2028 Is the New 2026

Today’s notice: Fetterman’s future is up in the air. Hegseth treads water. Forget 2026, we’re talking about 2028 now (and don’t lose sight of 2032, either). Plus: The lone Republican senator defending Somalis in America.

THE LATEST

2028 (and 2032) on the mind: Yes, it’s 2025. And yes, there are some major 2026 races shaping up. But some Democrats are doing advanced planning.

In Pennsylvania, progressives are already workshopping plans to primary Sen. John Fetterman, the progressive-turned-pariah who’s up for reelection in 2028. Some state House members say they’re not yet ruling out running for his seat, even if it means they’d have to campaign against him.

Also not ruling anything out: Fetterman. “2028 is gonna be crazy,” he told NOTUS’ Ursula Perano and Avani Kalra in a statement that included a GIF of a character from “A Serious Man” saying, “Accept the mystery.”

Fetterman repeatedly insisted it’s too early to clarify his aspirations. “It’s 2025,” he told Ursula. Asked whether he’s eyeing the Oval Office, he offered no more clarity: “It’s 2025,” he repeated.

Fwiw, some of his former staffers told Ursula and Avani that it would be surprising if he stuck around the upper chamber, since he does not seem to enjoy senatorial things, like voting, legislative maneuvering or attending his party’s meetings.

If you think it’s too soon for 2028 talk, Democratic operatives are already talking about 2032: Americans keep moving around the country, and that’s changing how Democrats are thinking about post-census elections. They are making a bigger deal out of the midterms to preempt those population changes, which are expected to result in House seat losses for reliably blue states, while Southern states are projected to gain nine.

“We can’t rely just on the blue wall states that are losing population anymore. The math doesn’t work anymore,” Morgan Jackson, an adviser to former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s Senate campaign, told NOTUS’ Christa Dutton.

Open tabs: Supreme Court allows Texas to use new congressional map (NBC); CDC vaccine advisers delay hepatitis B vote amid confusion (Politico); Congressional Watchdog Agency Opens Probe Into Top Trump Housing Official (NOTUS); Maurice DuBois to Exit ‘CBS Evening News’ (Variety)

From the Hill

“Hegseth should be fired,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told NOTUS’ Violet Jira and Hamed Ahmadi after the public release of the Pentagon inspector general’s report on Signalgate.

Pete Hegseth claimed “total exoneration.” What the report actually says is that the defense secretary shared sensitive details about a military operation earlier this year, and that the use of Signal and his personal phone for such communications put troops at risk.

Lawmakers were also shown footage of September’s alleged double-tap strike in a closed-door briefing yesterday. The video provoked two different responses, largely along party lines: Republicans said they’re unbothered and Democrats said they were disturbed. Some Democrats called on the Pentagon to make the video public: “Many questions would be answered if they released the video in total,” Sen. Jack Reed told Hamed.

The controversy doesn’t seem to have slowed down the department’s operations — last night, SOUTHCOM announced a strike in the eastern Pacific that killed four men.

“The allegations against Cory, to me, are very troubling,” Rep. Byron Donalds told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman on Thursday about his once-close friend, Rep. Cory Mills. “I’m concerned about him. I hope he gets his stuff worked out and cleaned up, but it has to go through Ethics. And he has to, you know, basically do that hard work to clear his name, if it can be cleared.”

Donalds is the latest domino to fall in the Mills saga. NOTUS has reported that Mills was caught with sex workers before a now infamous unofficial Afghanistan trip and is now the subject of an Ethics investigation for a myriad of accusations including campaign finance violations.

Among Mills’ friends in Congress, this cut might be the deepest. Donalds, who is running for governor of Florida, confirmed he once floated Mills as his running mate. Now? “It’s not serious.”

From the FBI

A cold case turns hot: FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, announced the arrest of Brian Cole Jr., a suspect in the 2021 D.C. pipe bombs case.

Bondi blamed the delay on Joe Biden. “This cold case languished for four years until Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino came to the FBI,” she said. “This is the best birthday president I think Deputy Director Bongino could ask for today.”

Before joining Donald Trump’s administration, Bongino had baselessly called the incident an “inside job” and a “set up” on his podcast, stoking conspiracies among his millions of listeners. NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery asked Bongino whether there was any indication that Cole was connected to the FBI. Bongino declined to comment.

NEW ON NOTUS

First on NOTUS: Full itineraries, empty disclosure forms. The campaign-finance-reform group End Citizens United is asking the Office of Congressional Conduct to investigate Rep. Young Kim, alleging she omitted five figures’ worth of privately funded travel from personal financial-disclosure reports, NOTUS’ Tyler Spence reports.

Pushing back: Democratic senators — and at least one Republican senator — are defending Somalis against Trump’s escalating racist rhetoric, including calling people from the country “garbage.” Democrats, like Minnesota’s Tina Smith, said, “This is what bigotry looks like.”

Asked about Trump’s comments, Maine’s Susan Collins told NOTUS’ Adora Brown, “I totally disagree.” Collins was an outlier among Republicans in taking issue with the president’s statements.

More: Democratic Senator Urges Trump to Defend IVF Coverage in the Defense Bill, by Oriana GonzálezThe New York Times Sues the Pentagon Over New Press Restrictions, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

Name and describe one state or local policy that should be tried across the country. A NOTUS forum featuring the mayors of Milwaukee, Oklahoma City and Omaha, Nebraska; the former mayors of Indianapolis and Gary, Indiana; the deputy president pro tempore of the Connecticut State Senate; and contributors from Heritage, Brookings, The Sentencing Project, the National Housing Crisis Task Force and the Federation of American Scientists.

NOT US

• A county jail in Arkansas produces hundreds of ICE arrests under a program surging across the US, by Ryan J. Foley and Julio Cortez for The Associated Press
  
• The AI boom is heralding a new gold rush in the American west, by Dara Kerr for The Guardian
  
• Democrats in New Jersey Ram Through Bill to Defang a Corruption Watchdog, by Tracey Tully for The New York Times

BE SOCIAL

Following her groundbreaking investigation into what music lawmakers listened to this year, NOTUS’ Oriana González made a congressional mixtape. Take a listen.

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