Murdoch's Big Lie, Little Green Men, and More Tesla Inanity
Good afternoon from Puck H.Q. and thanks for reading the The Daily Courant, bringing you the latest and most noteworthy reporting from our elite team of journalists. Today, Julia Ioffe addresses the most pressing questions on readers' minds: What does the Washington establishment make of the ongoing purge of moderate Republicans from Fox News? Can Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes find a place in Rupert Murdoch's G.O.P.? And is Vladimir Putin about to invade Ukraine?
Plus, below the fold, William D. Cohan opines about Tesla's new price target and the legend of Felix Rohatyn. And Matt Belloni pontificates on Hollywood's war over NFTs.
Pre-Thanksgiving reflections on the Tucker Carlson-ification of Fox News, Russia’s designs on Ukraine, and more. As we head into my favorite and most problematic American holiday, Thanksgiving, I just want to say thanks to all of you. You keep our dream of revolutionizing media humming cheerfully into the future, and I know all my colleagues at Puck are thankful, too. This week, which is short enough to allow me a couple days in the kitchen to help cook a labor-intensive meal that will be eaten in 15 minutes—more on that in my weekly email, which you can subscribe to here—I wanted to answer some more reader questions. I love doing these, and I would strongly encourage you to send me more at julia@puck.news. My inbox is always open.
As the Times’ Ben Smith reported, two Fox News contributors recently quit over Tucker Carlson’s latest antics. What does Establishment D.C. think? Is this grandstanding or something more serious?
If you missed the story, Ben Smith dropped another bombshell on Sunday night, reporting that conservative commentators and avowed Never-Trumpers Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg quit their lucrative Fox contributor gigs over Tucker Carlson’s “exposé” of the attempted coup on January 6th as a false flag. (Which it very obviously wasn’t, just so we’re clear.) According to Ben, “Mr. Goldberg said that he and Mr. Hayes stayed on at Fox News as long as they did because of a sense from conversations at Fox that, after Mr. Trump’s defeat, the network would try to recover some of its independence and, as he put it, ‘right the ship.’”
This is what establishment D.C. has thought since before the 2020 election: that if and when Trump loses, sanity will be restored and things will go back to normal. This was and remains a delusional fantasy. There is no unseeing what Trump showed us about our country. And there is very little that will undo the damage he’s done, not by a Republican party that remains in his thrall, and not by toothless Democratic investigations that drag on for so long that voters forget to care.
The idea that things can and should go back to normal is, perhaps, the most defining—and most maddening—thing about the standpatter D.C. establishment, which loves normalcy and calm and decorum, and will try its darndest to see it in everything, even when it’s long gone...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 
A chat with the incomparable James Andrew Miller about the Netflix rivalry, the disastrous AOL merger, and who's the biggest asshole. MATT BELLONI 
A nine-figure gift from Bezos to the Obama Foundation, midwifed by Jay Carney, marks another twist in Bezos’ remarkable career. TEDDY SCHLEIFER 
One of the country’s most respected copyright experts joins the Quentin Tarantino's battle with Miramax over script NFTs. MATT BELLONI 
Plus: Why you'll never hear a sell-side analyst encouraging you to sell. WILLIAM D. COHAN 
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