Politics

Pete Buttigieg’s 2026 project

Published

3 months ago

March 20, 2026

MIDLAND, Michigan — Pete Buttigieg is known for going everywhere to get his message out in the media. In 2026, he’s taking that strategy offline, too, traveling virtually everywhere.

A source close to Buttigieg tells Playbook he’s spent half of 2026 on the road, hitting 10 states so far — including battleground states Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and his adopted home state Michigan, plus a multiday swing across for-now-first-in-the-nation New Hampshire. And he’s not yet hawking books like some of his would-be 2028 rivals. He’s stumping for candidates up and down the ballot.

While potential 2028ers like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro focus on flexing midterm-year dominance in their own backyards, Buttigieg is embarking on a more national project to position himself as a super surrogate not confined to specific geography or demographics. It’s a strategy that could help him counter the base of power that comes from holding elected office.

Buttigieg laid out his midterm strategy to Playbook in an exclusive interview after gripping and grinning and taking selfies along a ropeline: “The basic idea is to make myself useful to candidates and causes that I care about and that we all need to succeed,” he said at Mi Element Grains & Grounds, a combination microbrewery, bakery and coffeehouse, after launching a canvassing effort backing Chedrick Greene in a special election to determine control of the Michigan state Senate.

“Every kind of state, red, blue and purple, there are races going on and fights going on that I want to make sure I’m part of,” Buttigieg told Playbook. “And they are all often very different from each other, but what they have in common is leaders who are very rooted in a sense of place. They’re very much of where they’re from, and I think represent a big part of what the future for Democrats is going to look like.”

Buttigieg has increased his engagement with Black candidates like Greene and the community more broadly, addressing a perceived weakness. In Alabama, Buttigieg joined civil rights leaders and community members in Selma for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and made remarks at a unity breakfast and Tabernacle Baptist Church. In Birmingham, he joined a roundtable with business owners from the Historic 4th Avenue Business District.

A source familiar with Buttigieg’s past outreach to the Black community described his efforts a “natural extension” of his work on his 2020 presidential campaign and in the Biden administration.

“It’s a recognition that engagement in those spaces and showing up in 2026 is going to be a huge indicator of who’s going to be the leader of this party,” this person, granted anonymity to candidly appraise Buttigieg’s approach, told Blue Light News. “I think it’s really smart to think along those lines, and to show, right? Not just talk about it, but to actually show and demonstrate it.”

He also campaigned for Shawn Harris in former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s deep-red Georgia congressional district, and gave an interview to Black creator Hood Anchor Ye alongside Rep. Nikema Williams. He also attended Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he received a very warm welcome.

“I’m very focused on coalition right now, and that includes pillars of our Democratic coalition, like the building trades workers I was with in Toledo or in Nevada, and certainly Black voters who were so vital to the past, present and future of the party,” Buttigieg said.

A February Emerson poll found Buttigieg had about 6 percent support among Black voters; California Gov. Gavin Newsom had 17 percent and former VP Kamala Harris had 36 percent.

“He had a remarkable run in 2020 and ultimately, one of the, perhaps the greatest obstacle, is that he didn’t have much of a relationship with African American voters,” David Axelrod, the former strategist for former President Barack Obama and longtime Buttigieg ally, told Playbook. “And the fact that he’s spending a lot of time communing with Black voters across the country even if in the service of the midterm elections, is a reflection that he’s not headed for early retirement.”

There is also, of course, the fact that Buttigieg has a newly crafted stump speech that walks an average voter through their day and overlays his policy hopes for them, something reminiscent of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. “I don’t want to overdo that, but yes, as you know, my whole thing is the politics of everyday life. And one way to get that across is to just literally walk through everyday life and all of the hundreds of moments in that day that are shaped by political choices.”

Asked about whether he thought the narrative of his struggles with Black voters matched the

reality of what he was seeing on the ground, Buttigieg redirected. “This year is very much not about me,” he said. “What it’s really all part of for me is where are there leaders that I can help and where it’s going to make a difference to engage.”

Beyond that, Buttigieg’s travels and how he’s talking is revealing about his potential trajectory: For starters, he’s laser-focused on building a majority Democratic governing coalition. He used the word no fewer than 10 times.

Buttigieg insisted that Democrats “should be able to build a supermajority coalition” based on the party’s platform. He has noted in the past most Americans support paid family leave, raising the federal minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, universal background checks, and a public health insurance option. “If we can’t get those two-thirds supported positions over 50 percent that means we’re missing something in terms of the coalition we built.”

