Today’s notice: Live from New York. DACA recipients and the immigration crackdown. Are Democrats breaking up with ActBlue? Plus: Mayors try to solve the housing problem.
THE LATEST
Democrats leave NAN without The Plan: Greetings from Manhattan, where we’ve been milling around the 35th anniversary meeting of the National Action Network, the organizing group synonymous with the Rev. Al Sharpton. He’s still got major pull — over the four-day conference (which ends tomorrow), Sharpton scheduled on-stage sit-downs with many perceived 2028 Democratic hopefuls.
He asked them all the same question: What’s the plan? On Wednesday, he talked to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Rep. Ro Khanna of California. Yesterday, it was Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Tomorrow’s scheduled lineup includes former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
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“What do you think that the Democratic Party has to do better to appeal to America?” was the version of the question Shapiro got. For Pritzker, it was more direct: “My fear is that they’re letting Trump set the agenda, and we’re reacting to what he’s talking about rather than acting on what people are concerned about,” Sharpton said.
“You know, you’re right,” Pritzker said. He pitched a Project 2025-esque plan he suggested could be called “Agenda 48” for the 48th presidency, with policies that might fill out such a plan like increasing the federal minimum wage and protecting voting rights.
First, let anger be the unifier, Shapiro said, calling for the midterms to be “a national referendum on Donald Trump.” After that, Democrats should adopt a GSD — Get Stuff (or the other S-word) Done — agenda, with a focus on “making people’s lives better.”
“We need to go everywhere to talk to people,” was Khanna’s take. But that’s also what seems to be getting the party into trouble lately.
Khanna mentioned his appearance on leftist streamer Hasan Piker’s show. While he said he doesn’t agree with everything Piker has to say, he did agree with him on the issue that makes the political commentator so controversial: Israel.
Shapiro has appeared on podcasts, too, but generally to push back on criticism of Israel. We asked him, What do you do to bring people around to your point of view on this? Things seem to be shifting the other way.
“Instead of putting words in my mouth, why don’t you actually look at what I said?” he bristled. “I was highly critical of the Netanyahu government, while at the same time making clear I think Israel has a right to exist and speaking in very personal ways about my travels in the country.”
Strategic disagreements stand in the way of Democrats’ push to retake Congress, too. Moore was incredibly well received at NAN, with a standing-room-only crowd and even chants of “run, Wes, run!” at the end. He spoke passionately about the need for Democrats to come together in November, even on tough issues like redistricting.
“We have to make sure this election is not stolen right in front of our faces and this pain is made permanent,” he said.
But Moore’s plan has yet to win over all Democrats, most importantly some legislators in Maryland who have stalled out his redistricting efforts. What lessons are Democrats to learn from that? we asked the governor. “I actually don’t think this moment is about, what are we doing to energize the base,” he told us. “I think this moment is about, what are we doing to enlarge it.”
Open tabs: White House Warns Staff Not to Place Bets on Prediction Markets Amid Iran War (WSJ); How Trump Purged Immigration Judges to Speed Up Deportations (NYT); Labor secretary faces discrimination complaints tied to husband’s alleged misconduct (MS NOW); Man shot by ICE agents in Northern California disputes agency’s account (SF Chronicle)
From the White House
“I just feel like I’m not safe,” Leticia, a DACA recipient, told NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos, as fear over Trump’s efforts to erode the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections, spreads across the nation. Leticia, who only shared her middle name due to safety concerns, currently has one sibling with DACA in detention. Her parents and another sibling have already been deported.
“I don’t know what’s like living in hell, but that’s what we’ve been like in the past three months,” she said of her life since her parents left the U.S. in December.
Hundreds of DACA recipients have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Jackie reports, including some with no criminal records. NOTUS found 21 court petitions from January 2025 to March 2026 challenging the lawfulness of the detention of immigrants with active DACA status or pending renewals.
The Trump administration has given conflicting information about how many DACA recipients have been placed in detention. DHS told House members last year that ICE had detained 270 DACA holders and deported 174, only to shift that number in February, telling Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin that 86 had been deported and 261 had been detained.
In response to NOTUS’ questions about the number of detained DACA recipients, DHS claimed that 92% of the DACA recipients ICE arrested last year were criminals.
From the campaign trail
ActBrandNew? The legal and operational woes of ActBlue have led to a growing chorus of Democrats questioning whether it’s time to look elsewhere for their digital fundraising, NOTUS’ Violet Jira reports.
To be clear, ActBlue has essentially a monopoly on Democratic fundraising. And even after inquiries from the DOJ and Congress — as well as a scathing New York Times report — thousands of campaigns and PACs say they’re staying put. But, not all.
“In this moment, it’s important to not have a single fail point anywhere in our infrastructure, particularly because the Trump administration is running a vengeance campaign,” said Betsy Hoover, founder of Higher Ground Labs and Barack Obama’s 2012 online organizing director. “ActBlue has done a tremendous job, and I hope they continue to and I hope this is a blip for them, but I still think we should have a fallback, for sure.”
NEW ON NOTUS
Housing in crisis: It’s what mayors across the nation are trying to confront, with dwindling options and fewer sources of guaranteed federal funding, NOTUS’ Raymond Fernández reports.
Some programs, long underway, are being sped up to fill the growing gaps as Trump seeks to shrink federal housing assistance.
“If the federal government is not going to do that, then cities and states have to step up and figure out ways to work together and try to address as much of it as we can, as quickly as we can, as aggressively as we can,” Arunan Arulampalam, the Democratic mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, told NOTUS.
More: Republicans Focus on Tax Cuts as Gas Prices Take Spotlight, by Avani Kalra
NOT US
- The Man Who Shaped Washington’s View of the Middle East, by Dion Nissenbaum for Foreign Policy
- Inside the battle to be Trump’s next attorney general, by Myah Ward, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein for Politico
- Online and on the Stump, Democrats Embrace a Four-Letter Word, by Kellen Browning and Matt Zdun for The New York Times
- 1979 Is the Year That Explains Donald Trump, by Jonathan Lemire and Isabel Ruehl for The Atlantic
MEET US
Introducing Paul Kane
Congressional reporter
Kane joined NOTUS this week from The Washington Post. He’ll write about how the Trump administration’s policy goals play out on Capitol Hill, the 2026 midterms and beyond.
Hometown: Maple Glen, Pennsylvania
Why you should trust him: Because with more than 25 years covering Congress, with both Democratic and Republican majorities, I’ve developed respect across the Capitol and on both sides of the aisle for explaining how and why things happen in this convoluted building.
Why journalism: Because I luckily realized in undergrad that law school wasn’t for me and instead realized that news stories shine a light on the powerful and help educate the public.
Best advice you’ve ever been given: Never ask a question unless you really want to know the answer. (Because, for example, yes, things can always get worse!)
Kane’s first story published this morning: It examines how unprecedentedly skittish Congress has been about its role in the war with Iran. Read it here.
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