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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, focused on what’s really being talked about in this town. I’m Tara Palmeri. On behalf of my co-authors of this email, Julia Ioffe, Tina Nguyen, and Peter Hamby, thanks as always for your support and feedback.
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The Best & Brightest
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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, focused on what’s really being talked about in this town. I’m Tara Palmeri. On behalf of my co-authors of this email, Julia Ioffe, Tina Nguyen, and Peter Hamby, thanks as always for your support and feedback.

In today’s edition, an inside look at Mike Pence’s 2024 campaign strategy, as told by some of his closest aides, allies, and advisers. But first…

Is DeSantis Taking Ozempic?
The talk of Tallahassee has been that Ron DeSantis is losing weight, and fast. Juxtaposing photos from his inauguration, two months ago, to pictures from his State of the State speech, last week, suggests a dramatic difference. Not as dramatic as, say, Mike Pompeo, but his boxy suits are looking even baggier. “He’s a shell of his former self,” said one Tallahassee insider.

If there’s one thing that’s been documented about DeSantis, it’s his ability to shove anything in his mouth. Staffers used to lure him into meetings with cupcakes, as I once noted. He loves fried chicken from...

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Pence & Sensibility
Pence & Sensibility
Absent a coalition or a lane or movement, Mike Pence’s putative presidential campaign seems unclear. Is he just running to reclaim his dignity?
TARA PALMERI TARA PALMERI
Last Saturday, Mike Pence stepped onto the stage at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, in Washington, looking for an image makeover. The stiff, soft-spoken former vice president wanted to convince a ballroom of self-serious journalists, pompadoured TV hosts, and tux-clad politicos that he wasn’t merely a Donald Trump supplicant, but rather a bonafide conservative fighter, who was ready to attack his old boss. Sure, Pence has refused to testify about the events of Jan. 6, when a mob called for his lynching at the Capitol, and he has not cooperated with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into Trump’s attempts to stay in power. But on Saturday night, his team was determined to take the inside chatter head on. Pence delivered a calculated attack on his former boss, saying “history will hold Donald Trump accountable for January 6,” and that he endangered his family.

It was a canny yet careful move deployed by his careful and calculating team, which has up until this point been steering Pence toward academic conclaves, policy institutes, religious centers and universities to highlight his wedge issues with Trump and Ron DeSantis. He chose the Clements School of Security, at the University of Texas, to draw...

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FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
SVB Post-Mortem
SVB Post-Mortem
A close look at an abbreviated financial crisis.
WILLIAM D. COHAN
Zaz in CNN
Zaz in CNN
A scholarly perusal of the WBD C.E.O.’s arrival at CNN H.Q.
DYLAN BYERS
DeSantis’s Trojan Horse
DeSantis’s Trojan Horse
On DeSantis’s domestic policy-based foreign affairs play & the N.R.A.’s withdrawal.
TINA NGUYEN
Hulu Hunger Games
Hulu Hunger Games
Poking holes in the oversimplified narrative surrounding Iger’s Hulu headache.
JULIA ALEXANDER

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Latest Articles from Washington

Party operatives and consultants believe that Wednesday’s debate will be crucial for Ron DeSantis to demonstrate his viability as the best Trump challenger before someone like Nikki Haley takes up the mantle.
Tina Nguyen • September 26, 2023
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Ahead of the second Republican debate, the DeSantis camp is plagued by growing doubts among donors and allies that their biggest unspoken problem may be the candidate, not the campaign.
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Tina Nguyen • September 20, 2023
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 19: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky addresses world leaders during the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on September 19, 2023 in New York City. Dignitaries and their delegations from across the globe have descended on New York for the annual event. This year marks the 78th session of the General Debate at the UN Headquarters and will focus on the crisis of global warming. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 28: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks onstage during a Pride Celebration hosted by the Vice President Of The United States and Mr. Emhoff in collaboration with GLAAD on June 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for GLAAD)
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Kamala Swap Fan Fiction
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Tara Palmeri • September 14, 2023
The Hunter Manhunt
A candid conversation with former Biden administration official Michael LaRosa about Huntergate, the White House, and the messaging wars.


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Latest Articles from Washington

Matt Gaetz promised to start “every single day in Congress with the prayer, the pledge and the motion to vacate,” unless Kevin McCarthy meets his alleged commitments.
Tina Nguyen • September 13, 2023
Tucker’s World Tour & Gaetzgate
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Theodore Schleifer • September 13, 2023
The Silicon Valley Fundraising Stampede
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Just Spoke to Blinken…
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Ron DeSantis has only a faint whiff of the support he had earlier this year, and he could very well be lapped in the coming months by another workhorse rival.
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The DeSantis Hillary Complex
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Facts First, David Brock’s super PAC, has been the main communications apparatus to defend Hunter Biden in G.O.P. inquiries.
Tara Palmeri • September 8, 2023
Here Comes the Hunter Counterattack…
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House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is in the middle of a fight being waged by New York Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul—publicly demanding federal funds, lands, and work permits for migrants—against Joe Biden.
Tara Palmeri • September 8, 2023
Hakeem’s Hometown Migrant Crisis
The House minority leader, and speaker-in-waiting, is in the middle of a pickle in his own backyard that might cost him the gavel.
Kevin McCarthy faces migraine-inducing dilemmas from the likes of M.T.G. and Matt Gaetz, who’ve threatened to kick rocks in the gears if an impeachment inquiry doesn’t materialize.
Tina Nguyen • September 7, 2023
McCarthy’s Impeachment Theater
The speaker is pinned between pro-impeachment hardliners who want to shut down the government, vulnerable moderates whose fate will determine control of Congress, and maybe the outcome of the 2024 election, too.

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