Harris’s Hollywood Rolodex, Ukraine’s Guns of August, Venu on Trial

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon assortment of Puck’s best new reporting.

Today, we lead with Eriq Gardner’s pressing dispatch from the front row of the Venu (né Spulu) trial. After days of withering scrutiny, is Judge Garnett on the cusp of issuing a preliminary injunction against the WBD-Fox-Disney sports streamer just a few weeks before the NFL season kicks off?

Plus, below the fold: Marion Maneker reveals a few promising signs of life in the art market. Julia Ioffe and military analyst Michael Kofman examine Ukraine’s bold military operation inside Russia. On Impolitic, John Heilemann gets Ezra Klein on the horn for a rollicking discussion surrounding Trump’s Harris freak-out, Pelosi’s political instincts, and more. On The Town and Somebody’s Gotta Win, Tara Palmeri and Matt Belloni join forces to evaluate Harris’s Hollywood Rolodex. And on The Powers That Be, Abby Livingston joins Peter Hamby to scrutinize the Dems’ down-ballot odds now that the party has some wind in its sails.

ERIQ GARDNER

After days of withering scrutiny in court, a judge is seriously considering an injunction against Venu, the joint venture from WBD, Fox, and Disney, over alleged antitrust violations.

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MARION MANEKER

A rigorous analysis of ARTDAI’s dataset shows that the concurrence of rising sell-through rates and an increase in the percentage of lots sold above estimates portends a strong season ahead—if these trends hold.

JULIA IOFFE

The surprise Kursk offensive caught Putin and the Russians off guard, but no one, not even the Ukrainians, seems to know what happens next. I spoke with military analyst Michael Kofman about Ukraine’s likely motives, the expected retaliation from Moscow, and where things go from here.

JOHN HEILEMANN

John is joined by Ezra Klein—pioneering blogger in his twenties, founder and editor-in-chief of Vox in his thirties, and now host of a popular podcast at the New York Times—to discuss Trump’s round-the-bend behavior in reaction to Kamala’s ascent, Pelosi’s preternatural intuition and how it fuels her political mastery, and why the Democratic Party didn’t flinch from the break-glass moment presented by Biden’s faltering candidacy.