect the assignments to eventually be made permanent and speculated the agency was looking to push them out without the complexities that accompany government layoffs.

“Nobody feels confident in what they’re doing,” another employee on the detail said, echoing others who said their training included too much information packed into too little time. “It’s a nightmare, and that’s an understatement.”

A third reassigned employee said the details were a “disaster” that were unlikely to help the agency.

“Many trainees do not know their way around a basic tax form, let alone more complex ones,” the IRS employee said. “I think most of us use a platform like TurboTax [to file our own taxes].”

Trump's Other Job

Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, Jenna Monnin — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT https://www.notus.org/newsletters/trumps-other-job

Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP

Today’s notice: Donald Trump and Mike Johnson do the Spiderman pointing meme. What the DOJ is and isn’t doing to get ready for the midterms. And: local and sports coverage, now on NOTUS!

THE LATEST

The “election integrity” question. Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has taken a series of interesting actions (and inactions) that have alarmed current and former prosecutors, causing them to question the agency’s preparedness for the midterm elections, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery scoops.

The DOJ has canceled election-integrity training sessions for prosecutors and FBI agents. It has deleted a nearly 300-page guide to prosecuting election offenses. It has fired a majority of the lawyers in the Public Integrity section while also failing to replace the director of its Election Crimes Branch. Moreover, the DOJ has not taken the usual steps to establish a “command center” to monitor and address the typical emergencies that pop up around Election Day, sources tell Jose. That team would address things like voter intimidation and targeted disinformation.

“That's really concerning,” said Ryan Crosswell, a former public corruption prosecutor who recently ran for Congress as a Democrat. “And this just feeds into the fear that rather than protect elections, the DOJ may try to interfere with them.”

The DOJ did not provide any answers to detailed questions about the training cancellations and the election command center, but a department spokesperson said its top priorities are now “ensuring the integrity of U.S. elections and protecting Americans against voting fraud and civil rights violations.”

Delayed results from California’s primary election have already fueled conspiracies on the right — linking the (very long) time it takes to count mail-in-ballots in the (very) Democratic state to the idea that Democrats are cheating. Those theories have made it to Donald Trump, who stormed out of an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday after she pushed the president to provide evidence of election rigging in California and, his longtime obsession, in 2020.

“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” Trump told Welker, claiming the lengthy vote-counting process is “cheating on the election.”

Open tabs: Trump Says He Never Promised No New Wars (NYT); Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time since ceasefire (Axios); Donald Trump, Knicks fan, heads back to New York to root on his team (AP); US Supreme Court poised to rule on gun laws and transgender athletes (Reuters)

From the Hill

Remember, you don’t have to be a member of the House to be the speaker. A feature of Trump’s second term has been a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives, making House Speaker Mike Johnson’s difficult job even harder and forcing him to lean on Trump to twist arms.

There’s a running joke on the Hill that Trump is actually running the House, and Trump is in on it too. In at least one meeting with Johnson and other lawmakers, Trump ribbed him over how often the president has to get his own members in line, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports.

“I have two jobs: being president and being speaker,” Trump has said. But it goes beyond that. According to two sources who spoke with Reese, there have been several instances when members seeking to bring legislation to the floor were directed by Johnson to obtain the administration's approval first.

But not everyone thinks this is a problem. One senior GOP aide said, “It stands to reason that the White House would have input into and help pass the legislative agenda that Republican House Members and the President ran on and that 77.3 million Americans voted for.”

From the campaign

At a town hall last night, Senate candidate Graham Platner said nothing about the allegations that he intimidated some of the women he previously dated. His voters didn’t either, Christa Dutton reports from Maine.

What was on their minds? Citizens United. Industrial salmon farming. Congressional committee assignments. What he thinks out-of-towners don’t get.

Some Democrats see Platner as a risk. Does Maine? “Maybe if you're outside looking in,” one voter said. They added: “People in Maine know him, and those things are not important. Well, they're important, but what we need to focus on is what he proposes to do to make our lives better.”

New this morning in Texas: Dan Cogdell, who was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s defense attorney in both his impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, has endorsed Democrat James Talarico, NOTUS’ Stephen Neukam reports.

NOTUS METRO

Our local news and sports coverage debuts today! Just as in-person early voting begins, we’ve got interviews with both frontrunners in the rollicking contest for D.C. mayor. Plus, a look at this season’s Nationals team and a profile of Mystics forward Shakira Austin.

How to manage (and stand up to) Trump has been a top pitch from Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie, but so too are the perennial issues of affordability and public safety. While McDuffie has said Lewis George — a current councilmember and self-identified democratic socialist — can’t be trusted to keep D.C. safe, she’s managed to corner him on affordability concerns.

