CASCADING DOMINOES — Nancy Pelosi’s future has been the subject of whispers in her hometown of San Francisco since the Democrats lost the House and she stepped down from leadership.

What everyone has wanted to know — but no one was eager to say out loud, for fear of offending the still influential speaker emerita or merely out of respect and admiration for her — is whether she intends to keep her seat. And, if not, would she favor a chosen candidate — or throw it open to what could be a wide open primary in one of the most Democratic cities in the U.S.

At stake is not just the once-in-a-generation chance to be San Francisco’s sole representative in Congress — a post Pelosi has held for close to 40 years. Her retirement, and the jockeying it would set off could reshape California and Bay Area politics, likely creating open races for state Senate, Assembly and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Pelosi has been mum about her plans, and the evidence that has emerged so far is contradictory.The congresswoman has raised $3.5 million in the first six months of the year between her campaign and political action committees, a haul that suggests she could run for reelection in November 2024 if she wanted. At a minimum, it shows she still has clout, which could be one reason she has decided to leave people guessing.

At least three scenarios could play out in the coming months. One of the nation’s most prolific fundraisers, Pelosi could stick around for one more term to help Democrats raise money to fend off former President Donald Trump — assuming he’s the Republican nominee in 2024. She has helped lead the party through rocky times before, including to defend the Affordable Care Act and to impeach Trump twice. Pelosi must file her declaration of candidacy to seek reelection by Dec. 8, though she would likely announce much sooner given the party has a fall nomination deadline. She could run to help the party through the 2024 election, only to resign later and trigger a special election.

Another option would be to announce her departure sooner than later — before the party’s nominating process closes to applicants this fall. This timeline would have the least disruption on the traditional election calendar. But the window for Pelosi to clear the way is getting narrower and narrower since the nominating process formally opens in mid-August.

Then there’s the prospect of a last-minute decision — a not-uncommon gambit among members of Congress with an interest in dictating their successor: Call it the total chaos scenario. Pelosi waits until the final minute to decide she won’t run. If she, as the incumbent, doesn’t file to seek reelection by Dec. 8, the filing deadline would be extended by five days. Waiting that late could limit the number of potential successor candidates and trigger a special party nominating conference.

All of this is why ambitious would-be candidates and consultants in San Francisco are anxiously awaiting her decision. But if any camps are growing frustrated, nobody is sharing it publicly.

“The rules of engagement for the average politician just do not apply to Nancy Pelosi,” said Todd David, a close friend and adviser of state Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate to succeed Pelosi. “She has earned the right and the privilege to do things on her own timeline.”

Wiener formed an exploratory committee to run for the seat in March, though he stresses that he will only run if Pelosi retires and has showered the speaker emerita with praise. His exploratory committee said he’s raised $820,000, a formidable haul for a campaign that hasn’t officially started.

Two other major candidates could also be in the mix: Christine Pelosi, a longtime party organizer and the former speaker’s daughter, and Jane Kim, a former supervisor and California director of the ultra-progressive Working Families Party.

The younger Pelosi hasn’t said anything publicly about her intentions, and Kim will say only that she hasn’t ruled out a run.

From there, cue the musical chairs. The cascading dominoes could trigger open contests from the statehouse to San Francisco City Hall. The mix of possible contenders reads like a short list of ambitious San Francisco politicians. Their campaigns could prompt a heated debate about the city’s response to the parallel homelessness and addiction crises.

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— GOP centrists pan Trump impeachment erasure as McCarthy denies any deal: Kevin McCarthy denies he made any deal with Donald Trump to expunge his impeachment record. Even if the speaker did call for such a vote, a bloc of House GOP centrists would likely defeat it.

Roughly a half-dozen swing district Republicans said Thursday they were skeptical — or even downright opposed — to any vote designed to symbolically rescind one or both of Trump’s impeachments. Two of Trump’s strongest supporters in the House, Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have repeatedly pushed the idea as Trump’s legal woes pile up in his 2024 presidential bid.

POLITICO’s Playbook reported Thursday that McCarthy had promised the former president he would look to expunge the impeachments, seeking to dispel Trump’s pressure to endorse him for president in 2024. That promise, though unlikely to happen anytime soon, renewed Greene’s vow that she would get a full House vote on her effort. But a slew of Republicans in battleground districts questioned the purpose of a vote motivated solely to help Trump that could hurt them back home.

— Judge rejects QAnon shaman’s bid to throw out Jan. 6 sentence: A federal judge has denied a bid by Jacob Chansley — the Jan. 6 rioter who famously wore a horned helmet and left a menacing note for Mike Pence on the Senate dais — to throw out his conviction by citing videos aired in February by then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said the videos aired by Carlson, which showed Chansley roaming the halls of the Capitol, occasionally alongside outnumbered Capitol Police officers, were devoid of meaningful context, especially when contrasted with the extraordinary volume of evidence of Chansley’s crimes. In fact, if Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September 2021 to obstructing Congress’ proceedings, were sentenced today, Lamberth wrote in a 35-page opinion on Thursday, he might be inclined to sentence him to a lengthier prison term than the 41 months he received.

