Not since Les Moonves said that Trump “may not be good for America, but [he’s] damn good for CBS” has a media executive so bluntly betrayed his true priorities. It played well here, although not quite as well back in Hudson Yards, I imagine. As for that white bandana, a veteran media insider wondered aloud: “Is the bandana some kind of bandit thing, making a getaway after robbing millions in shareholder value? … Also, it’s too hot for corduroy when you’re already sweating the stock price.” (Sorry, David, it was too good to pass up.)

Less visible this year is Jeffrey Katzenberg, who, in his capacity as Biden campaign co-chair, is trying to stanch the flight of big-name Hollywood donors, including Reed Hastings, Ari Emanuel, and George Clooney. Earlier today, the Times reported that Katzenberg had tried to persuade Clooney not to publish his much-discussed op-ed calling for Biden to step aside (though, as several attendees here were quick to remind me, a Hollywood star is hardly the one who is going to tip the scales). In any event, I extended an invitation to Jeffrey to address the matter here over coffee. That doesn’t seem to be a priority at the moment.

Finally, since age and acuity is on everyone’s mind: The 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch came into the Konditorei for lunch with his wife, Elena Zhukova, yesterday. I must say, for a man a dozen years Biden’s senior, he’s looking quite spry. No intel yet on his green juice recipe.

🎙Programming alert: I’ll be on The Powers That Be with Peter Hamby tomorrow, talking Biden and the press, and on Lauren Sherman’s Fashion People on Friday, where we’ll discuss the Sun Valley lookbook—Zaz’s bandana, yes, but also all the various and subtle nuances of quiet luxury and, more often, quiet practicality. Inevitably, we’ll also get to Stacey Bendet.

But first…

🧐 Mark Thompson’s plan: CNN chief Mark Thompson has finally unveiled his long-awaited plan to transform CNN into a digital-first business and, in his words, “future-proof it for a very different media future.” That plan includes merging the domestic, international, and digital units; creating a still vaguely defined digital subscription business by which Thompson hopes to generate more than a billion dollars in annual revenue; and building a TV Futures Lab to create new programming for both streaming and linear. It will also necessitate the elimination of about 100 positions, or 3 percent of staff. Many of these elements, including the subscription product and layoffs, were first reported in this email in recent weeks and months.

This is a plan big on ambition, heavy on corporate pablum, and extremely thin on details. New workflows and initiatives may sound significant to the teams inside CNN, but there is still zero elaboration on their scope and nature. There is also scant detail on the total addressable subscription market for a digital CNN, and whether the company has the sort of talent and capabilities required to build this kind of business. As for the layoffs, well, this is almost certainly just the first round of many, many more cuts that will be needed to right-size the business while the company reorients itself around the Thompson plan.

Sure, it’s a net positive that Thompson is finally addressing CNN’s big challenges—I’ve said that from the beginning—but you can forgive the employees who waited nine months for an inspiring new vision only to be told that it effectively amounted to a new subscription business and streamlined workflows… and some sort of TV lab. (Yes, I’m getting a lot of calls.) Once upon a time, the Zucker regime worked toward its own concept of a streaming business, often employing similar buzzwords along the way. This isn’t Mark’s fault, but the biggest takeaway from Wednesday’s reveal seems to be that CNN wasted a ton of time and sustained a lot of damage over the last few years, and is now returning to a different version of a strategy it should have pursued at least half a decade earlier.

💰 A scoop for the bean counters: Under WBD, CNN’s annual profits have fallen from a height of $1.3 billion in the Zucker-era heyday to about $750 million. However, I’m now told that thanks to a tweak in the accounting department, CNN’s profit for 2023 was actually around $1 billion. In short, WBD appears to have lowered the costs that each business unit pays the parentco for various layered and centralized services like tech, broadcast systems, real estate, etcetera. The tweak juiced CNN’s profitability back to a billion, which makes the P&L at least look a little healthier.

⛰️ More on Zucker: In his excellent piece on the prospects of New Paramount, The Shari Orchard, my partner Bill Cohan had a wide-ranging chat with RedBird Capital founder Gerry Cardinale. Among other topics, they discussed how Zucker might, or might nor, find his way into the Paramount equation. “He’s a fiduciary for over a billion dollars of deployed capital with the IMI sleeve that I have,” Cardinale told Bill. “It’s not so straightforward that he just walks away from that to go do this.” But Cardinale also acknowledged that many people think Zucker would be the perfect executive to run CBS after the deal closes. “He may be,” Gerry told Bill, “but I have a year to think about it.” (Sign up here for Bill’s excellent and essential Dry Powder private email.)

💨 A CBS News exit: Speaking of that network, CBS News chief Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews has announced that she will step down, in part, I’m told, due to tension with CBS News C.E.O. Wendy McMahon, and to avoid the unforgiving assignment of implementing more cuts. More broadly, there have been some internal frustrations at the network over the trajectory of shows outside of 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning, which remain the big ratings and brand drivers. “Everything else is staid or flat,” a CBS News source told me. Meanwhile, with David Ellison taking over, the big question is more existential: “Is CBS News going to end up being a collection of a couple prized broadcasts and maybe a morning and evening show?” this person asked. Can it be more? Perhaps Zucker can figure that one out.

📺 An ABC News promotion: Congrats to veteran ABC Newsman Rick Klein on his well-deserved promotion to Washington bureau chief. Everyone loves Rick, it seems. No notes.

