Hello and Welcome back to The Best and the Brightest, I’m Tara Palmeri. Before we get started, some exciting news that I’ve been eager to share for some time about a new 2024 presidential election podcast I’m hosting, Somebody’s Gotta Win, a collaboration between Bill Simmons’ The Ringer and Puck. It’ll be like eavesdropping on the inside conversation in D.C and on the campaign trail. The first episode drops on Tuesday from Milwaukee, where I’ll be covering the first G.O.P. debate. Listen to the trailer here and subscribe. As always, you can reply to this email to let me know what topics you want me to scratch.

Tonight, what I’m hearing about the political ambitions of Ron DeSantis’s better half, Casey, back in Florida. But first…

• Trump & Tucker, a Love Story: I’m hearing it’s increasingly likely that Trump will try to upstage the first G.O.P. debate via an interview with Tucker Carlson on his preferred media channel, X. The event, itself, would represent something of a triple-revenge fantasy—allowing Tucker to upstage his old network while Trump gets to not only punish Fox for its patronage of DeSantis but also receive a hero’s welcome on a platform that once jettisoned him. And who said ’24 was completely mirthless and depressing!

  The two are working out the logistics, I’m told from sources close to Trump. The known unknowns: will they tape the conversation at Bedminster, or Mar-a-Lago, or does Trump go up to Maine? Will Carlson leave his bunker? It’s the kind of work that’s hashed out by “their people.” Sure, Tucker frequently spoke of his hatred for Trump, but, as we know, Trump has the capacity to take people back when it suits him. And this appears to be the case. Trump’s team said they’re still keeping the opportunity open to attend the debate, but that outcome seems to be less likely by the day.

• Impeachment Fatigue: Rep. Mark Green’s invitation for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee, potentially reigniting talk of impeaching him for failing to secure the border, is being met with sighs in G.O.P. circles. It’s not so much that Republicans are opposed to pillorying Mayorkas—the border is undoubtedly a tough issue for Biden, and one on which members are demanding action. But House insiders, especially Republican moderates, are expressing dread about this coming fall on a scale I have never heard before.

  To wit: The defense authorization bill, which should have already passed, remains up in the air. The Farm Bill (boring title, but a reliable instigator of chaos on the floor) sounds like it’s in trouble. But mostly, Trump’s latest indictments are drowning out everything this recess. So, while there continues to be tension between impeachment-eager committee chairmen and extremely nervous moderates up for re-election in districts Biden carried in 2020, the political class is simply exhausted.

• Buffalo Bayou Brawl: Democratic caucus fixture Sheila Jackson Lee is all in on her Houston mayoral bid, but this race is still up for grabs between her and another longtime pol, state senator John Whitmire. So far, it’s dividing the Houston Democratic class ahead of their November faceoff. Jackson Lee’s name ID is off the charts—she’s been around Houston politics for well over 40 years, and has the most rigorous constituent services I’ve ever seen. But her idiosyncrasies (namely, as a legendarily rough-on-the-staff boss) are as well known in Houston as on the Hill.

  So far, Whitmire is winning the cash game after transferring nearly $10 million from his state senate campaign, giving him a distinct advantage in the state’s second-most expensive TV market. But Jackson Lee has played some catch-up, raising $1.3 million in the last two months, including donations from Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly, former congressman Kendrick Meek, and pollster Celinda Lake. She’s also got powerhouse Democratic donor Amber Mostyn, EMILY’s List, and rising Texas Democratic star Lina Hidalgo in her corner. What Lee does not have is overt Texas delegation support. In fact, the only Texas Democratic member to play ball in the race is another Houstonian, Sylvia Garcia… who endorsed Whitmire.

• Santos Timebomb: Lamar Smith, one of the Republican former congressmen looking to oust fabulist George Santos, told me this week that he doesn’t believe Santos will even make it to the ballot. “I doubt the incumbent will be on the ballot, or if he is, can win,” said Smith, now an Akin Gump lobbyist who’s co-hosting a Washington fundraiser for Santos’s primary rival, Kellen Curry, in September. Santos, of course, has been rapidly depleting the patience of his colleagues: Earlier this week, the feds indicted a former Santos fundraiser, Samuel Miele, for using a fake email account to impersonate a senior aide to Speaker Kevin McCarthy while soliciting donations.

