Hello and welcome to Sunday, July 19, 2026. Among other things, today is Ice Cream Day, Daiquiri Day, Raspberry Cake Day, New Friends Day, Stick Out Your Tongue Day, Sundae Sunday, Football Day, Flight Attendant Safety Professionals’ Day, International Retainer Day, Lake Superior Day, and Flitch Day. I don’t know what to make of that. Anything that floats in your root beer, I suppose.
Today in History:
1553: Mary I deposes Lady Jane Grey to become Queen of England, earning the nickname “Bloody Mary” for her later persecution of Protestants.
1848: The Seneca Falls Convention opens, launching the organized women’s rights movement in Seneca Falls, New York.
1870: The Franco-Prussian War begins with France’s declaration against the Kingdom of Prussia.
1900: The Paris Metro opens its first line, coinciding with the World’s Fair.
1903: Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
1943: Allied bombers raid Rome for the first time, striking the city with more than 150 B-17s and 112 B-24s.
1944: The Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago, with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s renomination considered a certainty.
1961: TWA becomes the first airline to screen a regularly scheduled inflight movie, showing By Love Possessed to first-class passengers flying from New York to Los Angeles.
1969: Apollo 11 enters lunar orbit with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins aboard.
1975: The linked Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft separate after two days docked together in orbit.
1979: Managua falls to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza flees the country.
1993: President Bill Clinton announces the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing military service.
Birthdays Today: Brian May, guitarist of Queen, holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Will Rock You”); Benedict Cumberbatch, actor (Doctor Strange, The Imitation Game); Anthony Edwards, actor (Top Gun, Revenge of the Nerds); Jared Padalecki, actor (Gilmore Girls, Supernatural); Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO; George McGovern, politician, senator and presidential candidate; Bernie Leadon, musician and founding guitarist of the Eagles and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; Trai Byers, actor (Selma, Empire); A.J. Cronin, novelist (The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom); Edgar Snow, author best known for chronicling the Chinese Communist movement; and Alan Gorrie, bassist of Average White Band.
If today’s your birthday too, happy birthday — here’s to another trip around the sun.
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Time for me to get all analytical on you.
I’ve been watching the relationship between President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio lately, mostly due to a long string of commentary, both in my feeds and in my mailbox. Several people in recent days have started asking the same question: Is Trump grooming Rubio as his successor? My hip-shot response would be: Meh…. I wouldn’t object if that was the case. Rubio certainly seems a credible candidate. But, let me say up front—I have my doubts that’s a conscious choice on Trump’s part. But I get why people are asking. Let’s dive in.
Here’s the thing: this examination says as much about Trump’s leadership style as it does about Rubio. And Trump’s leadership style calls to mind a line from General George S. Patton: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” It seems to me that Trump sings harmony with Patton on that one. Unlike most presidents, he doesn’t micromanage. Instead, he:
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Sets broad objectives — “secure the border,” “get a better trade deal,” “end this war” — and skips the tactical playbook.
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Hands trusted advisers real latitude to execute.
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Obsesses over outcomes and how they play in public.
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Steps in personally only when something becomes politically or personally important to him.
Former Cabinet officials and aides tell the same story: Trump wants competing viewpoints on the table, picks a lane from the choices given, and then expects his team to drive in it. He’s not the guy poring over hundred-page policy memos or running agencies from the weeds. Never has been.
So let’s look at what’s actually going on between Trump and Rubio. A few things stand out:
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Rubio’s portfolio keeps growing. As secretary of State, he’s literally everywhere on foreign policy, and Trump keeps handing him the delicate diplomatic assignments nobody else gets. Give someone enough rope, and people start measuring him for a crown.
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The relationship has thawed considerably. Remember 2016? Trump spent that primary calling him “Little Marco” and making it personal. Fast forward to today, and the two have built something that actually works. Trump praises Rubio’s performance far more than he knocks it — that, alone, is a genuine rarity in Trump World.
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Rubio has evolved. He’s shed the establishment-conservative label and rebuilt himself as an America First guy on immigration, China, trade, and national security. A decade ago, he’d have been a lousy fit to carry Trump’s coalition forward. Today, he fits the part.
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The succession question isn’t going away for at least a year and a half. Trump can’t run again; the Constitution says so, which means Republicans are already scanning the bench for an heir. Any Cabinet member with a high enough profile gets viewed through that lens whether they like it or not. Certainly Rubio qualifies on that point.
All of that said—I’m still skeptical this is a deliberate succession play on Trump’s part, at least not yet. Is it possible that Trump’s quietly positioning Rubio? Sure. The evidence fits that story just fine. Give a guy the State Department, hand him the hard diplomatic assignments, praise him publicly more than you criticize him — do that long enough, and of course people start drawing a line from Point A to Point B labeled “heir apparent.”
But here’s what that theory conveniently ignores: Trump doesn’t tend to groom people. He uses their abilities toward his own policy ends. He never has cared much for legacy-building or dynasty-planning — the man barely plans past next week’s news cycle, let alone the 2028 primary. To my mind, what actually explains the Rubio relationship is far less cinematic than a “Lion in Winter” style succession plot. In Rubio, Trump has found someone competent, someone who executes without whining, someone who doesn’t leak to the Washington Post the moment his feelings get hurt. That’s it. That’s the whole story. In Trump World, that alone is enough to earn a guy the keys to half the foreign policy apparatus.
And there’s a simpler explanation still sitting on the table, one nobody seems to want to entertain: maybe Trump just hasn’t decided. Maybe, indeed, probably, he doesn’t see the need to. After all, presidents aren’t obligated to anoint a successor, and Trump in particular has never operated on anyone’s timetable but his own. The trust he’s placed in Rubio could, down the road, calcify into something more deliberate — a real endorsement, a real torch-passing. But “could eventually” isn’t “is now.” Until Trump says the word himself, or until Rubio starts acting like a man measuring the Oval Office drapes, the rest of us are just reading tea leaves and calling it political science.
I’ll believe the succession theory when I see it. Right now, all I see is a president who found a guy who gets the job done. To the degree that qualifies Rubio for being the next POTUS, well, that stands on its own. Trump seems willing to allow the primary process to work that one out.
As he should.
Thought of the day: My response to Illegal Aliens is a quote from Bill Clinton: “Better put some ICE on that.”
VIP members: Hit that heart and speak up! What are your thoughts on Rubio?
Have a great Sunday. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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