Meghan Markle’s New Line, Iger’s Succession Games & Biden’s Sugar Baby

Good morning,

Thanks for reading The Backstory, your weekly review of the best new work from Puck.

Yes, yes, it’s all true: it was another incredible week at Puck. Julia Alexander measured the Netflix moat; Matt Belloni analyzed the Iger succession bake-off; Bill Cohan cracked open Jeff Zucker’s dealbook; Dylan Byers covered the latest in the Condé Nast labor saga; Lauren Sherman scrutinized a billion-dollar fashion M&A opportunity; Rachel Strugatz combed through Meghan Markle’s trademark docs; Teddy Schleifer profiled Biden’s new sugar baby; John Ourand investigated a sideways NFL deal; Eriq Gardner redlined a Bravo legal saga; Tara Palmeri dissected the Katie Britt blame game; Peter Hamby disrobed the TikTok infatuation; and Julia Ioffe debunked a Navalny myth.

FASHION:
Lauren Sherman reports on a Vineyard Vines micro-scandal and the fever dreams to resurrect Victoria’s Secret.
and…
Rachel Strugatz pores over Meghan Markle’s trademark paperwork for her Flamingo Estate knockoff brand.

WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan previews the Trump bankruptcy lawn sale.

SILICON VALLEY:
Teddy Schleifer unveils the Zuckerbuddy billionaire quietly underwriting Biden ’24.

MEDIA:
Dylan Byers details the latest Condé Nast fiasco.
and…
John Ourand offers an autopsy of the collapsed $7.5 billion Dolphins deal.
and…
Eriq Gardner investigates a Bravo legal scandal for our times.

HOLLYWOOD:
Matt Belloni weighs the various attributes of the Iger apprentices.
and…
Julia Alexander conducts a postmortem on the latest streaming strategy gone awry.

WASHINGTON:
Julia Ioffe debunks a Navalny prisoner swap myth.
and…
Tara Palmeri captures the talk of the town and the latest drips in the silly Katie Britt soap opera.
and…
Peter Hamby scrutinizes the Democrats’ TikTok anxieties as Tina Nguyen foreshadows the bill’s challenges in the Senate.

PODCASTS:
Matt and Dylan examine cable news stars’ post-linear afterlives on The Town.
and…
Tara and Katie Rogers chat about First Ladies on Somebody’s Gotta Win.
and…
Peter and Julia parse Putin’s latest landslide on The Powers That Be.

Meanwhile, I also encourage you to take advantage of our article gifting feature. You can share our work with your colleagues, friends, and family. Subscribers are entitled to 5 article gifts per month.

What It Takes

On Wednesday evening, a number of my partners and I found ourselves at the Residence de France, the home of the French ambassador to the United States and the prettiest old mansion in all of Kalorama, for Puck’s second-annual First Amendment soirée. We launched this event last year to commemorate the bittersweet reality that, in a town built upon disagreement—Capitol Hill quarreling, K Street partisanship, a wee bit of shit-talking all across Constitution Avenue, and sharp elbows everywhere—the one thing upon which everyone can agree is the sheer power of journalism. In fact, Washington runs on news unlike any other city—it’s the lingua franca of its lawmakers, lobbyists, troublemakers, and ruling classes. Amid contentious times, when Congress can hardly keep the lamps of democracy burning, this is something to celebrate.

Naturally, of course, the First Amendment isn’t simply the aqua vitae of our republic, it’s also the core of our business strategy here at Puck. Last year, in partnership with the dashing and mellifluous Ambassador Laurent Bili, my partners and I honored General Mark Milley, the retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This year, we bestowed the prize on the peerless Andrea Mitchell. Her extraordinary career—spanning eight presidents, some 14 national elections, the White House, the Hill, State, and more—set an extraordinary benchmark for how a single journalist could leave their imprint on the town.

Furthermore, Andrea was a founding member, along with Maureen Dowd, Judy Woodruff and Cokie Roberts, of a new class of female journalists who redefined the coverage of politcs in the 80s and early 90s, elevating it into a fine art. And, in the process, they personally undid many of the brutish customs of a gross old boys’ club profession—improving the work and the culture of the trade all at once. After her moving acceptance speech, she received a rapturous ovation from a room comprising the most powerful people in town: senators, congresspeople, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Wolf Blitzer and Abby Phillip, Terry McAuliffe, Meredith Whitney, Hallie Jackson and Symone Sanders, my buddies Tammy Haddad and Scott Mulhauser, and so many more. As she stepped down from the dais in the great room, naturally, all the TV people swarmed my partner Dylan Byers to find out if their contracts were getting renewed.

During the cocktail reception, I caught up a bit with the broadcaster and author Luke Russert and his mom, Maureen Orth, the gifted writer. Maureen and I have history. Back when I was in short pants at Vanity Fair, she was edited by the great Wayne Lawson, one of the truly historic practitioners of the art of wielding the red pencil. Wayne edited legends like Maureen, Marie Brenner, Nick Dunne, and my mom, Sheila Weller. Wayne, who had gone to Princeton with Don Rumsfeld, was old-school in every way—he arrived before all the assistants, left after them, and would never be caught dead without a tightly knotted four-in-hand tie or, sometimes, a martini at lunch—Beefeater, very dry, with a twist.

Maureen had just seen Wayne recently, and we laughed about the old days. I order my martinis the way Wayne taught me during our various bildungsroman dinners at Esca or DB Bistro or Sparks, the steakhouse where John Gotti and “Sammy the Bull” Gravano whacked Paul Castellano back in the day. Don’t you feel a little dangerous, Wayne would joke in his high-pitched and utterly wry Wisconsin-by-way-of-Oyster Bay accent.

It’s funny what you carry with you. And even though my job often requires me to wear many hats, I remain an editor at my core—which means, on some level, I’m a product of all the mentors and experiences I’ve endured. Wayne Lawson’s commitment to the craft and his distinctive voice have always informed that DNA, and magazine-era veterans will find its legacy alive, sometimes latently, in the lexicon and occasionally arch tone at Puck. Talking about it all with Maureen was like sharing beautiful postcards from a forgotten world.

As I headed back on the Acela, Union Station fading in the background, I was excited to dive into the latest masterwork from my partner Lauren Sherman. Sitting across the aisle from one another on the train, as we tried to drown out the pompous backslapping of a couple of Willy Loman-style D.C. creatures seated behind us, we edited over each other in real time. Lauren recently finished a book on Victoria’s Secret and its divisive old leader, Les Wexner, a central figure in the Jeffrey Epstein friendship diaspora. Please pre-order her showstopper, Selling Sexy, here. In Les’ Misérables, Lauren reports on the epic shadow that Wexner has continued to cast not only over the company but also his various protégés, a number of whom may be trying to resurrect its old, tacky, angel-winged glory in their image. It’s a story about hubris, fame, fortune, ego, and vanity. In other words, it’s one of the great stories of our time, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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