Welcome back to the Wednesday edition of The Best & The Brightest. Today’s issue focuses on the most ambitious crossover event in recent history: Tucker Carlson putting his recently-canceled show on Elon Musk’s chaotically-run version of Twitter. It’s a move that has the media-obsessed MAGA universe chewing on its nails, and it could—I’m not exaggerating—determine the fate of both Tucker and Twitter. But first…

• A very happy George Santos indictment day: As of this morning, the New York congressman has been charged with 13 counts of money laundering, stealing public money, wire fraud and making false statements to Congress, and it’s quite possible that more will be levied against the notorious and self-admitted fabulist. (Santos has pleaded not guilty, and was released on $500,000 bail.)

  So far, the New York Republican Party has vowed not to support his re-election bid. But no legal mechanism, except perhaps imprisonment, really blocks Santos from his career in politics: he can technically serve in Congress even if indicted, and Kevin McCarthy has said that he would not take action against Santos unless he was found guilty. (Of course, with a slim G.O.P. majority in the House, and Santos repping a formerly blue district, McCarthy needs all the votes he can get.)

  As always, my biggest question is whether Santos’s decision to refashion himself as a MAGA warrior will work to his benefit. A source close to his office previously told me that the MAGA community’s defense of Santos would depend on 1) how right-wing his voting record would be, and 2) the severity of the campaign finance fraud charges. Given that they seem to be quite thorough, and involve fraudulently claiming Covid-19 unemployment benefits, it’s unlikely that Bannonworld will ride to his defense any time soon.

Now on to Tucker’s next act…

Musk, however, quickly offered a series of clarifications. Most notably, he said, there was no deal with Carlson—the former cable news star, whose Fox contract paid him some $25 million a year, would be a “content creator” like any other, “subject to the same rules and rewards” as any of the high-profile personalities Musk hopes to lure from other digital video platforms like YouTube, with the promise of some still-in-the-works advertising rev share deal. “I hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform,” Musk added.

Tucker’s camp doesn’t appear put off by the lack of monetization infrastructure. “We are launching the new products exclusively to Twitter,” a person familiar with his plans told me, adding that conversations between Carlson and Twitter were mostly focused on the technical ability of the platform to host longform video content and how it will evolve. “We will be able to figure out the revenue easily!”

Of course, the move also appears to be born of necessity. For Carlson, and for Tucker Carlson Tonight refugees, Twitter was the best option immediately available—cheap to produce, easily accessible, and, most importantly, potentially not in violation of Carlson’s still active noncompete with Fox News. (On the same day he announced the move, Carlson also accused Fox of fraud and breach of contract—an apparent attempt, via his lawyer Bryan Freedman, to claim that the noncompete is no longer valid.) Regardless, Carlson was always unlikely to have gone to a true right-wing platform like Rumble, which has a much more limited audience, or to incite immediate litigation by going to one of Fox’s cable rivals, like Newsmax, which could never afford him. The person close to Carlson’s camp told me emphatically that “cable is dead!”... but Tucker seemed pretty happy on Fox’s airwaves about a month ago.

Nevertheless, it’s undoubtedly a risky strategy—or at least a short-sighted one—for Carlson to throw his fate into the hands of Elon Musk. It’s not an issue of ideological alignment; Musk has made it exceedingly clear in recent months that he wants to turn Twitter into a fully MAGA-friendly space. But there are legitimate questions inside right wing media circles about whether Musk has the capability, after firing more than 70 percent of Twitter’s staff, to quickly launch, iterate, and maintain an ad-supported VOD product that can attract real money without being swarmed by bots. Moreover, Carlson wouldn’t own the relationship with his audience, as he would if he went direct-to-consumer, meaning that he wouldn’t be able to migrate his subscribers if and when a better opportunity comes along. As he has proven relentlessly, Musk could defenestrate Tucker just as quickly and enigmatically as Murdoch did.

“[The Twitter show] is not actually a replacement for a show on Fox,” a conservative media industry insider told me. “But a lot is happening with Twitter, and Tucker’s a very powerful voice. So there’s a big question mark. Like, he could be actually pioneering something. But I don’t know.”

It is, however, also currently the worst social media platform for video content. It can’t be cast onto Boomer-friendly television screens, it’s laggy and slow, and for content creators interfacing with advertisers, it doesn’t provide sophisticated enough data analytics. “Elon needs to provide content creators and advertisers with proper metrics to gauge interest and attention,” Saagar Enjeti, the conservative host of the online political show Breaking Points, told me. “This is a titanically difficult task that video platforms like Youtube and Rumble have years of experience doing. It remains to be seen if he can do it.” (The video version of Enjeti’s show is on YouTube.)

Behind the scenes, Twitter has been courting right-wing streamers to expand their video presence on its platform. The Wire, for instance, has already experimented with streaming Matt Walsh’s show on Twitter after YouTube demonetized his channel over anti-trans comments. Lewis described the trial run as a success, and the Wire has started distributing more of their content there. “We’ve been talking to Twitter for the last several weeks about a lot of exciting projects and partnerships with them and are leaning into the platform more heavily than ever before,” he added.

