Nobody asked me, but Donald Trump saying he won’t debate Kamala Harris a second time is like the Thanksgiving turkey saying he won’t be available for Christmas dinner.

Some of the unhappy Republican reaction to Trump’s performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate brought to mind playwright and director George S. Kaufman’s intermission telegram to the scenery-chewing lead actor in Kaufman’s 1931 Broadway musical: “I am watching your performance from the rear of the house. Wish you were here.”

Regarding Trump’s claim to have seen “people on TV” talking about Haitian immigrants eating dogs, this arrived from London: “BBC Verify has looked at archive video of every major US broadcaster, including Fox, CNN and CBS. We also used keywords to search for relevant video on social media, and have not identified any televised interview of this nature.”

Nobody asked me, but the most interesting question on Election Day in Maryland will be the degree to which enthusiasm for Harris helps Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate against Republican Larry Hogan.

Related: In 2020, Maryland was one of four states that gave Joe Biden at least a million more votes than it gave Trump. A similar result this year should help Alsobrooks, but she still needs to break through to voters who are not familiar with her. A strong debate performance next month, introducing herself to voters and casting Larry Hogan as key to Republicans winning control of the Senate, could give her the kind of boost Harris got from her take-down of Trump.

While Hogan never supported Trump for president, he sounded a bit like him in the 2022 Las Vegas speech recently uncovered by Semafor. In the speech, recorded by C-SPAN, Hogan praised Trump for appointing “incredible justices” to the Supreme Court. He credited Trump with pushing fossil fuel production, despite the climate crisis, and with cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations. Hogan also echoed Trump’s emphasis on a “devastating” crime rate, though the FBI in 2022 reported a downward national trend that continues today. The former governor also said Democrats “demonize” police and “attack the entrepreneurs and businesses.”

One last thing on that speech: Hogan criticized Biden for “catering to the far left” and having “learned nothing” from the results of the 2022 midterms. But, in that election, Democrats did surprisingly well and the predicted “red wave” did not happen. It was, all in all, a good day for Biden, and the only lesson would have been to stick to his agenda.

Noted: Hogan and Alsobrooks are campaigning for the seat held by Maryland’s retiring senior senator, Ben Cardin. Going back to his election, at age 22, to the Maryland House of Delegates, the 80-year-old Cardin has held state and federal offices for 57 years. He never lost an election and did so without a single endorsement by Taylor Swift.

Further noted: Cardin served Marylanders with integrity. He was never indicted. Never even audited, for all I know. Before leaving office in January, he deserves to take a victory lap. Thursday night, Main Street Housing, the nonprofit that serves people with psychiatric disabilities and housing needs in Baltimore and 10 Maryland counties, gave him a lifetime service award.

Nobody asked me, but while the FBI tells us that crime is down, as I mentioned earlier, and Baltimore police report positive trends, we still have an epidemic of death from guns. A new report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions shows that 48,204 people, the second highest on record, died from gunshots in the U.S. in 2022. That includes 27,032 suicides, the most ever recorded. (The overall number dropped a little in 2023, but gun deaths remain at a near-record high.) Most disturbing: For the age group 1 to 17 — that would be American children — guns have been the leading cause of death since 2020.

Nobody asked me, but this sounds like a good idea: A federal law requiring those who cause climate change to help pay for its consequences. Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act would extract $1 trillion from the largest U.S. fossil fuel companies, based on a percentage of their past global emissions. The fund would be used to help cities, towns and counties build resilient infrastructure and pay for damages caused by extreme weather.

Related: The ABC News moderators of the Trump-Harris debate did a great job, but a question about climate change did not come up until the second hour. It should have been one of the first issues raised.

Nobody asked me, but mayonnaise in squeeze bottles is stupid. When you think you’ve squeezed the bottle empty, there’s still more mayo inside, and you can’t get it out with a knife or spoon. So you either waste mayo and throw the whole thing in the trash, instead of the recycling bin, or you try to cut the bottle open to reach the remaining mayo. The whole process is messy and annoying and stressful. Don’t put yourself through that.

Nobody asked me, but if elected officials in Anne Arundel County and Baltimore fail in getting obnoxious, greenhouse gas-spewing leaf blowers banned, they could always propose a voluntary buy-back program: $50 for every gas-powered leaf blower surrendered to government authorities. How would it be funded? Don’t ask me.