Rockbridge to Nowhere, Putin’s Big Brother, Streaming Tiers for Fears

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon brochure featuring the latest reporting from Puck.

First up today, Julia Ioffe talks to Capitol Hill insiders about the hypocrisy, backroom negotiations, and political gymnastics surrounding Republican efforts to decouple aid to Ukraine and Israel—and why some lawmakers support one war over the other.

Plus, below the fold: Julia Alexander presents the glass-half-full perspective on Netflix’s rocky ad-tier debut. Teddy Schleifer yanks the lid off a clandestine, ambitious, and high-wattage G.O.P. fundraising network. Abby Livingston profiles the star of the Jim Jordan resistance. In the fourth installment of About a Boy, Julia connects Putin’s childhood in the dvor to his political ascent, before joining Peter Hamby to discuss the Israel crisis.

JULIA IOFFE

Why is aid to Ukraine and aid to Israel different in the minds of Republicans?

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JULIA ALEXANDER

Yes, it’s been a rocky start for the streamer’s ad-supported tier, but with a young audience and permission to charge high CPMs (at least for now), the biggest key to overall success may be pursuing an “opt-in” strategy while others look at an “opt-out.”

TEDDY SCHLEIFER

The secretive, Trump-friendly, Silicon Valley-inflected donor alliance is less interested in the Republican primary than in redpilling techies into MAGA populism, hyping Tucker’s new mediaco, and moving millions to the G.O.P. grassroots—the latest effort to replace the Koch-era coalition with something younger and edgier.

ABBY LIVINGSTON

It seems the G.O.P. institutionalists, after years of getting steamrolled by Trump, finally found a hill they might be willing to die on.