Dems Are Using Your Search History

Today’s notice: Democrats’ “behavioral targeting” plan. Making sense of where Iran peace talks stand. Planned Parenthood’s fortunes are about to turn. Patrick Kennedy talks to NOTUS about RFK Jr. Mayor Pete talks to NOTUS about the Biden years. Plus: the Reflecting Pool, America’s most famous political metaphor?

THE LATEST

Democrats look for the edge, and maybe find it. Some in the party out of power have been dismayed at what they see as an immovable status quo that’s left Republicans well ahead in the lexicon of the modern world — say, for example, any kind of digital presence that isn’t instantaneously cringe. Other Democratic partisans scoff at these outraged colleagues, who they say ignore the many ways MAGA-powered politics blew up The Rules.

Here’s a scoop to throw right in the middle of this argument. NOTUS’ Elena Schneider reports on Priorities USA’s $30 million plan to define the two guys it thinks will be at the top of the list for the 2028 Republican nomination: JD Vance and Marco Rubio. The super PAC’s effort, starting a remarkable 869 days before the next presidential election, begins today with four digital ads aimed at young voters who sometimes show up but often do not. In Gen Z parlance, the first ads call Vance a cuck to Trump and cast Rubio as a callous warmonger.

The really interesting part: The group plans to use “behavioral targeting” to find disengaged voters by using their own online search history. How that works: Searching for information about paying down student loan debt or buying a home, for example, are behaviors that indicate “you’ve become persuadable,” the group’s leadership told Elena.

That’s weirdly invasive, or finally bringing a knife to a knife fight, depending on your perspective.

There are a lot of ongoing debates — and even more to come — about the new tactics of campaigning.

The comically lame DNC autopsy fiasco drowned out that debate for a minute. But the group of Democrats at Priorities, hardly the biggest or most revered among the existing establishment, say it’s time to get serious about the low-propensity voters MAGA activated, using some of the strategies MAGA proved can work. Two of those tactics are doing stuff online that gives normies a double-take and deploying negative campaigning all the time, years away from the election. If Democrats could decide what they actually want to run on, this kinda stuff might give them a chance to actually do it.

Open tabs: The Quiet Unraveling of America’s Food Safety Net (Politico); Trump keeps bringing up the number 22 (NBC); US treasury chief urged Trump not to host ‘Mr Bean on crack’ Zelenskyy, book says (The Guardian); Trump Administration Shuttered a Criminal Probe Into Fraudster’s Clemency (NYT)

From Switzerland

Even as JD Vance touched down yesterday in Bürgenstock for the much-anticipated first round of peace talks with Iran since last week’s “memorandum of understanding,” his boss Donald Trump was lashing out at the country and threatening its negotiators.

“You close it, and you won’t have a country. … You won’t even make it back to your effing country,” Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst, referring to Iran’s latest announcement that it would close the Strait of Hormuz, again, over continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

Trump’s comments nearly derailed the negotiations. But early this morning, mediators said this first round of talks ended with “encouraging progress.” Both sides agreed to a framework for further discussions that included a “de-confliction cell” that would seek to end hostilities in Lebanon.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, called the drawdown the “first real test” of the United States’ willingness to achieve a deal.

From the Hill

Re-funding Planned Parenthood. Another consequence of the lack of Republican interest in a third reconciliation bill: no extension for the one-year ban on most federal funding to Planned Parenthood that was tucked into the “one big, beautiful bill.” NOTUS’ Oriana González reports that despite a push from abortion opponents, the movement’s allies in the Republican conference say there’s basically nothing they can do.

“We’re so close to 50-50 in both chambers to get everything we, on my side of the aisle, that we want as Republicans,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) said.

From HHS

His favorite cousin? Though many of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family members have distanced themselves from him — or even disowned him — for his controversial views on things like vaccines, one has not, NOTUS’ Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island), who has decades of experience advocating for mental health access, told Paige that although he has “sharp disagreements on a lot of stuff” with RFK Jr., he fills the “vacuum” created by the family’s reluctance to engage with Trump’s HHS secretary.

The cousins walked a similar path, both struggling with substance abuse as teenagers — occasionally finding themselves at the same recovery meetings. Patrick Kennedy told Paige he doesn’t know who else has “that kind of access to a guy that’s going to end up directing a lot of policies.”

NOTUS INTERVIEW

The Biden administration “radicalized” its transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg — or at least that’s how he described his feelings about the “layers of bureaucracy” he had to push through to get “even common-sense things done.”

“It showed me the need for institutional change,” Buttigieg told NOTUS’ Alex Roarty during a sit-down interview in Butte, Montana.

The former — and potentially future — presidential candidate laid out his vision for a post-Trump Democratic Party, saying “it is not possible, or even desirable,” to go back to the way things were before Trump’s second term.

Though Buttigieg didn’t shy away from laying the groundwork for the Democrats’ future, the 44-year-old with over a decade of experience in public office wouldn’t share where he sees his place in it. Buttigieg responded with “no comment” when audience members at his speech in Montana called for him to run for president.

NOTUS METRO

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

Sports Desk: Who Will Be the Commanders’ No. 2 Pass Catcher? Great Question. By NOTUS’ Martenzie Johnson

NEW ON NOTUS

Algae has taken over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and a $14 million “American flag blue” paint job almost immediately began to peel. But rather than blaming Mother Nature or the contractor who won a no-bid contract for the renovation, Trump has turned his ire on another alleged culprit: vandals, NOTUS’ Brett Bachman reports.

So far, there is no evidence to corroborate Trump’s claims about the pool, which he says will have to be drained — again — and fixed. In the meantime, National Guard soldiers are patrolling the National Mall in search of saboteurs.

NOT US

The Unquiet American: Charles Kushner Brings Trump Diplomacy to France, by Mark Landler for The New York Times

Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career, by Jon Swaine for The Washington Post

J. D. Vance’s AI Doctrine, by Vivian Salama for The Atlantic

WEEK AHEAD

Today

• The Supreme Court issues its order list.

Tuesday

• The Supreme Court announces decisions. There are 17 cases left on the docket.
• Maryland, South Carolina, New York and Utah hold primaries.
• Airline association executives testify before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Wednesday

• Trump attends the Senate Republican luncheon on Capitol Hill.
• The president is also scheduled to attend the opening of the Great American State Fair.

Thursday

• The Supreme Court announces more decisions.
• DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin testifies before the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.
• Vance is scheduled to speak at a Nixon Library event.
• Faith & Freedom Coalition Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton.

Friday

• John Bolton is expected to plead guilty to mishandling classified information.
• The Texas Democratic Party holds its state convention, featuring guests JB Pritzker and Cory Booker.
• The RNC hosts a summer retreat with Vance and Howard Lutnick.

Saturday

• Louisiana Senate primary runoffs.

BE SOCIAL

Green on green.

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 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.

The newsletter was produced by Brett Bachman, Thomas Burr and Nikie Johnson. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/Keystone via AP.