Welcome back to the Tuesday edition of The Best & The Brightest. I’m Abby Livingston.

In tonight’s issue, a closer look at the Senate Democrats’ savvy and understated approach to fighting Trump’s most unqualified nominees. Plus, a Hill insider accounting of the mounting frustrations within the House G.O.P. conference over the gender gap in their leadership. (Yes, even Republicans care about equity… on occasion.)

Also, in case you missed it, check out my partner Dylan Byers’ recent conversation with Peter Hamby on The Powers That Be, in which they broke down Matea Gold’s defection from The Washington Post to the Times, and offered a timely update on perpetually embattled tech and culture writer Taylor Lorenz.

But first, Dylan and Barry Diller discuss the future of a media company that’s been ruining weekends on Capitol Hill since 2008…

Barry Diller: We’ve invested a huge amount of money. It was an idea that Tina Brown and I had a long time ago. There were only aggregation sites with content, and from the very first hour of the first day, we set out to not create an aggregation site, but a journalistic site that invested in content, and see where we could take it. And it built a brand, but it never did anything but lose money. It was just such a pimple on our operations. I reached a point where I thought it just didn’t make sense for us to do it any longer. I tried a couple of ways to put it in what I thought were good hands, and it didn’t work out.

So finally, I just said, Enough. We’ll sell it. And in almost the last hour of the last day, Ben Sherwood called and said they had an idea. They were ambitious; they had a clear vision. I had respect for them and what they’d previously done, and I heard their passion, and I said, Okay, once more unto the breach. And they have very quickly—shockingly, to me—shown a couple of profitable quarters, reduced the losses considerably, and will come close to breaking even next year, I think. And who knows what will happen? I wish it well—better than well!—to say the least.

You can’t really call it a business, but someday. Their internal plot is quite ambitious: building it into a real business with real figures and substantial, more than double-digit profit. That’s an ambition that takes several years. So far, they’ve gone faster to get it on even footing than I ever thought was possible. So, we’ll see.

How did they articulate the editorial posture and identity of what The Beast would be in its new iteration?

They really wanted to carry on the tradition of the original Beast—both the kind of high and low sensibility of which I think Tina Brown is one of the greatest editors. I think that’s starting to take some form, but the editorial responsibility is theirs. And it’s ambitious.

Listen to the full episode of The Grill Room by clicking here.

However the confirmation hearings ultimately play out, Democrats have been happy to sit back and let their Republican colleagues bicker—seemingly taking their cue from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, typically an unabashed Hill press hound, who has been uncharacteristically quiet. That strategy seemed to work with Gaetz: On the afternoon his nomination collapsed, a Democratic Senate aide told me, “We got our first win without having to lift a finger.”

Democrats continued to take this posture for two reasons. First, if only for efficiency’s sake, it’s wise to stay out of the way when the other party is self-immolating. (As the saying goes, “When your enemy is making a mistake, don’t interrupt him.”) Second, Democratic leaders seem aware of the scale of exhaustion gripping their political class—members, staffers, consultants, donors, etcetera. Sure, the new #Resistance left continues to insist that Dems must fight now to check Trump before he assumes office again, but the party’s leaders are encouraging the troops to rest their legs until January.

The rest-now-because-we-ride-at-dawn approach won’t last forever. No matter what happens on the Republican side between now and next year, Trump’s nominees will still face Senate Democrats in televised hearings—and they plan to bring the pain. One Senate Democratic aide who’s close to the vetting of the Trump nominations told me today that, “Everything that has been in the news narrative on TV, and in the rags, has been Republican-generated and Republican-fed,” with all the precision and wounding power of a butter knife. “No one has seen the Democratic scalpel,” this person continued. “It’s only going to cut deeper.”

This aide went on to suggest that the ranking committee Dems will be the ones to watch. “They’re in that seat for a reason,” said the aide. “Every one has prowess and tact on those issues, and the person trying to get that job relevant to that committee better know what they’re saying. It’s not going to be how good you are on TV. It’s going to be, ‘Do you have an aptitude for the questions?’” Of course, Dems alone won’t have the votes to sink any given nomination, but they want to make the confirmation hearings more than a hazing exercise. The point is to make it as painful as possible for Republican senators to vote for Hegseth, Gabbard, R.F.K. Jr., and Kash Patel.

