* Donald Trump says he is “100 percent” thinking about running again, and, if so, would “certainly” consider Ron DeSantis as a running mate. “A lot of people like that,” he said on Fox Business. “He’s done a great job as governor.” Yeah, nothing like an “All-Flori-duh” 2024 ticket.
* “Four years of promises made, promises kept.” That’s how former Vice President Mike Pence described the Trump years in a recent South Carolina speech to the Palmetto Family Council. Two takeaways. Pence is still a self-serving sycophant who knows the Trump base requires Trump fealty. It’s also a reminder to potential Trump successors that South Carolina holds the first presidential primaries in the South.
* So, voting by mail only helps Democrats, as Trump has often stated. Census data doesn’t concur; it shows that older and more affluent voters were especially likely to vote by mail in 2020. Moreover, white voters are more likely to vote by mail than black voters.
* “Trump’s metier wasn’t politics. It was performance. Tucker Carlson gets that. … I’m not saying he’s Trump’s doppelganger. … He can be as verbally dexterous as Trump is oratorically incontinent, as brimming with information as Trump is barren of it. Carlson reminds you of a prep school debate team captain all puffed up at his lectern. Trump reminds you of puffy reality-show ham.”–Frank Bruni, New York Times.
* Jack McCain, son of the late Sen. John McCain, was sent by American Airlines to Austin to lobby Texas Republicans to roll back some of the more stringent restrictions on voting.
* When documentarians reflect on Trump and his impact on the U.S. and the world, we will see–many times over–that downward escalator ride that symbolizes America’s trajectory under him.