Good morning,

Welcome back to The Backstory, your weekend review of the best new work at Puck.

It was a fabulous week, as always: Matt Belloni spoke with Sen. Adam Schiff about reviving Hollywood’s mojo; Kim Masters offered a humble idea for Sony’s studio succession; Julia Alexander double-clicked on the Nielsen data; Eriq Gardner plumbed Michael Rapino’s legal hell; Dylan Byers presaged Mathias Döpfner’s Politico annointing; Bill Cohan scrutinized a mysterious Zaz suitor; Ian Krietzberg interviewed the filmakers behind a new A.I. documentary; John Ourand analyzed a flaw in Netflix’s evitzation strategy; Lauren Sherman pondered the Della Valles’ ulterior motives with Schiaparelli; Rachel Strugatz ran the numbers on the potential Estée Lauder–Puig megadeal; Sarah Shapiro studied the curious case of a retail C.E.O. who remade herself as an influencer; Malique Morris investigated the state of Daydream, the A.I.-enabled shopping platform; and Marion Maneker caught up with Seth Johnson, the new C.E.O. of Bonhams.

Meanwhile, down in D.C., Julia Ioffe gamed out Trump’s options as his forever war drags into its second month; Peter Hamby tried to solve the Democrats’ trans conundrum; Abby Livingston spotlighted JB Pritzker’s king-making intervention; and Leigh Ann Caldwell talked with Rep. Sam Liccardo about the left’s A.I. policy wedge.

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

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Lauren Sherman gathers the T Mag murmurs, notes a Courrèges transition, and chronicles the Schiaparelli turnaround.
and…
Rachel Strugatz considers the industrial logic of the potential Estée Lauder–Puig merger.
and…
Malique Morris maps out the future of Daydream’s A.I. shopping agent, while Sarah Shapiro documents Alison Loehnis’ path from the C-suite to influencerdom.

Marion Maneker discerns Bonhams’ new strategy and previews Raphael’s Met moment.

Matt Belloni hears from Sen. Adam Schiff on how Hollywood can get its production groove back.
and…
Eriq Gardner checks in on the Live Nation antitrust trial.
meanwhile…
Julia Alexander gets to the bottom of a Nielsen data micro-scandal.

Ian Krietzberg sits down with a few A.I. “apocaloptimists.”

Sidney Blumenthal offers a Prince Andrew counterfactual.
and…
Paulina Prosnitz depicts growing up Stiller.

Dylan Byers reveals a Politico E.I.C. search surprise.

John Ourand crystallizes Netflix’s MLB growing pains and unpacks Goodell’s potential market miscalculation.

Bill Cohan performs due diligence on an unexpected guest in the WBD deal circus.

Leigh Ann Caldwell grills Rep. Sam Liccardo about how the Dems can win on A.I.
and…
Julia Ioffe gets Putin flashbacks from Trump’s Iran war.
and…
Abby Livingston charts JB Pritzker’s political evolution.
and…
Peter Hamby uncovers new data on the left’s Talarico-itis.

Dylan and a few state attorneys general discuss Big Tech’s Big Tobacco moment on The Grill Room.
and…
John Ourand and the NAB’s Curtis LeGeyt philosophize about the streaming-ization of sports on The Varsity.
and…
Lauren is joined by Jesse Derris, Orchestra president and friend of the house, on Fashion People.
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John Heilemann and author Jason Zengerle get into Tucker Carlson’s psychology on Impolitic.
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Matt and tech journalist Alex Heath eulogize Sora on The Town.
and…
Abby and Peter try to make sense of the G.O.P.’s ’26 brain transplant on The Powers That Be.

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On Sunday evening, during a brief tour through San Francisco, I found myself at a beautiful dinner party in the Presidio, surrounded by various swells—politicians, benefactors, finance executives, media people, philanthropists, and advocates—all enjoying the first signs of spring in the Bay. As I’m sure you could imagine, the table conversation inevitably turned to artificial intelligence.

