It is the arrogant, infuriatingly high-handed decision of a man unwilling to subject himself to cross-examination by his opponents, questions from the voters, tongue-kisses from Vivek Ramaswamy, and potential moments of televised weakness.

It is also a perfectly intelligent, sound strategy, one I would have recommended myself if I were advising him (in good faith, that is). Trump is playing a “prevent defense” for at least one manifestly obvious reason: because he is, at this point, lapping the field in all polls. …

So this sort of methodically paced “basement-plus” campaign is going to become a necessity in the 2024 general election due to his various court appearances and trials; the man simply is not going to have either the time or the money to spend flying around to make appearances with the sort of frequency that unindicted presidential candidates do.

[Some readers might have expected a more hostile analysis at NRO, which is why I added this to the Headlines tonight. It’s worth a read. Jeffrey is fair, reasonable, and balanced in his approach. I disagree in terms of the debates themselves, which are infrequent enough to plan around, but otherwise Jeffrey makes a pretty good case. — Ed]