The surest sign yet that Donald Trump and Mike Pence are going down

| 10:30 pm EST December 15, 2017
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As expected, the Republican holdouts in Congress all caved on Friday night and decided to vote for their tax scam bill after all. That’s not shocking. They have to pass the bill to appease the billionaire donors who control the Republican Party. Voting “no” would have been a career killer. However, in the process, at least two of the holdouts revealed something huge about the fate of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Bear with me here, because these pieces strongly fit together.

Bob Corker, who has already announced his retirement from the Senate, voted “no” on the previous iteration of the tax scam. But today he announced he’s voting “yes” on the final iteration, even though he can’t provide any explanation for why he’s changed his mind. The real answer is this: he’s planning to run for president as a Republican in 2020, and he knows he’ll need the support of the party’s billionaires to have any chance. If you think that’s a stretch, there’s more: Corker isn’t the only one.

Marco Rubio announced at the last minute that he would vote “no” on the bill unless a minor change was made. He was granted that change, and then he promptly said he would vote “yes.” Rubio is one of the most spineless and dimwitted people in politics, and he never comes up with these kinds of ideas on his own. One of his advisers must have told him to do this, so that he could brag about it when he runs for president in 2020. It would be one thing for Corker, who has already declared war on Trump, to run against him in a primary challenge in 2020. Rubio wouldn’t do it unless he thinks Trump won’t still be in office by 2020. There’s more.

These Republicans wouldn’t be gearing up to run for president in 2020 if they thought Mike Pence were going to be running for reelection either. Corker and Rubio informed us today that they think Donald Trump will be ousted before 2020. They also told us that they think Pence will either also be ousted, or that he’ll be so damaged by the Russia scandal that he won’t seek reelection. What do these Republican Senators know that we don’t? A lot, apparently. They’re already making plans for 2020 under the assumption that neither Trump nor Pence will be there to stand in their way.