But as potential candidates like Newsom seek to emulate Trump’s smashmouth social media style, Buttigieg is more focused on creating a Democratic version of MAGA’s sweeping coalition. That means Buttigieg’s 2026 project is to build a big tent in nature — not a matter of pure ideology. In Pennsylvania, for example, Buttigieg held a well-attended event with Bob Brooks, the bellwether Lehigh Valley Democratic congressional candidate running to flip Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. Brooks, a Pennsylvania firefighter, supports Medicare for All, which Buttigieg opposed in his presidential run.

“It is really important that we understand what it means that this president stitched together this very unlikely crew that includes traditional Republicans, Libertarians, authoritarians and white nationalists,” Buttigieg said. “We have to have a bigger, better, different coalition.”

In the next few weeks, Buttigieg is expected to cross another battleground off his list, with a stop in North Carolina where he’ll campaign for Democrats, as well as two redder states: a town hall in Oklahoma and a stop in Montana, where he is planning to boost “The Montana Plan,” a ballot initiative to curtail corporations from spending money on political candidates or ballot issues.

“We’re trying to get everywhere we can,” Buttigieg said. “Including places in the same way that — you know, I think Fox News is this kind of place — places where people don’t hear enough from us, because I think there are potential members of our coalition to be found.”

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Politics

The clock is ticking on an Iran talks. Here’s what still has to get done.

Published

1 hour ago

June 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

As talks loom between the U.S. and Iran, negotiators face a simple and daunting task: turning a 14-point memorandum of understanding into a comprehensive nuclear deal within 60 days.

The ticking clock was set in motion on Thursday, according to Vice President JD Vance, following the signing of the MOU one day earlier. That signing brought an official end to military hostilities. What it did not do is resolve the conflict that caused them.

Some agreements took effect immediately upon signing: a cessation of hostilities, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, the issuing of oil waivers and initial steps to unfreeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets.

But those were the easy parts.

What remains are the metaphorical landmines — the unresolved questions the MOU largely deferred rather than decided, each with the potential to blow up any prospect for a nuclear deal. On Thursday evening, the White House announced that Vice President JD Vance will not attend talks in Switzerland that had been planned for Friday — a decision that may well be read as a signal of just how far apart the two sides are. A White House spokesperson acknowledged in a statement that while the U.S. delegation has been prepared to depart at the first available opportunity, “the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.”

Here is what the negotiators will actually have to solve:

The future of the Strait of Hormuz

The MOU ensures safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz “with no charge for 60 days only,” and outsources the negotiating responsibility for ensuring long-term toll-free passage to Gulf allies — ceding responsibility for a key outstanding issue.

“We don’t ever want this to happen again — that’s not about tolling, that’s about ensuring that the Straits are never used as a choke point for the global economy ever again,” Vance said at the White House on Thursday. “If that’s not reflected in the final deal, there’s not going to be a final deal.”

Recognizing the Iranians will “assert their rights as aggressively as they can,” a senior U.S. official was confident Gulf states would preserve their own self-interests and press Iran to allow toll-free passage.

There’s also the matter of demining the waterway. Iran has 30 days for “removing the technical and military obstacles and demining,” but mine removal could take weeks or even months — potentially testing U.S. patience if ship traffic doesn’t recover quickly.

In a joint statement following this week’s G7 summit in France, leaders said a defensive initiative led by France and the UK could help by “protecting merchant vessels, reassuring commercial shipping operators, and supporting verification that all mines are removed.”

Sanctions and frozen assets

Senior U.S. officials have said sanctions relief for Iran would be tied to its performance — but haven’t yet indicated what those benchmarks will be.

“As they dial up their good behavior, we can dial up the economic relief,” Vance said in broad terms on Thursday at the White House. “If they dial down their good behavior, we can turn it off.”

The MOU commits the U.S. to ending all Iranian sanctions — including those imposed by the U.N. Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency — “in an agreed-upon schedule as part of the final deal.” How quickly the U.S. is willing to provide this economic relief could become a sticking point.

Complicating matters further: whether lifting of sanctions would require congressional action, and how the State Department’s designation of Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism factors in.

Then there’s the unfreezing of billions of dollars of Iranian assets. Though the Trump administration insists any release would be tied to Iran’s performance, the MOU’s own text undercuts that: Paragraph 13 says the process of releasing assets must begin before negotiations even start, handing Iran an upfront incentive rather than one to earn.

“It’s clearly a huge loophole and a potential for disagreement,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East advisor and negotiator for the State Department, calling the text’s language “destructive ambiguity.”

The Lebanon front

The MOU calls for “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

“We expect Hezbollah is not going to be firing rockets and firing drones at the Israelis, and we also expect that the Israelis are not going to be going wild in Lebanon, right? Both sides have to honor their end of the deal,” Vance said at the White House on Thursday.

Yet Israel did not sign the aforementioned “deal.”

