Good morning,

Welcome back to The Backstory, your weekend recap of the most urgent new work at Puck.

It was another remarkable week: Matt Belloni decoded Josh D’Amaro’s Disney manifesto; John Ourand broke the news on Netflix’s surprising five-game NFL package; Eriq Gardner flagged the Polymarket precedent spooking pro sports; Bill Cohan stress-tested Ryan Cohen’s GameStop-eats-eBay fantasy; Dylan Byers considered James Murdoch’s Kara Swisher deal; Ian Krietzberg pondered a new twist in the A.I. venture capital bonanza; Lauren Sherman charted the Zac Posen–era Gap renaissance; Malique Morris scrutinized Lululemon’s Heidi O’Neill gamble; Rachel Strugatz previewed the Marc Jacobs Beauty comeback; Marion Maneker assessed the Si Newhouse mega-sale; and Scott Mendelson diagnosed Lucasfilm’s Mandalorian problem.

Meanwhile, down in D.C., Julia Ioffe identified the Biden bros quietly angling for a comeback; Peter Hamby explained why Joe Biden’s endorsement still moves Democratic primaries; Leigh Ann Caldwell revisited the Mike Johnson–John Thune intraparty beef; Abby Livingston relayed House Democrats’ post-V.R.A. panic; and our newest partner, Marianna Sotomayor, got Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries on the record about the mid-decade redistricting arms race.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

The “forgotten smoker” is not forgotten because solutions do not exist, but because helping this population requires updated thinking and sustained political will. Americans don’t want smokers written off or waited out. They want policies that reflect modern science, reduce stigma, expand effective options, and treat adults who smoke as a continuing public health priority.

Ending smoking will not happen by ignoring the hardest cases. It will happen by meeting people where they are, expanding the toolkit beyond a “quit-only” approach, and designing policies that make it easier—not harder—for Americans to move away from cigarettes.

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Lauren Sherman interrogates Geoffroy van Raemdonck’s Saks turnaround math.
and…
Rachel Strugatz presages the Marc Jacobs Beauty comeback and Bernard Arnault’s rejuvenated billion-dollar exit opportunity.
meanwhile…
Malique Morris questions Lululemon’s Heidi O’Neill gambit.

Marion Maneker teases the top-heavy May auctions and chases the mystery guarantor behind Christie’s $462 million Si Newhouse sale.
and…
George Nelson pulls back the curtain on Sotheby’s ultra-bespoke concierge play.

Matt Belloni translates Josh D’Amaro’s 3,000-word Disney manifesto—and what he glossed over.
and…
Eriq Gardner floats a bold legal theory that could ground Trump’s defamation blitz—and weighs Gavin Newsom’s shaky Fox News suit.
and…
Scott Mendelson contemplates whether Mandalorian and Grogu’s soft tracking could actually save Star Wars.

Ian Krietzberg evaluates the strange new pre-product unicorn cos. and handicaps Elon’s $134 billion swing at OpenAI.

Camille Charrière examines our new obsession with looking brainy.
and…
Bill Cohan elucidates the roots of the Met Gala industrial complex.

Dylan Byers unearths the James Murdoch–New York magazine deal and checks the pulse of Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire empire.

John Ourand reports on Netflix’s five-game NFL package.
and…
Eriq spotlights a recent federal indictment that should worry athletes, coaches, and front-office insiders.

Bill Cohan picks apart GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen’s crackpot bid for eBay and reads the tea leaves from Judge Lewis Kaplan’s blistering S.B.F. ruling.

Julia Ioffe surfaces the Biden foreign policy bros’ quiet comeback campaign.
and…
Leigh Ann Caldwell psychoanalyzes the G.O.P. congressional leadership amid an intraparty civil war.
and…
Peter Hamby breaks down why Biden’s endorsement still matters.
and…
Abby Livingston documents Black House Democrats’ post-V.R.A. scorched-earth plans.
and…
Marianna Sotomayor grills Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries on the redistricting war.

Lauren and Mytheresa C.E.O. Francis Belin dig into what the luxury customer actually wants in 2026 on Fashion People.
and…
Ourand connects with The Ringer’s Joe House and Nathan Hubbard to autopsy LIV Golf on The Varsity.
and…
Matt and SubwayTakes host Kareem Rahma chew over the blurring line between TikTok shows and late-night TV on The Town.
and…
John Heilemann welcomes Wu-Tang’s RZA to talk One Spoon of Chocolate and shifting race relations in the Trump era on Impolitic.
and…
Dylan and Julia get political scientist David Sterrett to weigh in on creators eclipsing Cronkite on The Grill Room.
and…
Peter rings up Lauren to suss out whether Silicon Valley billionaires are now a permanent Met Gala fixture on The Powers That Be.