On the other hand, the biggest controversies around Trump tend to result in huge momentum shifts in one direction or another—the Access Hollywood tape, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, the insurrection fallout, etcetera. In this environment, the conventional wisdom about where things could be headed tends to get stale before sundown. But one thing has been consistent: When the drama pendulum is done swinging, it usually settles somewhere favorable to Trump.

While it’s too early to call this a total shutout—Virginia Foxx is still in contention for the gavel at Rules—the retrograde development got lots of ink in the morning newsletters. Barbara Comstock, a former House Republican member and Trump critic, posted on X, “Very Fitting in the MAGA Era—No Women Need Apply.”

When pressed on the steering committee’s vote, Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t address the chairmanship issue directly, instead saying, “We have extraordinary women serving in Congress and in the Republican conference. In fact, we’ve elected some really strong women in this upcoming freshman class. We value those voices and everybody has an equal say at the table. And I’m really proud.”

House Republicans have suffered the loss of formidable women in recent years. Up-and-coming Republican women lost reelection—that’s how Comstock, who was one of the more politically astute female members, left, as did Orange County’s Mimi Walters in 2018 and Michelle Steel this year. Republicans also ejected two of their most prominent female members—Liz Cheney and Jaime Herrera Beutler—for voting to impeach Trump after the insurrection.

More are on the way out. Energy & Commerce chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is retiring, along with Kay Granger, who already gave up her Appropriations gavel earlier this term. Elise Stefanik, the House’s No. 4 Republican, is headed to Turtle Bay pending confirmation as Trump’s U.N. ambassador.

One gripe I heard today was that there has never been a female chair of the N.R.C.C. That job—one of the most difficult and thankless in Congress—is filled by election of the entire conference and is often the stepping stone to a choice committee gavel. Democrats, by comparison, will have had a woman lead their campaign committee for three of the four most recent cycles.

Amid the angst, the Rules gavel is still in play, and Johnson hinted the discussion is not over, saying at his news conference, “Stay tuned on the final composition of chairs. We’ll see how it all shakes out.” The Rules slot is a quirky one: It’s chosen by the speaker and isn’t subject to term limits. Foxx, who’s termed out as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, is making a bid for it, but she’s not currently on the committee, having given up her spot to run Ed. There are surely current members at Rules who would be grumpy if she gets the nod.

None of this is a new problem for House Republicans. The gavel blackout is a downstream effect of 20 years of party recruitment practice. (Rep. Wagner was a huge proponent of offering support to G.O.P. women 10 years ago, which had mixed results.) It simply boils down to this: The many, many earnest attempts to create a Republican counterpart to EMILY’s List pale in comparison to the Democratic women’s group and its strength in the Democratic Party. It’s long been the case that when EMILY’s List gets involved in a Democratic primary, it should be assumed that its endorsed candidate is a serious player, if not the outright frontrunner. For a sense of scale, Democrats this term boast 93 female House members, or nearly half of their caucus. Republicans have 34.

This has been a 40-year Democratic project, and the current slate of women in leadership in the House Democratic caucus—Katherine Clark as whip, Rosa DeLauro at Approps, Maxine Waters at Financial Services, Suzan DelBene’s two-cycle leadership of the D.C.C.C., and of course, the 20-term reign of Nancy Pelosi—is staggering in comparison to women’s positions in the House G.O.P. conference. Yes, Michigan’s Lisa McClain replaced Stefanik in the fourth-ranking conference chair slot. But while there is Republican anger at their steering committee, the entire leadership of the Democratic steering committee is female: Nanette Barragán, Robin Kelly, and D.W.S. are co-chairs. Democrats aren’t installing women in important slots to meet identity politics quotas—this has an organic feel because Democrats have a deep bench of women to choose from, and they’ve been around long enough to climb the ranks.