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said it’s “unnecessary” for Lebanon to have been included in an agreement between the U.S. and Iran, pouring cold water on the idea that Israel would cease its offensive against Hezbollah and occupation of southern Lebanon — even if Iran says that’s a dealbreaker for negotiations.

“This is something that we simply can’t live with,” Leiter told NPR on Tuesday. “We can’t have jihadi terrorists on our border. … We’re not going to withdraw from South Lebanon, and the mad men of Tehran have no business poking their nose into Lebanon.”

A U.S. official confirmed that U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and Lebanon will continue as planned next week at the State Department. Whether the Lebanon provision holds will depend on Iran keeping Hezbollah in check and Trump keeping Netanyahu in line.

Iran’s reconstruction

The MOU promises that within 60 days, the U.S. would work “with regional partners” to develop a plan guaranteeing at least $300 billion for Iran’s “reconstruction and economic development.”

Trump has insisted that there “is no 300 Billion Dollar payment to Iran by the U.S.” using taxpayer money. That may technically be true, but the U.S. has still committed to delivering that sum in the form of investment. That means convincing private corporations and Gulf allies — many of which are dealing with economic disruption and rebuilding costs after facing strikes from Iran — to invest in a country the Trump administration is still threatening to attack again if Iran reneges on its end of the deal.

Vance said there is a “great desire from the Arab world and from outside the Arab world to actually get involved in Iran if they behave properly.” Pressed by MS NOW whether private money would be included, Vance said he assumes countries like the United Arab Emirates would be part of the picture.

But Gulf leaders expressed concern to MS NOW about the agreement’s financial provisions that could strengthen Iran economically at a time when many Gulf states believe pressure should have been maintained.

Iran’s highly enriched uranium and nuclear program

For the duration of negotiations, Iran will “maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program,” per the MOU. What happens after that is the central outstanding question — the one that led to war in the first place.

The MOU provides no consensus on what to do with Iran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium, only an agreement to “resolve” the matter. It doesn’t distinguish between the roughly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium — material close to bomb-grade — and the 11 tons enriched to various levels above the 3.67% threshold set by the JCPOA, which Trump withdrew from during his first term.

A senior U.S. official said downblending the stockpile would be the minimum standard, with Washington pushing for “more than that” during negotiations. Vance alluded to “gentlemen’s agreements,” noting that Iran has “promised that they would allow inspectors in to destroy that highly enriched stockpile, and then, of course, it’s not usable anymore, you take it somewhere else.” Iran has not formally agreed to anything beyond a general promise to resolve the issue.

Whether Iran will be permitted to enrich in the future, and to what extent, remains an open question. The MOU commits the two countries to discussing “the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters,” promising a “satisfactory framework” related to Iran’s “nuclear needs” in a final deal.

Notably, the U.S. has already backed down from one of its previous red lines, dropping Trump’s earlier demand for zero enrichment forever in favor of allowing Iran to maintain a civilian nuclear program.

“We’re not bothered at all by the idea of civilian power plants in Iran,” a senior U.S. official said. “What we’re bothered by is the type of infrastructure that would allow them to jump from civilian power generation to nuclear weapons development. … We feel quite confident that if they meet their obligations under this agreement, they’re not going to have that infrastructure to build a nuclear weapon.”

A senior administration official insisted Iran has committed to dismantling its nuclear weapons program, including its nuclear site, noting that the countries would “figure out how to do that in the technical negotiations that will follow.” But abandoning its nuclear program will be a tough domestic sell for the Islamic Republic to make.

Inspections and implementation

Trump has repeatedly hammered the Obama-era JCPOA for not having a strong enough verification and inspections system. But his own MOU offers little clarity on what will replace it, only a vague commitment that “an executive mechanism will be established to monitor the successful implementation of this MOU and the future compliance of the final deal.”

Given that Iran blocked IAEA inspectors from accessing its nuclear facilities under the JCPOA, a stronger inspection system represents perhaps the most important potential U.S. win in final deal talks — if Washington can secure one.

“If we feel comfortable with the inspection and enforcement regime, that is when they will get some of the benefits of negotiation,” a senior administration official told reporters last week, without providing specifics of what that verification regime would entail nor confirming the role of the UN or IAEA.

Miller, the former State Department negotiator, compared the MOU to Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan — a document that pushed the conflict out of the headlines but left unsolved problems on the humanitarian, disarmament and reconstruction fronts.

“I see very little chance, without significant flexibility on the part of both sides, that 60 days is going to be enough” to bridge the “Grand Canyon-like gaps that separate Tehran and Washington,” Miller said.

And though the MOU’s 60-day deadline allows for extension “with mutual consent,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military is “prepared to restart if we need to” if Iran does not show progress in complying with U.S. demands.

Trump, speaking at the G7, was blunter still.

“If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, that’s all right,” Trump said. “We go back to bombing.”