With constant queries about the future of Trump, after all I have been in Portugal the last seven weeks, I think it is time to address the obvious.

Trump will run for President in 2024 if he is alive and not in jail.

The real question is whether by then the Republican Party will have figured out a way to push aside this almost guaranteed loser as their nominee.  I suspect not unless he is not with us or incarcerated.

What would need to happen is that Kevin McCarthy would have to grow some integrity, and Mitch McConnell would have to seriously put the country ahead of his partisan interests. The odds of either of those happening are slim and none… and slim has left town.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have to figure out not just how to hold the Senate and House in 2022, but realize the real possibility that a Biden re-elect at age 82 is problematic. The internal fighting which is already threatening progress on infrastructure legislation makes the idea of another fight for the nomination in 2024 unsettling at best.

So here we are. We know Trump is not going away. He is sort of like Covid, just when you think you can move on a new variant arrives. Call it the Gaetz-Taylor variant. I only hope we can find a vaccine that works.