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

First up today, Dylan Byers explores The New York Times’s increasingly aggressive integration of A.I. into every facet of its business—and the profound ramifications for the paper’s employees, readers, and the industry writ large. Is the Gray Lady on the precipice of another Innovation Report–esque breakthrough, or another staff backlash?

Plus, below the fold: Bill Cohan stress tests the bull case for MAGAnomics. Leigh Ann Caldwell breaks down the Trump administration’s intensifying battle with the judiciary. Rachel Strugatz assesses the high-stakes launch of a potential Estée Lauder blockbuster. And for Inner Circle members, Marion Maneker chats with Art Bridges Foundation C.E.O. Anne
Kraybill about the art of “matchmaking” for art institutions.

Meanwhile, on The Town, Matt Belloni and Sara Fischer discuss Hollywood’s mounting anxieties over Trump II. And on The Powers That Be, Lauren Sherman and Peter Hamby reveal which Arnault heirs are best positioned to eventually run the LVMH empire.

MEDIA

Last month, leadership at The New York Times approved the internal use of several artificial intelligence
tools, and greenlit formal training programs to instruct business and editorial staff on the myriad ways these services could enhance their work. The Times’s moves in A.I. are indeed significant, perhaps more than most Times staffers recognize. Of course, the company has been at the vanguard of legacy media companies when it comes to integrating new technologies, ever since the famed Innovation Report catalyzed its digital renaissance a decade ago. Perhaps, in
time, its success in A.I. may set the standard for the technology’s application across news media, the guardrails for editorial integrity—and, yes, the awkward choreography required to jettison entire departments whose services will inevitably be rendered unnecessary.

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WALL STREET

The stock market has given up trillions of dollars in post-election gains, M&A activity is all but frozen, and
analysts are forecasting lower G.D.P. growth and higher inflation. But some analysts, like Wells Fargo’s Mike Mayo, remain unabashedly bullish. Indeed, the singular equity research analyst has long been one of the most insightful and thoughtful prognosticators on Wall Street’s prospects—and Bill caught him on the heels of a tour through the U.S. and Europe surveying investors and executives. In this conversation, Mayo reveals what investors are saying privately about the jittery
financial markets during the second coming of Trump, and what it may mean for Wall Street and our economy.

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WASHINGTON

Republicans in Congress have already proved willing to cede much of their power to the president. Now, they’re having to calibrate their public response to Trump’s latest assertion of executive authority—this time over the judiciary. Publicly, Trump allies are whipping support to impeach the D.C. judge throwing up obstacles to the president’s deportation agenda. But the reality is that, outside of the diehards in the Freedom Caucus and Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers, few Republicans on Capitol Hill have any appetite for impeaching judges. At least not yet…

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FASHION

All eyes at The Estée Lauder Companies are trained on Too Faced, an ELC makeup brand that will have its biggest
mascara launch in over a decade on Friday, in what Lauder hopes will be a blockbuster follow-up to its wildly successful Better Than Sex mascara. (The new product’s name is a doozy: Ribbon Wrapped Lash Extreme Length Tubing Mascara.) Too Faced may not have the scale or cultural impact of MAC Cosmetics, or even Bobbi Brown at its peak, but making this business work is a priority, and the success of Too Faced is integral to Lauder’s makeup business. Can Ribbon Wrapped help Lauder achieve its
ambitions of owning the number one mascara brand in the world?

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ART

Anne Kraybill was a member of the founding team at Crystal Bridges—the hugely successful museum in
Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas—before becoming a museum director in her own right in Pittsburgh and Wichita. Then, in 2024, she returned to Bentonville to become C.E.O. of the Art Bridges Foundation, founded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton, which helps many of America’s smaller museums participate in the wealth of American art. Exclusively for the Inner Circle, Marion caught up with Kraybill to get the skinny on her ambitions for the foundation and beyond, including the obstacles to
moving art around the country, the status problem for small regional institutions, and creating opportunities for early-career curators.

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HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by Axios senior media reporter and CNN analyst Sara Fischer to talk about the unexpected uncertainty
in Hollywood under Donald Trump 2.0, and how the administration’s actions could affect every corner of the entertainment business. Matt finishes the show with two opening weekend box office predictions for Snow White and The Alto Knights.

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FASHION

Lauren Sherman joins Peter for an inside look at the ongoing LVMH succession saga. With Arnault père pushing toward
immortality, Lauren and Peter speculate about which heir will take the reins—and whether any of them even want to. Then Lauren breaks down how Trump’s tariffs will impact the price of popular European alcohol brands in the U.S.

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