Welcome back to the Best and the Brightest, and thanks to my colleagues Julia Ioffe, Tina Nguyen, Peter Hamby and now Abby Livingston for holding it down! A couple months ago, I visited Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire, where I was genuinely stunned by his overwhelming discomfort as a presidential candidate. At a diner, the layup of all campaign events, DeSantis struggled to merely look voters in the eye, and tried to jettison the press. It was already clear to me that the hype outweighed the hope: he was a test tube donor candidate, if I’d ever seen one.

These days, the level of donor anxiety around DeSantis is palpable. I’m told that he will try to quell fears next week with a Reaganomics-inflected economic policy speech—you know, the “shining city on a hill,” and so forth. But it might already be too late. Tonight, after Abby’s Capitol Hill readout, I’m focusing on the latest donor pet project: Jeff Roe’s first love—Glenn Youngkin.

But first…

• The Establishment’s establishment: One of the great rituals among the uber–elite in Washington—the high-ranking administration officials, politicians, and power brokers, etcetera—is gaining membership to the Metropolitan Club. And like any exclusive haunt, you have to be sponsored, even if that means having your name plastered on a wall for all to see. Even though the club does not allow cell phones, I was recently shown the candidate list for the season, and lo and behold, there was the 73-year-old Bill Barr, listed just like any other prospective member. There’s no unanimous consent, even if you have the distinction of serving as attorney general in two separate administrations. Appropriately, however, he’s being sponsored by Robert Kimmitt, the deputy Treasury secretary under George W. Bush (he held the top job for about a week between the tenures of John Snow and Hank Paulson). Like Barr, he also served during the George H.W. Bush years as ambassador to Germany and undersecretary of state of political affairs. The two remain among the last living relics of the Bush dynasty.

By Abby Livingston

• Respect the House: Freshman Derrick Van Orden unleashed a torrent of F-bombs late last night upon a group of Senate pages who were laying in the Rotunda photographing Constantino Brumidi’s masterpiece mural, Apotheosis of Washington, as first reported by Punchbowl. The Wisconsin Republican stumbled onto the teenagers while giving his own midnight tour of the dome, which is where the fresco is located. The Hill followed up with notes from one of the page’s memorialization of the encounter. (This is D.C., after all…)

  The Wisconsin Republican apparently told the teenagers to “wake the fuck up you little shits.” The gentleman from Wisconsin continued: “What the fuck are you all doing? Get the fuck out of here. You are defiling the space you [pieces of shits].” When he asked “Who the fuck are you?,” the teens identified themselves as Senate pages. “I don’t give a fuck who you are, get out… You jackasses, get out,” he responded.

  Charmer! Prior to his time in Congress, Van Orden was best known for attending the Stop the Steal rally and was photographed “on or near” the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot. Nevertheless, Van Orden told The Hill that his tirade was simply in defense of the honor of the Capitol Rotunda—a place, he noted, that was used as a field hospital for Union soldiers during the Civil War “and should be treated with a tremendous amount of respect for the dead.”

• Chins up, wheels up: House and Senate members can’t get to DCA airport fast enough for their beleaguered staffers, who are preparing to enjoy the year’s longest recess—a time when they can let up on the office dress codes and put themselves back together, both physically and organizationally. But the staffing class is counting down the minutes until those flights take off with more enthusiasm than usual this year: “Everyone is dead… and delirious,” a Senate Dem staffer texted me, adding a “burn it all down” gif.

  This person blamed the turmoil surrounding the N.D.A.A. bill, which normally glides to passage. That legislation and other must-pass bills (like funding the government!) will have to be addressed in the fall. The House is scheduled to return on Sept. 12, and the Senate is expected to return on Sept. 4. Rest up, because September is gonna be nuts.

• Morning glory: In emphasizing her enthusiasm for attending an early morning prayer breakfast, sophomore congresswoman Nancy Mace said she put off a little morning delight in order to make it to the event on time. “When I woke up this morning at seven, I was getting picked up at 7:45. Patrick, my fiancé, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed and I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning. I got to get to the prayer breakfast and I got to be on time.’ A little T.M.I.” The comments bounced around Twitter and Hill text chains in part because, yes, T.M.I. But also, few Bible Belt conservatives are inclined to admit to engaging in premarital sex. Especially not at a prayer breakfast.

Many are looking hard at how DeSantis fares in Iowa and New Hampshire. “It’s still a two person race,” said Canary C.E.O. Dan Eberhart, a former Trump donor who has bundled and maxed out to DeSantis. “DeSantis needs to make a shift and make a decisive showing in Iowa or it’s going to be a one man race. He’s spending too much and needs to adjust.” He continued: “He needs to tell voters what he’s going to do for them, and drop a lot of the culture war stuff.”

