Trump is facing a second impeachment but doesn't have a leg affairs director whipping senate votes for him/anyone on his final WH staff w strong senate GOP ties. So he is making feints about primarying people but with no actual apparatus to scare folks with right now.

Instead he's mentioned to a very few advisers - meaning almost none of them - the notion of creating a third party, which he told advisers couldn't help win a presidential race in 2000 when he didn't seek the Reform Party line.

"He's golfing," said one adviser when I asked how rigorously he's focused at the moment on candidate recruitment against the 10 House GOPers who went against him.

This is not to say he will not be able to stoke supporters in primaries, and is not to say some of his family members, in particularly his oldest son, won't be effective in campaigning against House incumbents. Polling since Jan 6 shows why he'll remain a force if he wants to.

But right now he barely has a legal team for impeachment. He has political advisers who typically work in GOP politics. Creating a third party is actually really hard.

And it is contradictory to say “I’m doing a third party” as well as “I’m primarying Republicans.” You might be able to do one but you can’t do both. All this is to say that while people have learned the hard way not to dismiss Trump, not all of his endeavors are identical.