Ellison’s Shadow Giving, The ‘Suits’ Anomaly, Trump Indictment Odds

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your pocket guide to Puck’s best new reporting.

Today, we lead with data guru Julia Alexander’s fascinating dissection of how Suits, a seemingly forgettable USA Network procedural, became the breakout streaming hit of the summer.

Plus, below the fold: Julia Ioffe introduces “diplo-washing” to the foreign policy lexicon. Teddy Schleifer scoops Larry Ellison’s eight-figure anti-Trump gambit. And on The Powers That Be, Eriq Gardner joins Peter Hamby for a talmudic reading of the latest Trump indictment, while Ben Landy and Abby Livingston dig into one of the Senate’s most controversial subplots.

JULIA ALEXANDER

The surprise mega-performance of the underwhelming Sussex-adjacent series underscores the power of Netflix’s transformation from the era of hypergrowth to the age of super-retention.

JULIA IOFFE

The man who allegedly ordered the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and whose country Biden once labeled “a pariah,” is now convening the most plausible talks on ending the war in Ukraine. There are all kinds of ways to launder your image: sports-washing, green-washing, and now, diplo-washing.

TEDDY SCHLEIFER

From the start, Ellison stood alone in his unwavering support for Tim Scott. Now, a still-secret eight-figure check promises to turn the candidate into a Late Stage DeSantis alternative for the Wall Street and Silicon Valley crowd.

PETER HAMBY, ERIQ GARDNER, BEN LANDY and ABBY LIVINGSTON

Eriq Gardner joins Peter for a talmudic reading of the most recent Trump indictment. Then Ben Landy and Abby Livingston dig into one of the Senate’s most controversial subplots.