Trump’s Optimism, Johnson’s Isolation & Dark Money Heaven

Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. Tonight, I’m digging into the latest cottage industry in town, cropping up among some of the most Trumpy Senate Republicans as they anticipate taking back the upper chamber in 2024. Plus, how Donald Trump really feels about the hush money trial and the dark musings among House Republicans on the brink.
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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri.

Tonight, I’m digging into the latest cottage industry in town, cropping up among some of the most Trumpy Senate Republicans as they anticipate taking back the upper chamber in 2024. Plus, how Donald Trump really feels about the hush money trial and the dark musings among House Republicans on the brink.

Programming alert: If you haven’t heard my latest episode of Somebody’s Gotta Win, check out my conversation with Democratic strategist Nathan Daschle. We discuss the death of split-ticket voting, how he thinks the abortion measures will impact the battleground states, and how the Biden team could tune up their messaging. I also had former Southern District of New York prosecutor and CNN commentator Elie Honig on the show to chew over the drama of the Trump trial. He gives his odds that Trump is actually convicted.

But first…

Trump’s cheery disposition: Sure, Donald Trump has been skulking around the remarkably dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan, where his historic criminal trial is currently unfolding—mugging for TV camera, dropping off to sleep, griping about...

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Dark Money on the Edge of Town

With McConnell waving the white flag and the Trump tax cuts expiring, Republicans are racing to set up dark money receptacles for corporations and kingmakers with the hopes of buying influence in a G.O.P.-dominated Senate.

TARA PALMERI

That noise you don’t hear is the sound of 501(c)(4) groups popping up all over Washington as Senate Republicans prepare to find themselves back in the majority next year. These “dark money” nonprofits, so called because they don’t require donor disclosures and can take a year to be listed, are a sort of going-away present from the retiring Mitch McConnell, who’s given these fundraising vehicles his implicit blessing by not raising any objection to them. “There’s been an explosion of (c)(4)s on the Republican side,” one lobbyist told me. Said another: “You can take unlimited sums of cash, you can have...

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FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

Greene Inferno

Digging into M.T.G.’s motion-to-vacate theatrics.

TINA NGUYEN

Diller’s Gambit

Evaluating the Daily Beast resuscitation strategy.

DYLAN BYERS

Kylie’s Konundrum

Appraising the ostensibly teetering beauty empire.

RACHEL STRUGATZ

A Paramount Epiphany

On the deal dynamics underpinning the Ellison-KKR-RedBird bid.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

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