Casus Gabelli, Estée in Distress, Postcards From Aspen

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

First up today, Dylan Byers unravels a chin-stroking media micro-scandal: Why Morning Joe hosts Joe and Mika were sidelined on Monday after the Trump assassination attempt, and what the decision reveals about the tensions and aspirations inside 30 Rock.

Plus, below the fold: William D. Cohan hears from Mario Gabelli about his plans to uncover the particulars of Shari’s Paramount deal. John Heilemann relays the Trump campaign’s myriad visions for capturing 270 electoral votes. Rachel Strugatz gets the skinny on a surprising executive exit at Estée Lauder. On The Town, Matt Belloni and Luminate’s Jimmy Doyle dissect the state of the Star Wars franchise. And on The Powers That Be, Julia Ioffe rings up Peter Hamby to discuss the Trump-fueled anxieties swirling around the Aspen Security Conference.

DYLAN BYERS

News, notes, and fresh updates on the micro-scandal stemming from the show’s bizarre one-day hiatus amid a generational political crisis.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

Can Paramount’s long-suffering Class A shareholder successfully twist Shari’s arm and find out what, exactly, David Ellison and the RedBird guys are paying for her slice of the pie? Herewith, a conversation with Mario Gabelli, the architect of Operation Fishbowl.

JOHN HEILEMANN

At a private lunch just outside of the R.N.C., longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio confidently expounded on the campaign’s view that it has myriad—and growing—paths to 270 electoral votes: “We literally stopped counting at 25.”

RACHEL STRUGATZ

The midsummer departure of Estée Lauder’s Tracey Thomas Travis raises some renewed questions about the future of the family-controlled, $23 billion cosmetics company.