Fox News shocked the media world Monday morning by telling Nantucket “Tucker” Carlson that that job he had with them? He didn’t have it anymore. So why would Fox’s Murdoch overlords toss one of their highest-rated hosts and a face of the network overboard? Some of Carlson’s fans (the Russian state) pursued the martyrdom theory: that Carlson had gotten too close to the truth on the deep state, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and what really happened on Jan. 6. He was going to bring the whole system down! Sure. Further reporting suggests, though, that his personal baggage just became too much for the network. The context, here, is Fox’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems last week. While Carlson was hardly Fox’s biggest proponent of theorizing about rigged election machines, some nasty stuff about him came out in discovery. He had, for example, called multiple people, including a senior Fox executive, the c-word in texts that still have yet to be released publicly. Fox is also facing a lawsuit from a former Carlson employee about grossly misogynistic working conditions on the show, and another potential lawsuit from Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 attendee who Carlson has insinuated was a government provocateur working to inflame the violence that day. And then there are the looming shareholder lawsuits against Fox. The company remains in trouble, and firing Carlson was a big step toward cleaning up its act. They’ll find another 8 p.m.-hour host, and that host will be successful too. Carlson made the mistake of believing he was the brand. But Fox News is the brand, and the characters themselves are replaceable. 

The president launched his reelection bid this week, and the Democratic Party couldn’t be more reluctantly resigned to it! There were a couple of funny pieces about how the party came around to supporting the world’s oldest man for a term that would end in 2029. Just look at this enthusiasm from Democratic operative Maria Cardona in the New York Times: “Democrats complain that he might be too old. But then, when they’re asked, ‘Well, who?’ There is no one else.” Sure, uh-huh. Here is the reason Democrats are falling behind Biden despite their serious reservations: If he didn’t run, there’d be a messy fight for the nomination, but Vice President Kamala Harris would likely win it and then lose to Donald Trump. That’s it! That’s why Democrats are rallying around a guy who most Americans don’t believe should run for a second term on account of his age. (And no, he doesn’t act younger than 80, either.) It’s been surprising throughout the run-up to this reelection launch that the panic Democrats express privately about re-running Biden never got very far in public. Well, it’s too late now.

Republicans are full steam ahead in their messaging about how Biden’s going to keel over soon. He’s going to croak, they argue. One minute, he’s here; the next minute, he’s as dead as Aunt Mabel. Such a move (Biden dying) would make Harris president, imbuing her with the power to remake American government in her vision as … well, eventually we’ll learn what her vision is. “I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact,” Nikki Haley said in an interview this week, “that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely.” The actuarial table gives a current 80-year-old man another 7.74 years on average so, yeah—it’s tight. Chris Christie, who’s still deciding whether to run for president, has also been making the case that Harris will end up as president if Biden wins. This is a neat line because it works as both a general election and primary argument. It points out how Biden is very old and a vote for him is a kinda-sorta vote for Harris, whom Republicans despise, yes. But the prospect of a President Harris could also focus the Republican primary voter’s mind on nominating the most electable candidate who is not Donald Trump. Here’s another thing to consider: Each day that passes is another day we’re all—all of us—closer to death. Ticktock!

Joe Biden is not without his challengers. Both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson are running against him—and they’re getting some relatively decent polling numbers, with Kennedy hitting comfortably into double digits and Williamson hanging on to a non-negligible high single digits. They want Biden to debate. But that’s never going to happen! He’s the incumbent, has huge leads, and doesn’t need to debate the Anti-Vax King or the Orb. Trump, meanwhile, has huge polling leads of his own as a former president. If his polling leads don’t tighten meaningfully, why should he debate? The big guy is starting to mull this over. “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers,” Trump said on social media this week, “and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?” Trump isn’t quite an incumbent, but he’s also not your usual primary contender just throwin’ his hat in the ring. It’s beginning to feel like Trump’s challengers didn’t fully grasp the nature of the candidate they’d be facing.

Credit where due: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s passage of a party-line bill this week to raise the debt limit is his most impressive accomplishment yet. He got a good number of members who had never voted to raise the debt limit, and who swore they never would, to do so. All he had to do was lard up the bill with policy sweeteners that, for example, make it harder for poor people to get health care or food, or that make it easier for people to cheat on their taxes. High-fives all around! House Republicans’ ability to pass an opening offer puts pressure on Biden, who’s previously said he wouldn’t negotiate over lifting the debt ceiling, to engage with them. But this thing is far from over, and we’re curious about some of the sweet-talk McCarthy may have used to jam this through. South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman—one of the guys who never votes for a debt limit increase, until this one—told Politico that “in a bid to win their support, McCarthy promised conservatives late Tuesday night that the debt ceiling bill they voted on yesterday was a floor, not a ceiling.” [Emphasis theirs.] Uhh … it was definitely a ceiling? The final bill that’s negotiated and approved by the Senate Democratic majority and the Democratic president will not be more conservative than House Republicans’ opening offer. Norman said it “will be a problem” if the bill gets watered down as the process moves along. Then a problem it will be! Bless these guys.

Anyone getting a little bored with this never-ending feud between Ron DeSantis and Disney? Interesting! We’re not, at all. After a year of being targeted by the Florida governor over a statement the company wrote expressing displeasure with an anti-gay law, Disney finally sued Meatball Ron this week over “retaliation.” (The lawsuit might have bad consequences, by the way). The lawsuit ensures this feud will last, potentially, for many years to come—and Republicans are tiring of it. DeSantis’ latest anti-Disney requests to the Florida Legislature, which has acted as the governor’s rubber stamp for years, have “irritated conservative Republicans loath to target private businesses,” Politico reports. In the words of one lawmaker, “we’re not the party of cancel culture. We can’t keep doing this tit for tat.” (Coincidentally, this change in tone comes as Disney lobbyists in Tallahassee are ramping up their pressure on state lawmakers.) On the presidential primary front, Nikki Haley this week urged Disney World to relocate to South Carolina. “SC’s not woke,” she tweeted, “but we’re not sanctimonious about it either.” Kevin McCarthy is gently chastising DeSantis. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, too. We wouldn’t be surprised to see DeSantis negotiate a cease-fire before his presidential campaign gets running in earnest.

As the Surge wrote in a separate piece this week, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is having a bit of a meltdown as his luck appears to be running out. Should he run for Senate, he’d run down-ballot of a Republican presidential nominee who’s going to win the state by 40 points. The worse news for Manchin this week was that national Republicans successfully recruited popular West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice to run against Manchin (should Justice clear his primary). Manchin is exuding panic in everything he does these days, from his threat to try to repeal his own signature bill from last year, the Inflation Reduction Act, to his vitriolic statements against the radical left-wing Biden administration. If he opts against running for Senate reelection, he could also run for president as an independent—the sprightly “youth” option who’d be 77 upon entering office. In a statement on Thursday night, Manchin said, “make no mistake, I will win any race I enter.” Sure, sure. And the Surge guarantees we would win any Kentucky Derby race we entered, on foot. We’re pretty busy that weekend, though.