On Thursday night, I found myself at a gala on the Washington Mall celebrating the commencement of the monthslong jubilee for America’s 250th anniversary. The program was a veritable Puck casting call from across our various power corners: CBS News stalwart Norah O’Donnell, who has delicately navigated the vicissitudes of the Bari Weiss era, emceed the evening; Apollo co-founder and pro sports mogul Josh Harris presented an award; Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum served as the majordomo; and much attention was bestowed upon Trump’s Palm Beach–esque renovation of the Reflecting Pool. (Burgum was a little late, in fact, on account of the president’s unscripted visit to the water feature earlier in the evening.) Sitting among partners, friends, and clients, it was a swell night all around.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

The “forgotten smoker” is not forgotten because solutions do not exist, but because helping this population requires updated thinking and sustained political will. Americans don’t want smokers written off or waited out. They want policies that reflect modern science, reduce stigma, expand effective options, and treat adults who smoke as a continuing public health priority.

Ending smoking will not happen by ignoring the hardest cases. It will happen by meeting people where they are, expanding the toolkit beyond a “quit-only” approach, and designing policies that make it easier—not harder—for Americans to move away from cigarettes.

Read More

Naturally, a number of speakers offered their own riffs on the successful underpinnings of the American experiment, virtually all of which came down to the Jeffersonian credo that we’re all entitled to our own pursuit of happiness. I wouldn’t disagree—it was those mighty words that set in motion the self-fulfilling journey of re-creation and ambition that provided the contours for centuries of economic and societal growth. And in some ways, it called to mind a discussion I’d observed earlier in the week out in Hollywood, where I’d traveled to attend my partner Matt Belloni’s biannual Stories of the Season tentpole.

In conversation with David E. Kelley, Matt wondered onstage how the prodigious TV writer and producer viewed the coming integration of A.I. into the Hollywood economy. Given the emotional strain that the technology has unleashed on the entertainment industry, I assumed Kelley might react negatively or at least pregnantly demure. But there he was, one of the true champions of the broadcast business who had just released Margo’s Got Money Troubles on Apple TV, acknowledging the quiet part aloud: A.I. might be an inevitable paradigm shift, but it was never going to replace the writers’ room. He exuded a fearless confidence.

Change is the only constant, after all. And yet, power often operates cyclically, particularly in Washington. As our gala speakers offered their thoughts on the march toward moral perfection, I peered over to my newest partner, Marianna Sotomayor, who recently joined Puck from The Washington Post. In her debut piece, Johnson & Jeffries’ Prisoner’s Dilemma, Marianna had chatted up the two Capitol Hill leaders about their parties’ own redistricting woes—the increasingly bipartisan arms race to redraw congressional maps in pursuit of ’26 domination and beyond. The piece also revealed how quickly political idealism can be subsumed by realpolitik—especially when real power, and a legislative majority, are on the line. Sitting on America’s so-called front lawn, I was reminded that our founders strove for imperfection—an important gut check as our national civil disunion turns local.

But if you only have time to read one piece this weekend, I’d turn your attention to Julia Ioffe’s latest masterstroke, The Boys Are Back in Town, which focuses on the earliest steps of a true Washington reclamation project. Joe Biden has only been out of power for a year and a half—albeit, yes, quite a long year and a half—but a number of his old foreign policy hands are already pursuing their own happiness by attempting to revitalize their careers in anticipation of a Democratic restoration in ’28.

On some level, of course, nothing is wrong with this sort of choreography. These shadowy advancements are a hallmark of our two-party system—indeed, many of Trump’s advisors began advancing draft E.O.s and org charts well before his second election. The biggest difference, however, may be that many within the Democratic Party pine for fresh blood. “This is the Jake [Sullivan] and Jon [Finer] Show: Redux, and nobody I know is happy about it,” one former State official told Julia. “The idea that the same foreign policy leadership that brought us the Afghanistan withdrawal and the cover-up of Biden’s decline should be in charge of staffing the next Democratic administration and determining its foreign policy is tone deaf at best.”

These sorts of feuding ambitions, however unpleasant in the moment, are an engine of America’s political dynamism. They’re also a reminder, particularly as we prepare to enter a season of collective patriotism, that there is a whole lot lurking under the surface. That’s a story as old as our country, and our true obsession here at Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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