Hello and welcome back to my private email on all things nationalist-populist, aka the flip side of Julia Ioffe’s Tomorrow Will Be Worse. (I’ve lobbied for 2Morrow Will Be Worse, or Tomorrow Will Be Worse: Florida Drift, but alas.) This week’s email is a bit of a grab bag, including notes on something I’ve long anticipated since Trump left office: the secret underworld of QAnon being incorporated into a bona fide Trump rally. Things have certainly changed behind the scenes in the nascent Trump campaign, and it comes at a time when a certain Florida governor is redefining what it means to be a MAGA leader (and what “trolling the libs” looks like in a post-Trump world). 

Before that, however: We at Puck are so excited about our first anniversary that we’re still continuing to celebrate it, all the way through next week. To commemorate the moment, new readers can sign up here for 21 percent off an annual subscription. Register now and you’ll receive a special invitation to an Inner Circle call tomorrow at 4 pm ET, typically reserved for our highest tier of membership, during which I’ll break down our first year of Puckdom along with a handful of our journalists. Even without the value add of Tara Palmeri, Dylan Byers, Teddy Schleifer, and the rest of my colleagues, that is a great deal for a news subscription—some much-needed price deflation in Biden’s America. 

“DeSantasy” Revisited

With Trump’s post-raid halo beginning to dim, Ron DeSantis has retaken the Fox spotlight with a series of ingenious provocations—even if they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Plus, updates on Trump’s SPAC mess and his turn toward ‘Q.’

TINA NGUYEN

Perhaps the most remarkable lesson from last month’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was the velocity at which Republicans rallied back around Donald Trump. Over the previous several months, after all, Trump’s standing among the G.O.P. establishment had been weakened by a series of exhausting revelations concerning January 6 and the rise of less baggage-laden ‘24 alternatives, most notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Just as the media spotlight was beginning to lock onto Tallahassee, however, the F.B.I. descended on Palm Beach. The former president’s allies were...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT

CNN+ Reveries

An erudite conversation on the hottest topics in streaming.

JULIA ALEXANDER & DYLAN BYERS

A Clinton Revival

Is the Clinton Global Initiative’s muted return a brand burnishing opportunity?

TARA PALMERI

Is Putin Cooked?

Julia and Peter dissect Putin’s increasingly precarious position.

PETER HAMBY & JULIA IOFFE

Newsom's Trojan Horse

The slick-haired governator has aligned against progressives in a bizarre spat.

TEDDY SCHLEIFER