Public safety and affordability are inextricably linked, McDuffie tells NOTUS’ Michael Brice Saddler. “It’s challenging to get to some of the issues around affordability if people don’t feel safe. Attracting new residents and new businesses is difficult in an environment where the competitiveness has been diminished in terms of quality of life in some people’s eyes,” McDuffie said.

Is that pitch connecting with voters? Maybe not. A recent Washington Post-Schar School poll put Lewis George 11 points ahead among registered Democrats who are likely to vote. She tells NOTUS’ Martin Austermuhle that D.C. residents are “absolutely” ready for a democratic socialist mayor. “I am a believer in sewer socialism, and that is making basic government services work for people. People have been crying out for the government to just have the basics work well. People are tired of hearing what the government can’t do,” she said.

From the NOTUS Sports desk.

The Nationals’ man with a plan. Paul Toboni, the Nationals’ new president of baseball operations, is asking fans for patience — but he seems to realize what a hard ask that is, he tells NOTUS’ Jesse Dougherty.

The Mystics’ wisest 25-year-old. Forward Shakira Austin is emerging as a key leader as D.C.’s WNBA team starts a season with one of the youngest rosters in the league, NOTUS’ Dave Sheinin reports.

NEW ON NOTUS

Detainees say they experienced “psychological torture” at Delaney Hall, an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, at the center of daily protests, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports. In lawsuits — more than 530 have been filed this year — detainees describe food deprivation, inadequate medical care and unsanitary living conditions. “My detention conditions violate basic standards of human dignity,” one detainee wrote.

NOT US

The Interview: Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes,’ by By Lulu Garcia-Navarro for The New York Times
A flesh-eating pest threatens Trump’s beef price hopes, by Grace Yarrow for Politico
Trump considers buying Chagos Islands, by Connor Stringer and Tony Diver for The Telegraph
The Absurd World Cup, by Chris Jones for The Atlantic

WEEK AHEAD

Tuesday

Primary Election Day in South Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada and Maine.

Wednesday

Congressional baseball game at Nats stadium.

Thursday

Possible Supreme Court ruling announcement day.

Friday

Days of hype around the UFC fight at the White House kick off with a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial.

Sunday

Trump’s 80th birthday

The UFC fight at the White House

A fourth round of No Kings protests.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please sign up — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.com. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.com.

The newsletter was produced by Kate Nocera, Nike Johnson and Dianna Heitz.]]>

Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Defense Lawyer Endorses James Talarico

Stephen Neukam — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dan Cogdell, who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, has endorsed James Talarico. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Eric Gay/AP

A Texas lawyer who helped lead Republican Ken Paxton’s defense during his 2023 impeachment trial is endorsing Democrat James Talarico in the state’s critical Senate race this November.

Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”

“And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell said.

Cogdell has donated a total of $6,500 to Paxton’s campaign last year and then gave $1,000 to Talarico’s campaign in March, according to campaign finance reports. His endorsement of Talarico comes just after the third anniversary of Paxton’s impeachment by the Texas House of Representatives over allegations including bribery.

The Paxton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite representing one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent political allies, Cogdell has broken with his party and criticized the president publicly in recent years. The longtime Paxton confidant last year called Trump the “greatest threat to Democracy our country’s ever seen.” Cogdell’s comments were used in a now-deleted attack ad against Paxton released by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in September. The ad called Cogdell “a liberal Trump-hating trial lawyer.”

Now Senate Republican leaders have fallen in line with Paxton after he defeated longtime Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a primary runoff last month. The Paxton-Cornyn clash split the GOP, with Republican leaders backing Cornyn and Trump allies supporting Paxton. Trump ultimately endorsed Paxton a week before the runoff.

Talarico, the 37-year-old state lawmaker who has impressed Democrats in Washington with his campaign and fundraising prowess, welcomed the Cogdell endorsement, and appealed directly to GOP voters who may not be willing to support Paxton.

“If you voted for John Cornyn, you have a place in this campaign,” Talarico said in a statement. “If you’re a Republican tired of the corruption you’re seeing in government, you have a place in this campaign. Even if you’re Ken Paxton’s impeachment lawyer, you have a place in this campaign.”

During the GOP primary, Cornyn allies stressed that Paxton was probably a riskier candidate to run against the Democratic nominee in the general election, given his history of criminal charges and personal controversies. They argued that the party may have to spend over $100 million in Texas with Paxton as the candidate to prevent Democrats from flipping the seat.