Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon compendium of Puck’s best new reporting. First up today, Dylan Byers chronicles the early tenure of pugnacious F.C.C. chairman Brendan Carr and his decision, last week, to target Comcast over MSNBC’s coverage of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Carr—who has also targeted CBS, ABC, PBS, NPR, etcetera—may be stretching his regulatory authority in an attempt to bend media coverage in the administration’s favor. But the greater danger, Dylan writes, may be that newsrooms start censoring themselves. Plus, below the fold: Bill Cohan digs into the $2.2 billion debt bomb hanging over Richard Baker’s Saks-Neiman roll-up. Leigh Ann Caldwell reveals how uber-operative Jeff Roe’s controversial reemergence in a Senate primary race is causing headaches inside the White House. Marion Maneker reveals why Larry Gagosian chose Picasso and de Kooning to christen his revitalized Madison Avenue gallery space, before previewing Sotheby’s Lichtenstein auction in May. And Sarah Shapiro explains the latest fashion retail trends consuming industry insiders. Meanwhile, on the pods: John Heilemann convenes attorney George Conway and political strategist Stuart Stevens on Impolitic to discuss the real implications of the Abrego Garcia case. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby break down Netflix’s new Wall Street love language, before turning to how White House Correspondents’ Dinner week will unfold in D.C.

MEDIA

News and notes on F.C.C. chairman Brendan Carr’s legacy media blitzkrieg and the many meanings of “public interest.” Read Now

WALL STREET

The high-stakes roll-up of iconic department store brands Saks and Neiman Marcus is now straining under the weight of its junk-bond financing. Facing spiking yields, vendor unrest, and now Trump’s trade war, Richard Baker’s bold bet is fast becoming a cautionary tale. Read Now

WASHINGTON

Roe, the Republican operative who was essentially blacklisted by the Trump White House, has become an unexpected wrinkle in the looming Senate primary between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton—with potential political repercussions bigger than Texas, itself. Read Now

ART

To mark the end of an uptown era and the revitalization of his downtown flagship, Larry Gagosian has launched exhibitions of Pablo Picasso and Willem de Kooning, two artists he has shown many times before. Read Now

ART

Roy Lichtenstein, who died in 1997, is going to have a banner couple of years, with a Sotheby’s auction in May, a Whitney retrospective next year, and tailwinds from an art market that tends to retreat to known quantities and beloved artists when surrounded by uncertainty everywhere else. Read Now

FASHION

Notes on the evolution of fitness apparel beyond leggings and sports bras, the spike of high-end, non-tariff-related price increases, and a Gen Z Sephora phenomenon. Read Now

WASHINGTON

John is joined by attorney George Conway and political strategist Stuart Stevens to discuss the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case and Donald Trump’s efforts to turn the U.S. into a police state. They also explain why Trump’s economic illiteracy and its consequences may prove to be what saves American democracy. Listen Now

MEDIA

Jon Kelly rejoins Peter to dig into Netflix’s precedent-setting Q1 earnings report—its first without subscriber numbers, and the clearest sign yet that Netflix has outgrown the Hollywood streaming wars, setting its sights instead on bigger tech rivals like YouTube and Meta. Then, the duo preview White House Correspondents’ Dinner week in Washington, and what’s different about the Beltway party circuit during Trump II. Listen Now

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