🗞️ ‘Third newsroom’ moves: Meanwhile, back at The Washington Post—remember that place?—Will Lewis has enlisted managing editor Krissah Thompson to oversee the creation of the experimental “third newsroom,” where Lewis hopes to grow the Post’s audience through service and social media journalism. No, Thompson is not taking over that newsroom; as of now, that’s still ostensibly where Matt Murray will land—though many still assume he’ll ultimately inherit the core newsroom. In any event, the most notable detail in the announcement is that, contrary to the assumptions of his newsroom antagonists, Lewis is still there, and back to the business of running the news outfit, rather than being investigated by it.

📈 P.S. If you have opinions about how we do things at Puck—and I bet you do—please participate in our new study. We want to hear from you to make your experience even better!

Indeed, in phone calls and text messages on Tuesday night, some of Stephanopoulos’s friends and longtime colleagues wondered whether this was a gaffe or simply his subconscious attempt to reckon with his frustrations as a concerned American institutionalist. “This moment truly, deeply upsets him,” one longtime colleague told me. “Trump is a clear and present danger, and Biden is manifestly in decline and unfit for another four years. Which is why the inner agony came out to a random person on the street. He couldn’t contain it. It matters too much to him.”

The mainstream punditocracy has also enjoyed a revival. In the Biden era, the vast majority of columnists and talking heads have been predictably and uninspiringly aligned on partisan sides. But once the existential dread began simmering after the debate, the proclamations of Friedman (adios, Joe) and Remnick (ditto) or Scarborough (“turncoat,” per one of his fellow MSNBC hosts) took on renewed significance well beyond the green room. (Scarborough and Mika have since settled back into a far less antagonistic position.) Hell, even the declarations of The New York Times editorial board felt momentarily notable.

Meanwhile, cable news is once again relevant and even occasionally compelling. On Monday alone, both candidates called their respective cable news friendlies—Joe and Mika for Biden, Hannity for Trump—to try to shape the national narrative. On Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi again affirmed Morning Joe’s enduring status as a narrative-driving public forum when she chose it as the venue to ever-so-diplomatically urge Biden to reconsider. Next week, Biden will sit down with NBC’s Lester Holt for another one-on-one acuity test (advice, Lester: Avoid strangers on the street). On CNN, Kaitlan Collins has been landing noteworthy interviews with pro-Joe and go-Joe lawmakers, while Jake Tapper’s eyebrows are again contorting into their signature incredulous arch as he debunks the false claims of a sitting president. It may be 2024, but it feels a bit more like 2016. And, to state the obvious, let’s not forget that all this started because of a CNN debate.

Of course, this aberrant moment in American political history is hardly an enduring lifeline for industries beset by changing business models and new technologies, to which most news outlets have struggled to adapt. Prior to June 27, you may recall, D.C. media was navel-gazing over the perceived ethical shortcomings of Washington Post publisher Will Lewis, whose still-nebulous plans to modernize the inert legacy media property were being bogged down by internal friction. Amid all the drama of this week, CNN chief Mark Thompson still found time to unveil a long-awaited strategic reorganization that will prioritize digital while also slashing yet another 100 positions. On Wednesday, CBS News president Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews stepped down in part to avoid the tough and unforgiving task of implementing more cuts. Legacy news remains a rapidly shrinking industry, and no jolt of campaign drama can fundamentally change that.

It can, however, buy it a little more time. Many news companies do indeed see their fortunes rise and fall with current events, particularly when the nation’s focus centers on one big story (the Zucker thesis). In the first Trump era, both the Times and the Post grew subscriptions 50 percent year over year. The ultimate goal, as the Times’s unique success has shown, is to have a multifaceted business that isn’t so vulnerable to these ebbs and flows (hence Lewis’s “third newsroom,” or Thompson’s forthcoming subscription product). But big news definitely helps. And no matter what Biden decides to do, this moment is likely to stretch on until the election in November, fueled either by the anxiety around Biden’s obstinance or the suspense around the formation of a new ticket—followed, of course, by the drama of the election itself, then the first hundred days, and so forth.

Several media executives I spoke to this week predicted that the current momentum is likely to sustain if Trump wins, because the stakes of the coverage will be so enormous, or if Biden somehow wins, because it will be what one referred to as “a death watch.” Healthier news organizations, like the Times and the Journal, are likely to thrive in that environment. Those that have suffered through years of mismanagement, such as CNN and the Post, will have a far tougher row to hoe. Indeed, as predicted, CNN’s ratings since the debate have been relatively paltry: The network is once again a distant third behind its competitors, even during major news events.

As for Stephanopoulos, he’ll be just fine. He got to be a star during the ascendant glory years in this business, when the paychecks were fat and the medium really mattered, and anyway, he recently ceded some of those duties and went back to writing history bestsellers and making Hulu shows under his production shingle, BedBy8. Meanwhile, while this White House may not be calling anytime soon, Steph remains the perfect guy for these big interviews: a consummate professional and disciplined TV animal who maintains his figure (yes, this is 63, if you do the daily exercise and the yoga and eat an apple every day at 9 a.m.) and can otherwise enjoy life with his very beloved wife, actress Ali Wentworth, sip a martini at East Hampton’s 1770 House just down the way from their Sagaponack summer home, and play golf. And, while he may not have intended for it to happen, he also has the distinction of fulfilling the duties of his office, which is to actually tell viewers the truth.