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Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s latest reporting.

Today, we lead with Dylan Byers’s inside account of the soul-searching at CBS News as Shari Redstone looks to settle Trump’s lawsuit ahead of the prospective Paramount-Skydance merger, and the network forks over unedited 60 Minutes footage to the F.C.C. In the meantime, a frustrated clutch of staffers are fantasizing about a mutiny.

Plus, below the fold: Rachel Strugatz chronicles the dreary state of affairs within the Estée Lauder Companies as 4,000 more employees are sent packing. Bill Cohan reveals how Wall Street’s donor class is acclimating to Trump II. Leigh Ann Caldwell investigates the USAID turmoil and Marco Rubio’s MAGA headwinds at State. And exclusively
for Inner Circle members, Marion Maneker considers the relationship between Asian art buyers’ vanishing act and the market’s sustained doldrums.

Meanwhile, on the pods: Matt Belloni is joined by Antenna C.E.O. Jonathan Carson on The Town to break down why the streamers are all gaga over the NFL. And on The Powers That Be, Puck’s newest partner, the legendary Hollywood journalist Kim
Masters, joins Peter Hamby for a deep dive on the P.R. firestorm consuming Emilia Pérez and the legal imbroglio between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

MEDIA

On Monday, while CBS News was taking the irregular step of acquiescing to an F.C.C. request for the unedited footage
and transcript of its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, the show’s executive producer was fervently trying to defend the network’s integrity—and his own. In an all-hands meeting, Bill Owens acknowledged that CBS was complying with F.C.C. demands, but asserted that he would not apologize for the editing discrepancy at the heart of the federal inquiry: the fact that 60 Minutes and Face the Nation each aired different portions of the then-vice president’s
commentary. As Dylan reports, Owens’s remarks hardly calmed the waters at CBS, where many employees are still fuming over owner Shari Redstone’s plan to settle Trump’s lawsuit, presumably with the hope of easing Paramount's sale to Skydance.

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Now

FASHION

The Estée Lauder Companies’ latest reduction in force came under the inspiring moniker “Beauty Reimagined”—a
culling of 4,000 staffers, DOGE-style, on top of the 3,000 or so employees who were released last year, for a combined total of nearly 12 percent of Estée’s workforce. For new C.E.O. Stéphane de La Faverie, who stepped into the role only five weeks ago, it’s been a grim start, with pretty dismal numbers (net sales declined by 6 percent in the latest quarter), a sweeping downsizing, and another round of executive musical chairs. Can this latest restructuring turn things around?

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WALL STREET

Aside from a handful of episodes they’d sooner forget, Wall Street’s donor class is so far largely content with Trump
II—an inconvenient truth that many in the media have struggled to comprehend. To wit: According to one banker, “everyone is thrilled” that USAID’s “apple cart” is being upended, and that Treasury payouts are being exposed, which has earned Trump a “standing ovation” from Wall Street types. And while Trump’s tariff threats aren’t exactly welcome—Larry Summers, in conversation with Bill, called them “surreal performance art”—many in the world of finance see them as just another cost of doing
business with the Donald.

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WASHINGTON

USAID has stood as a government agency for 63 years, but it will become a shell of itself in a matter of days. At
midnight on Friday, according to an agency memo, all of its 10,000 employees worldwide—except “designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and specially designated programs”—will be placed on administrative leave. And yet, despite some internal griping among Republicans, the party is pretty much on board with the White House’s dismantling of an agency codified and funded by Congress, and which technically, legally, requires an act of Congress to
shut down. So what will remain of the agency at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday?

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ART

Despite a dramatic run-up in auction volume during the pandemic, the art market came to a screeching halt in early
2023, and there’s been little movement since. Such strong sales should have brought more high-value property and bidders to the market, but that didn’t happen. Sure, interest rates rose steeply starting in the spring of 2022, and primary galleries raised prices—but what if the market’s failure to launch post-’22 was because crucial extra bidders went missing? Indeed, as Marion reports, Asian bidders, who’ve often played a crucial role in the success of certain lots and artists, are
behaving very differently these days. So, have Chinese bidders dropped out completely? Or are they simply more hesitant to buy the dip?

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HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by Antenna C.E.O. Jonathan Carson for a close look at the NFL in the digital age, and to provide
insight on how streamers are leveraging NFL rights as a massive subscriber event. They talk about some moves the league has made to target different fans, how much of an impact live NFL games have had on Netflix, and whether the splintering of NFL rights could lead to diminishing returns. Matt finishes the show with a Super Bowl ratings prediction.

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HOLLYWOOD

Puck’s newest partner, the legendary Hollywood journalist Kim Masters, joins Peter for a deep dive into the public
relations firestorm and social-media-fueled disasters surrounding the Oscar-nominated Emilia Pérez. Then Kim breaks down the escalating legal kerfuffle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni—and why it’s a no-win situation for everyone involved.

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