In many ways, as a culture, we’re in the middle of our third real inflection point around A.I. If ChatGPT popularized the technology, and Trump’s bromance with billionaire entrepreneurs emphasized the enormity of the financial opportunity, recent model upgrades have crystalized the industry’s proximity to its manifest destiny. As my partner Ian Krietzberg articulated in a memorable recent piece, The $100B Sam Altman Bet, we’ve all become A.I. voyeurs these days. And our prognostications about how the evolving tech will impact our careers and childrens’ lives are changing in real time with growing lucidity. As a result, this increasingly kitchen table issue has entered the bloodstream of our politics.

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In recent years, and even in recent months, our political parties have begun to refine their positions on A.I. as if it were any other polarizing issue, such as reproductive rights or foreign policy. Gone are the days when the topic was lurking beneath the surface, emerging only in relation to more-adjacent policy questions, such as A.I. adoption or its role in our advancing cold war with China. These days, A.I. itself has emerged as an electoral wedge. As Ian put it in this week’s excellent piece, The A.I. “Hope & Change” Election: “Bernie is talking to Claude, Trump wants Grok in missiles, and Kathy Hochul just wants the best of both worlds. If Silicon Valley isn’t already regretting hyping a job-obliterating third industrial revolution, the next two elections will show why the politics of A.I. are turning explosive.”

Indeed, Hochul’s mushy middle path on the topic isn’t unique. Fellow governors from both parties—Gavin Newsom, Glenn Youngkin, and Jared Polis among them—all want to protect consumers while supporting innovation and avoiding alienating the tech industry. Who wouldn’t? But they’re also cognizant that the initial waves of job displacement, which are already breaking, pose a bracing political pickle—a “seismic impact,” as Hochul told Ian. She said she commiserated with “students who took on debt to get degrees in fields that may be evaporating because of A.I.” How this empathy works its way into policy is, of course, the multitrillion-dollar question.

As I was boarding my flight to San Francisco, more than half expecting I might need to bone up on the topic before dinner, I had the good fortune of perusing our partner Leigh Ann Caldwell’s latest masterpiece, The Other Sam in the Valley, which features Rep. Sam Liccardo, whose tech-mogul district includes Atherton and Palo Alto. On the Peninsula, A.I. has always been a voting issue, and Liccardo has a no-frills vision for how to make it a winning topic for Democrats in ’26, ’28, and beyond. “We need, as Democrats, to acknowledge that the industry is not wrong about the fact that whoever wins the battle to dominate this technology will write the rules for the next century,” Liccardo plaintively told Leigh Ann.

If Liccardo, a Democrat, kinda sounds like he’s reading from G.O.P. talking points, that’s because the issue has effectively collapsed the political horseshoe. “I’m trying to find a more productive pathway for approaching regulation that does not have Congress involved in determining the details of model weights and algorithms, because I think most members of Congress would concede we’re not particularly adept at that,” he continued. “We know this technology is moving very quickly. But they would set a preemption standard that would enable companies to demonstrate that they are safe enough to avoid having to deploy an army of lobbyists and lawyers in 50 state capitals.”

If you live long enough, you eventually realize that both U.S. political parties agree with one another more than they care to admit. And while we live in a brutally divided political moment, one of the real promises of A.I. is that it’s actually a big-tent, unifying issue. From Hochul and Liccardo to Trump and his outgoing A.I. czar David Sacks, every sentient person wants to incentivize American companies to innovate faster than their competitors while protecting the most vulnerable citizens from the initial pangs of disruption—a simple, gut feeling that unites our 401(k)s and communities and brings out the best in all of us.

Gina Raimondo, Biden’s secretary of Commerce, told Leigh Ann that she’s angling for her own grand bargain in which large-scale employers lead the way for career opportunities while the government picks up the tab for reskilling. “Companies are about to spend almost $1 trillion laying the infrastructure for an A.I. economy, which is exciting because that allows us to lead, but we also ought to be thinking just as boldly about what infrastructure is required in the age of A.I. to make sure all Americans are brought along,” she told Leigh Ann. “So many of our institutions and policies were just created for a different time and need to be modernized.”

Regardless of one’s personal politics, let’s just hope our elected officials can begin to agree before it’s too late. It’s one of the great stories of our time, and precisely what we will continue to obsess over at Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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