Miami Mayor Enters GOP Race – Miami’s second-term mayor, Francis Suarez (above), has filed paperwork to enter the 2024 presidential race and was scheduled to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Thursday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Suarez, in his second term as mayor, says he did not vote for Donald J. Trump, nor for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Suarez, a Cuban-American and son of a former Miami mayor has called DeSantis’ actions against major Florida employer Disney a “personal vendetta.” He is a darling of the tech world who says he takes his (part-time) mayoral salary in Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald earlier this week reported that the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have opened investigations into Suarez, NPR notes.

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From the old days of broadcast TV, the eponymous host of The Late Show with David Letterman had a “bit” we have borrowed for the headline above. We raise the question over the turn Trump administration UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has made on the former president’s 37-count indictment in the classified documents case. 

Initially, Haley parroted Trump’s Truth Social diatribes against Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment as evidence of a “double standard,” siding with fellow GOP presidential candidates Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (SC) and Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Monday, Haley had this to say: “Two things can be true at the same time.” The Justice Department and FBI “have lost all credibility with the American people.” And … “If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. … This puts all our military men and women in danger, if you’re going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we could go about invading or doing something with our enemies. …

“You know, we’re looking now, this is the second indictment. We’re looking at a third indictment coming in with Georgia.”

By Tuesday, Haley was rationalizing a pardon for Trump if she becomes president, according to Politico, though in a Ford-pardons-Nixon sort of heal-the-nation way. She will need to pull her poling numbers up by the bootstraps before she can promise the current GOP frontrunner a pardon, though.

Scott also came around, a bit, on the seriousness of Trump’s charges, saying “This case is a serious case with serious allegations, but in America you are still innocent until proven guilty.” Not quite a Chris Christie “stop him at all costs” position, but a noticeable shift from both candidates, heretofore unwilling to criticize Trump.

So … is this anything? Is this finally a shift from control by the president-ex-president who has held the GOP by the throat for six years? What would David Letterman say?