— Judge scolds Jack Smith’s team for causing delay in unrelated Jan. 6 verdict: A federal judge on Thursday upbraided special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors — who may be on the verge of indicting former President Donald Trump — for causing a delay in an unrelated hearing in a Jan. 6 criminal case.

U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden sent a U.S. marshal to summon Smith’s prosecutors from the grand jury room — where they were grilling a Trump-connected witness — to his courtroom Thursday afternoon.

A federal judge on Thursday upbraided special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors — who may be on the verge of indicting former President Donald Trump — for causing a delay in an unrelated hearing in a Jan. 6 criminal case. That led to a bizarre scene in which Thomas Windom, a leading prosecutor on Smith’s team investigating Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election, marched down the courthouse hallway and filed into McFadden’s courtroom during the ongoing Jan. 6 proceeding, a lengthy bench trial verdict for Federico Klein and Steven Cappuccio, who stand accused of violence toward Capitol Police.

RACIST SLUR — A political consultant closely tied to the effort to elect Tim Scott president repeatedly used the N-word when he was playing a card game with friends, a video obtained by POLITICO shows.

Anton Castaneda is the main adviser to Opportunity Matters Fund, a super PAC that is doing work in early primary states to support Scott’s campaign. It has paid Castaneda’s firm more than $1.3 million in the last several years for strategy, fundraising and digital consulting and ad production. He is a former congressional staffer for two prominent Black Republican politicians: Scott (R-S.C.) and former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas).

RFK JR. ON THE HILL — Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before Congress on Thursday in a divisive hearing on federal government “censorship” of Americans’ free speech on social media, sparking tense exchanges between Democrats and Republicans over his remarks on vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The hearing of the committee investigating the politicization of the federal government, which also touched on social media companies’ handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story and ongoing government efforts to work with social media companies to take down disinformation and misinformation, largely saw Republicans defend Kennedy and decry Democrats’ protests over his presence before the committee as “censorship.” Democrats, in turn, argued that Republicans were “co-signing” Kennedy’s views on vaccines and medical science by providing Kennedy a “megaphone.”

BLOCKADE BACKER — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backed Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s months-long blockade on military nominations on Thursday, saying that the Pentagon’s abortion policy would “go out the window” if he wins the presidency.

“They are using tax dollars. They’re funding abortion tourism, which is not an appropriate thing for the military to be doing,” DeSantis told radio host Hugh Hewitt, answering “No, I don’t” when asked if he thinks Tuberville should relent. “Day one as commander-in-chief, that policy will go out the window.”

Tuberville has blocked consideration of more than 200 stalled military promotions, demanding that the Pentagon overturn its policy of providing paid leave to service members seeking an abortion.

THE NAMELESS ISLANDS — A leaked memo has revealed the “frantic” last-ditch efforts of the U.K. government and its highest-ranking diplomat to prevent the EU signing a declaration with Latin American nations which refers explicitly to the ‘Islas Malvinas’ — the Argentine name for the British-owned Falkland Islands.

London and Buenos Aires fought a 10-week war over the islands in 1982. The remote archipelago, located less than 500 km off Argentina’s coast, remains a U.K. territory, though Argentina continues to claim it as its own.

Britain took exception to the use of the ‘Islas Malvinas’ name in a new communiqué signed in Brussels this week by 60 EU and Latin American nations. It was the EU’s first summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) since Britain left the EU in 2020. Previously, the U.K. would have been able to veto language it did not agree with. In Britain’s self-enforced absence, Argentine negotiators moved swiftly to insert their own name for the islands into the joint declaration, scoring a major diplomatic win.

AGRICULTURAL THREAT — As Russia once again bombards and blockades Ukraine’s Black Sea ports — through which the country exports its vast agricultural produce — Poland and Hungary threaten to cut off the country’s western exit routes.

Poland will unilaterally block trade with Ukraine if the European Commission fails to extend temporary restrictions on grain imports at least until the end of the year, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a meeting of agriculture ministers from five Eastern EU countries in Warsaw on Wednesday.

BARBIE WORLD — Even if you’re immune to Barbie, you can’t ignore it. The Barbie movie, directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie (who also served as producer) as well as Ryan Gosling as her boytoy, Ken, has been inescapable ever since the first trailer was released in December. For a film that promises to be a two-hour cinematic lobotomy, writes Michelle Cyca in The Walrus magazine, why are we so excited?