Good morning,

Happy New Year to all, and welcome to 2022! Once again, we’re coming to your inbox a day later than usual. We hope that you had a great, restful holiday. 

At Puck, our resolution remains the same: to offer our community unrivaled access to the inside conversation—the story behind the story, the plot only the participants in the room know—at the nexus of Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and the media. Herewith, some of Puck’s greatest hits from another busy week. And stick around, below the fold, for the backstory on how it came together.

WASHINGTON:

Tina Nguyen explains Hope Hicks’ new gig.

WALL STREET:

Bill Cohan has some notes on a tech god’s SPAC folly.

HOLLYWOOD:

Matt Bellioni offers predictions on David Zaslav’s exec moves and Bob Chapek’s post-Iger master plan.

SILICON VALLEY:

Teddy Schleifer reports on Mackenzie Scott’s second act strategy.

MEDIA:

Julia Ioffe digs into the Kamala Harris media conundrum.

And…

Dylan Byers essays on the Great Cable News Correction.

PODCAST

Just before Christmas, I was having a rollicking conversation with Puck’s executive editor, Ben Landy, and Tina Nguyen about the return to the public sphere of Trump-era icon and former borderline political pop star Hope Hicks. After a year of laying low, Hicks appeared to have come out of exile to advise David McCormick, the C.E.O. of Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio’s legendary investment institution, on his putative run for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat. 

In the future dramatic renditions of the Trump years, the Hicks role is certain to be the most dramatic and enticing character. For the better part of four years, minus a short stint running communications for Lachlan Murdoch’s spun-off and slimmed down Fox entity, Hicks was the genteel, Darienified face on Trump’s MAGA orbit. Her boss regularly spewed invective at members of the fourth estate while Hicks somehow maintained cordial relations with the majority of the media. Her public persona was polite, coy, and unknowable. It was unknown, in fact, whether she agreed with the principal whom she flacked for, or whether she just had the best poker face in politics. I can’t wait to see whom a Hollywood director eventually casts to play her.

During our conversation, I was focused on Hick’s return, which I attributed to the fact that McCormick is married to Dina Powell, a former Trump official and current high-powered Goldman Sachs partner. I assumed that Powell brought on Hicks, in addition to other former Trump advisers Cliff Sims and the feral nativist Stephen Miller, in order to advise McCormick on messaging to the fringe right of the Pennsylvania electorate. But Tina pointed out, politely as ever, that I was missing the bigger story. Sure, McCormick was said to be working with the triumvirate of MAGA soothsayers to placate the base in a state that narrowly swung to Biden, a Scranton native son, in 2020. More importantly, however, he had hired Jeff Roe, the political wunderkindish svengali who had orchestrated Glenn Youngkin’s unlikely victory in Virginia. In a G.O.P. that had made room in the party for election deniers and Q-friendly voters, Roe was preparing to do the once-unthinkable: get a second former finance C.E.O. elected to higher office in a season. 

NEWSLETTERS

In her brilliant piece, The Great MAGA-Adjacent Hope, Tina explains the Christopher Guest-like conditions that led to McCormick’s candidacy. It’s a rich plot that stars, of course, McCormick, a generationally gifted throwback to another era, in addition to a disgraced, scandal-plagued Trump-endorsed candidate, an underwhelmed MAGA audience, a former ambassador, the one and only Dr. Oz, and, yes, Hope Hicks. It’s also a uniquely Puck story, given that McCormick is a Dalio protégé, McKinsey alum, former Bush official, and high-flying finance master of the universe. As Bill Cohan noted in a separate, but equally delectable piece this week, McCormick has the credibility, along with the Trump-adjacent bonafides, that Republican leaders have been searching for in the post-Trump era. And with endorsements from the establishment already coming in, “he hardly needs the B-team.” I suspect his team knows that, too.

McCormick is also proof of another theme of our culture: as you ascend to the top of the food chain in Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, it is increasingly one world. And that world is Puck’s domain. As we enter our second year, we’re redoubling our commitment to offering you the inside story on this inner sanctum, the plot and details that go beyond what you’re reading and listening to elsewhere. That remains our resolution and promise to you, the reader, the most powerful member of our community.

We have big things in store for this year, and we’re excited to share them with you over the coming months.

Best,

Jon

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