Hey! Big Spenders

Today’s notice: An Illinois primary night preview. Trump asks for help in the Strait of Hormuz. Who got political at the Oscars? Plus: Markwayne Mullin’s bipartisan headache over warehouse leases.

THE LATEST

Big primary night preview. We’re not even really done with the last Primary That Will Reveal a Lot About the State of Politics (Texas Republicans still have that runoff to deal with) before we’re onto the next one. Tomorrow, Democrats will take center stage in Illinois.

In the Senate primary, the three-way race could make an impact on the 2028 presidential race, NOTUS’ Avani Kalra reports. Gov. JB Pritzker has put his political capital and millions in actual capital behind his lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, as she attempts to win the Democratic nomination for the seat being vacated by a party legend, Sen. Dick Durbin. But she’s still trailing Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi in public polling of what is effectively a three-way primary race that also includes Rep. Robin Kelly.

Does Pritzker win even if Stratton loses? His support alone may be enough to earn him good will. “It’s no secret that Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party,” Democratic strategist Hyma Moore told Avani. “If you are part of their ascendant leadership and a part of helping them to get there, then that’s a big win for you, particularly if you’re a white male. And particularly one that wants to be president.”

What’s on Durbin’s mind: He hasn’t endorsed any candidate, but he is raising the alarm about the $10 million or so that’s been dumped into the race by crypto-aligned PACs.He’s not alone. The crypto spending in the Senate race has mainly targeted Stratton. But Illinois has emerged as the first major test of a strategy to influence Democratic primaries by AI and crypto industry leaders who actively support Donald Trump, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Sam Larreal report.

Along with the pro-Israel lobby, these interest groups have spent over $21 million on television, radio and digital advertisements across four safe-seat Democratic primaries in an attempt to buy the candidates they prefer. This number is, frankly, jaw-droppingly ginormous. All the Democrats running in the four primaries spent a combined $12.6 million or so on their own ad campaigns.

The outside ads are almost entirely not about the issues that animate the people buying them. The strategists behind them simply choose the message they think will be the most destructive, load up the megaton ICBM of cash, and launch it into the primary.

Will it work? Watch the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th congressional districts tomorrow night. Some candidates in those districts held a joint event recently urging voters to look past the ads. We’ll see if that happens.

Open tabs: Oil Industry Warns Trump Administration That Fuel Crunch Will Likely Worsen (WSJ); To Address Farm Labor Shortage, Trump Administration Turns to Migrant Workers (NYT); Appointee wants to replace White House columns with the ones Trump prefers (WaPo); The National Park Service race to rewrite history becomes a slog (Politico)

War latest

Not our problem: That’s what Trump said of the Strait of Hormuz last night during a gaggle on Air Force One. “Really, I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory,” Trump said. “You could make the case that maybe we shouldn’t be there at all, because we don’t need it. We have a lot of oil.”

“For years, we have been maintaining it and now that they’ve been diminished … I think it’s a good thing for other countries to come in,” Trump added.

From Hollywood

Small moments of resistance: Viewers expecting a rash of anti-Trump speeches at the Oscars last night were ultimately mistaken, a stark difference from the Grammy Awards last month where hundreds of celebrities donned “ICE Out” pins and spoke out at length against the administration. But there was no avoiding the country’s political divide entirely.

Host Conan O’Brien got a zinger in early: “We’re coming to you live from the ‘Has A Small Penis Theatre.’ Let’s see him put his name in front of that.” Longtime Trump nemesis Jimmy Kimmel also took a few jabs at first lady Melania Trump’s self-titled documentary, which was panned by critics and not nominated for any awards.

The only real denouncement of Trump came via David Borenstein, the co-director of Best Documentary winner “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.”

“When a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we could produce it and consume it, we all face a moral choice,” he said.

For no particular reason, it’s worth noting here: Warner Bros. nabbed 11 total Oscars, tying the record for the most wins by a single studio. It’s currently in the process of being acquired by Paramount Skydance, run by Trump ally David Ellison, in a massive $111 billion mega-deal.

From the Hill

A bipartisan gripe with DHS. Expect a lot of partisanship when GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin appears before his colleagues this week as they consider his nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security. The department is still in a partial shutdown thanks to a partisan argument, after all. But NOTUS’ Manuela Silva writes that Mullin is likely to get questions about one bee in everyone’s bonnet: DHS’s ongoing quest to acquire and convert warehouses into large-scale detention centers.

Even the one Democrat who has publicly announced he’ll vote to confirm Mullin, Sen. John Fetterman, said he would do so to cultivate a relationship with him — part of an effort “to have that conversation” about local opposition to the warehouse conversions.

Will the pushback amount to anything? “The Administration has no DHS related policy announcements to make at this time,” the White House said in a statement.

What comes next: Mullin’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee is scheduled for Wednesday. Republican committee member (and Mullin’s fellow Oklahoman) Sen. James Lankford told NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer he expects things to move very quickly after that, with a private markup meeting on the nomination Thursday and then a full Senate vote the following week.

From your favorite podcast app

More than 100 House Republicans flew to President Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Florida, last week to plot their plan to win the midterms. In this week’s episode of On NOTUS, Reese Gorman, Daniella Diaz and Oriana Gonzalez open their reporters’ notebooks to tell us what they saw on the ground and what the GOP political and policy priorities look like.

NEW ON NOTUS

Carr vs. the conservatives, again. “I do not like the heavy hand of government, no matter who is wielding it,” GOP Sen. Ron Johnson told CBS after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened broadcast licenses over unfavorable news coverage of the war in Iran.

Efforts to use the FCC as a blunt political instrument have face-planted several times with otherwise staunch allies of the MAGA cause. Yesterday it was Johnson who shut Carr down. Last year it was GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who likened Carr’s role in Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension to that of “a mafioso.”

More: Kennedy Center Must Allow Democrat to Attend Board Meeting, Judge Rules, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Everyone Has Trump’s Phone Number Now, by Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker for The Atlantic
  
• He Was Chevron’s Man in Venezuela — and a CIA Informant, by Joel Schectman, Christopher M. Matthews and Vera Bergengruen for The Wall Street Journal
  
• How White South Africans Are Reshaping the Mississippi Delta, by Boyce Upholt for The New Yorker

WEEK AHEAD

So far unscheduled this week

• The Senate is expected to vote on the SAVE America Act at some point. The vote will fail, but expect a bumper crop of presidential Truth Social posts.
  
• Pastors For Trump founder Jackson Lahmeyer is expected to launch a bid for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma.
  

Monday

• The Kennedy Center board of directors are scheduled to hold a meeting to finalize Trump’s construction plans.
  
• House votes are canceled due to inclement weather.
  

Tuesday

• Primary day in Illinois.
  
• Special elections in two Pennsylvania legislative districts.
  
• Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will be among the witnesses at an open Global Threats hearing set for the House Intelligence Committee.
  
• NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya set to testify before the House Appropriations Committee.
  

Wednesday

• Mullin’s nomination to lead DHS is set to be considered by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
  

Friday

• U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz set to testify before the House Appropriations Committee.

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