Murdoch Succession Plans, Debt Ceiling Chicken, FTX’s Horror Show

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your pocket guide to the latest reportage from Puck.

Today, we lead with Dylan Byers’ inside look at the fractures and agita permeating Murdochworld as the Fox-Dominion trial looms—and why a mid-market buyout firm is emerging as the defendants’ bogeyman.

Then, below the fold: Tina Nguyen queries Matt Gaetz about Kevin McCarthy’s concessions and backroom debt ceiling negotiations. Bill Cohan picks through the horror show FTX interim report. On The Powers That Be, Dylan and Peter Hamby consider Rupert Murdoch’s succession plans, while Ben Landy and Teddy Schleifer discuss Larry Ellison’s Tim Scott fantasy. And on The Town, Matt Belloni recruits First Amendment litigator Doug Mirell to parse the long-tail implications of Fox’s $1.6 billion defamation trial.

DYLAN BYERS

As Fox’s Dominion case heads to trial, and Hannity and Tucker et al. face the prospect of testifying before a jury, many Murdoch-watchers are grumbling about why he didn’t settle in the first place.

TINA NGUYEN

“There’s no reason for the 20 to negotiate against what was already agreed to,” Gaetz told me, regarding the grab bag of promises they extracted in exchange for supporting Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in January. “We shouldn't have to pay twice for the same hostage.”

WILLIAM D. COHAN

The first interim report by John J. Ray III, the restructuring guru and C.E.O. of the remains of FTX, depicts a horror show of moronic Gen Z hubris, financial impropriety, deceit, and so much more.

PETER HAMBY, DYLAN BYERS, BEN LANDY, and TEDDY SCHLEIFER

Dylan Byers joins Peter to discuss what happens when art imitates life—particularly in the case of Rupert Murdoch, the aging mogul and boulevardier, and the succession angles of his estranged and non-estranged and semi-estranged children. Then Teddy Schleifer and Ben Landy discuss Larry Ellison’s Tim Scott fantasy.