Meanwhile, DeSantis will be attending a ticketed homebuilders event on Saturday, a barbeque at former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s house on Sunday, a lunch at the Rochester Rotary on Monday, and a “televised conversation” with local station WMUR-TV on Tuesday. And then two more house parties: one hosted by Governor Chris Sununu’s best friend Phil Taub, and the other helmed by former Senate candidate Vikram Mansharamani. I’ve heard activists are frustrated that they don’t know where to find him. There are also complaints that these events just seem a little too exclusive. (His spokesperson would not give me his schedule or tell me if he’s holding a town hall this weekend.) “They’re in the middle of this reset,” said a person who consults major G.O.P. donors. “They should just stop fucking talking about it and do it.”

Perhaps the heart of that reset is taking place instead in Iowa, where DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, is funding a campaign bus tour masterminded by Jeff Roe, who helped Ted Cruz win the state in 2016 as his campaign manager. I’m told to expect a carbon copy of the Cruz model, dropping into all 99 counties with a far-right, Evangelical message. Yet somehow, the DeSantis campaign has made Cruz look charming. The PAC’s goal right now is to raise $220 million, I’m told by a donor who has been solicited. Never Back Down currently has $130 million on hand. But these are soft dollars, not hard campaign dollars, which means they won’t go as far in competitive media markets. (PACs typically have to pay much higher prices for broadcast ads than campaigns, which are entitled to the lowest possible rates under federal law.)

Alas, fundraising has already slowed for the campaign itself, after an early burst of bundler activity that quickly maxed out its most eager donors. Left on the sidelines are the biggest hitters, like Ken Griffin and Steve Schwarzman, who could fund other vehicles but have held off from giving to DeSantis as they await the results of the first four primaries before investing time or money. “The main thing that donors are upset about,” said another major donor, “is how quickly DeSantis fell apart.”

Who might that candidate be if not DeSantis? That’s where the Glenn Youngkin fantasy persists. I’m told former DeSantis donor Thomas Peterffy is considering wiring another $1 million to Youngkin’s super PAC as another nudge to run for president. Of course, this money can be used for 2028, if Youngkin chooses to hold out till then. But that capital would represent Peterffy’s second million dollar donation to Youngkin since DeSantis passed a 6-week abortion ban.

Karl Rove, the true political consiglieri to the Republican donor pack, has spent many hours trying to persuade Youngkin to run. Sure, he can also persuade these donors who are true Bush-ies at heart—pro-business, pro-jobs, anti-regulations—that Youngkin is DeSantis minus his Disney battles and all the Very Online culture wars stuff. But people close to Youngkin tell me that he is obsessed with his own state’s midterm elections, and that’s what’s holding him back, despite the fact that he’s term-limited as governor. Is this a major political miscalculation? (Trump was living proof that policy wins matter increasingly less to voters.) I’m sure not a single voter outside of Virginia would care about the political composition of that state’s legislature. But Youngkin tells people that he believes he needs to turn the legislature red in order to win national credibility.

Another billionaire cooling on DeSantis: Rupert Murdoch, who has preferred Youngkin since he met both of them at his Montana Ranch in the spring. Yesterday, the New York Post reported that DeSantis had to offer half-price admission to his Hamptons fundraiser last week and scrapped two after a lack of interest, a ding from a paper that once called him “DeFuture.” On the same day, Fox Business booked Peterffy to talk about Youngkin; the clip was published on the network’s website under a headline of Peterffy calling him an “ideal candidate.”

For Youngkin, who has his own name ID issues, there’s no guaranteeing that Murdoch will be with him in 2028, willing to offer earned media as a Trump counterprogramming measure. If he were to enter the race in time for the Iowa caucus, however, he would need Murodch to turn on the earned media spigot immediately and hope his evangelical credentials could lead to a respectable outcome.

Maybe Youngkin, a former dealmaker, could cut a deal with Nikki Haley ahead of South Carolina? After all, Youngkin’s wife Suzanne and Haley are close and Haley seemed to be fine with cutting deals back in 2016. It’s a lot to pull off, though, and I’m still doubtful that the Republican primary voter really wants another coastal, Patagonia-vest-wearing candidate. No amount of money can change what the primary voters seem to be selecting, even if it’s not what most people want: a 2020 Trump-Biden revival. (Interestingly, I’m hearing that Trump is being urged to consider Tim Scott, the other donor infatuation du jour, as a possible running mate, as my Puck partner Peter Hamby suggested a couple weeks back.)

Some donors are now coming around to this reality, themselves. Already there’s some fear of missing an opportunity to get back in with the former president. “The cold shoulder is over,” said an operative who consults big donors and bundlers. “It’s reluctant, but if you want to talk to Trump when he’s the nominee you better start talking to him now.” Indeed, the iron door might even be closing. “The savvy ones know that they’re already fucked because Trump keeps the list, he’s not going to let anyone near him,” said one major donor who is backing DeSantis. “They know how it works: Anyone who casts your lot with Haley, Scott, or Desantis, you’re done to him.”