Dina’s Arm Candy, Ari’s Comp, & Notes on the Smith Scandal
Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what's new at Puck.
Today, we lead with Tina Nguyen's rollicking insider reporting on the McCormick-Oz televised Hope Hicks proxy war, Ben Shaprio's $100 million bet on MAGA-friendly kids TV, and what Elon Musk's latest investment portends for Donald Trump.
Plus, below the fold: Eriq Gardner reveals a new twist in the "shitty media men" lawsuit from hell and digs up a looming NFT case that could remake the crypto landscape. Matt Beloni recounts Hollywood's worst week ever. William D. Cohan breaks down Ari Emanuel’s comp. And it’s Media Monday on a new episode of The Powers That Be as Jon Kelly joins Peter Hamby to discuss an emerging frontrunner in the Maddow succession.
I asked a Trump advisor if the former president would come back onto Twitter if Musk somehow engineered it. “In a heartbeat,” the advisor texted back immediately. Yeah, sure, David McCormick, the former army vet, Bush-era appointee, Bridgewater C.E.O., and barrel-chested Dina Powell arm candy may seem like an up-from-the-bootstraps Mitt Romney, Reagan-Republican type, who can barely keep track of his country club memberships or garage elevators. But McCormick, ever the dextrous optionality-preserving finance genius, has spent the past few months reorienting his image as a MAGA-friendly Pennsylvanian in pursuit of the state’s vacant Senate seat. In recent months, he resigned from Bridgewater, moved back to the Pittsburgh burbs, slapped on a barn jacket, began tweeting Bible verses, and (presumably juiced by his wife’s old White House contacts) hired a slew of former Trump staffers—Josh Raffel, Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller and Cliff Sims among them—to whip up some deplorable enthusiasm around his candidacy.
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 
What I’m hearing about the post-slap resignation, the race issue, and the Scientology question, and more. MATTHEW BELLONI 
Notes from the legal underbelly of the #MeToo movement, and other pressing issues on my docket. ERIQ GARDNER 
A white showrunner working with Ava Duvernay hired a diverse writers room for a new series. Then the staff turned on her. MATTHEW BELLONI 
Musings on the questions of our time: What is Ari Emanuel really worth? And what’s Buffett secretly up to? WILLIAM D. COHAN 
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