Alas, Republican operatives—and politicos, in general—tend to be leery of ambitious political wives, many of whom too often become soft targets on campaigns. And it seems this has increasingly become the fate of Casey DeSantis back home in Tallahassee, as her husband continues to slide in the polls, unable to reboot his reboots. In fact, as Ron battles to regain altitude ahead of the first G.O.P. primary debate, some Florida insiders wonder if Casey actually has a more politically promising future than her husband.

The Florida governorship, after all, is term limited, which means that Ron can’t run again in 2026. Sure, there’s the Senate, but another seat won’t open in the state until two years later, in 2028—a lifetime for an ambitious couple who have tasted power and appear, naturally, unprepared to relinquish it. “They won’t have a fulcrum for raising money,” predicted a Trump advisor who has been watching them closely. “They’re going to have a lot of unhappy donors, and he’s very sensitive to the donor class.”

A DeSantis campaign spokesperson disputed that Casey has any interest whatsoever in her own political career, calling the allegation “categorically false.” But the whispers have been unavoidable since May, when Casey was named Stateswoman of the Year by the Sarasota G.O.P., an award previously bestowed upon her husband, Mike Pompeo, Trump and Haley Barbour. “First Lady Casey DeSantis also is talked of by some leading Republicans as considering a run to succeed her husband, if his presidential campaign washes out,” John Kennedy, the respected Florida reporter, wrote for the Tallahassee Democrat in July. The piece includes Casey’s name alongside presumed frontrunners like Reps. Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz, and Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, as next in line for governor.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that a political couple has tried to use their marriage to support one another’s political careers, like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Even brothers or children can be placeholders keeping the family name alive, like the Sununus and the Kennedys. That’s certainly a fear among some in Tallahassee, where legislators—especially those whom DeSantis strong-armed into passing his most conservative legislation—view Casey as the potential incarnation of Ron’s third term. “Jillary,” is what Ron’s rivals are calling her, a melding of her given first name, “Jill” and a not-so-subtle nod at the ultimate G.O.P. villain, Hillary. Both women seemingly propped up their husbands—Bill had his infidelities, Ron struggles with social awkwardness—only to grasp the possibility of standing on their shoulders. Though, obviously, the comparison remains political and hyperbolic: the significance of their challenges remains orders of magnitude apart.

After all, DeSantis may have stumbled in his presidential race by espousing the notion that Florida can be the new American paradigm. But in Florida, very very many people love that notion. The question is, who will honor his legacy? “Who gets to carry the DeSantis imprimatur? It’s not going to be the congressional delegation,” said my go-to-Florida whisperer Peter Schorsch, pointing to DeSantis frenemies like Byron Donalds, with whom he shared the stage at his inauguration but is now a Trump supporter, and Gaetz, who prepared him for his debates during his first gubernatorial run against Andrew Gillum. (Gaetz, who is also supporting Trump for president, was particularly aggrieved that DeSantis didn’t stick up for him during his alleged sex trafficking legal troubles in 2020 and 2021. In February, the Department of Justice concluded their investigation without pressing charges.)

Would it be Casey? She has allies outside Tallahassee, too. She’s elevated Mamas for DeSantis into a national movement by aligning it with the ur-grassroots group Moms for Liberty, further solidifying her bonafides as a culture warrior. “Casey’s got policy chops on mental health, resiliency—she handled the $63 million hurricane relief fund,” Schorsch told me. “Who can try to stop Casey DeSantis in a primary in 2026 if she wants it? [Her grassroots base] is activated. She has the best built-in grassroots army ready to go, of all the people who want to run.”

Some suggest that the drumbeat of Casey’s political ambition is a way to keep pressure on DeSantis’ critics in the legislature who are unimpressed with his presidential run and resentful of how he forced them to take tough votes—“sticks and no carrots,” as a senior Florida official recently put it to The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey. Or perhaps the whisper campaign about Casey is really a sign of DeSantis’ own slipping grip on Tallahassee, as he struggles nationally. After all, the hometown hero may be returning sooner than anticipated, and he needs to keep his political juice alive for his own legacy. “Hanging out the specter of ‘will Casey run’ could all be posturing to stop the piling on DeSantis,” said a former DeSantis aide. “It shores up power back at home, since he doesn’t have an iron grip the way that he had.”