But unlike the Daily Wire, which also streams its content on YouTube and through its own subscription streaming service, and has a presence on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook, Carlson’s content will exclusively live on Twitter—a strategy that a majority of right-wing media insiders are watching with trepidation. “The onus is really now on Elon to see if he can do what Twitter and Facebook failed to do in the late 2010s with [Buzzfeed’s] AM2DM and the disastrous pivot to video—turn platforms with non-video incentives into a place where people will watch long form video,” Enjeti observed.

“Twitter is very weak in video right now,” agreed John Matze, the former C.E.O. of the anything-goes free-speech platform Parler, who currently works as a tech consultant. “It’s not only a bit limited in features compared to places like YouTube, but it lacks an easy way to be constantly engaged in video content like TikTok.”

It’s certainly not a traditional media revenge story. Whereas Alex Blumberg bailed out of NPR, created Gimlet and sold it to Spotify years later for more than $200 million, or Jim VandeHei & Co. pulled the ripcord at Politico and sold Axios in five years for $525 million, Tucker is making a bet that someone else’s media platform—one owned by a capricious billionaire who frequently shuts down users’ accounts just because—can sustain his once-considerable political influence, on the internet of all places, and pull in a good chunk of change to boot. In short, it gives Substack vibes.

The challenge for Tucker is that all the impatience and rage-baiting that made him insufferable to liberals but devilishly successful on cable isn’t a recipe for online political superstardom. Tucker has made clear that he won’t be silenced, that he needs to weigh in on 2024, etcetera etcetera. But at the end of the day, one senses that the Pivot to Twitter is less about absolutism than it is about the right-wing media landscape, littered with the bones of once-indispensable and now-defunct Fox News personalities. The longer he waits, the more likely his audience moves on. Perhaps some already have.

And now for something totally different… My colleague Teddy Schleifer’s fantastic piece on S.B.F.-adjacent Potomac power couple Ryan Salame and Michelle Bond.

Salame (pronounced like the witch trials, not the deli meat) was not in Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, but S.B.F’s fate now appears to depend, in part, on his relationship with the Salame-Bond couple. On April 27, a team of F.B.I. agents executed a dawn raid on the suburban Maryland home that Salame and Bond typically used for poolside bashes and other parties. The raid shocked neighbors, of course, but also those following the S.B.F. legal travails. The search warrant, I’m told, allowed law enforcement to obtain certain phones that prosecutors had in their sights. Others involved in the case believe it was also a scare tactic, meant to rattle the confidence of Salame and Bond and, presumably, engender their greater cooperation with the Southern District of New York.

Whether Salame will become the latest FTX executive to flip on S.B.F. is one of the biggest outstanding questions in the case. Salame has not been charged with a crime, but prosecutors have fingered him in court filings, portraying him (or “co-conspirator two” in the lingua franca of jurisprudence) as the Republican face of a sprawling operation to influence lawmakers and regulators, all while being illegally reimbursed by S.B.F in what prosecutors describe as a straw-donor scheme.

For months prior to the raid, I had been talking with lawyers connected to the case about why Salame had been so conspicuously silent, especially after his colleague Nishad Singh (“co-conspirator one”) pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracies to commit fraud and money laundering, and—most worryingly for Salame—violating campaign finance laws. Until April 27, Salame’s fate was largely a mystery. The raid, of course, along with interviews with others in the couple’s orbit, suggests there is more conflict to come.

Both of them had long journeys to this purgatory they’ve found themselves in today. Salame was raised in the Berkshires and became something of a hometown hero, with his business success and restaurant openings chronicled closely by local media. As a kid, he practiced Tae Kwon Do, earning a 4th degree Black belt and competing in South Korea, and was proud of his work at local restaurants—washing dishes at a local diner, servicing tables, catering at a restaurant that he’d later buy. He stayed local after high school, enrolling at UMass Amherst with ambitions to become an accountant at Ernst & Young, then spent a few years making some good money at the crypto startup Circle, which is how he met the crew behind FTX and Alameda Research, S.B.F.’s crypto trading firm. He joined the leadership of the companies a few years later and became something of a utility player, using his social skills to schmooze Bahamian regulators and set up their subsidiary in the country, though he could strike colleagues as aloof.

Like Bond, Salame was described as a true crypto believer. It was through crypto circles, at various points in 2021, that people began to notice that Salame and Bond were not just FTX allies but were dating. Bond had a traditional Washington policymaker background—a few years in Big Law; counsel at the S.E.C.; a regulatory-affairs gig at Bloomberg LP—before she was chosen in 2020 to lead a new crypto trade group called the Association for Digital Asset Markets, of which FTX was a founding member. The two quickly became inseparable: Bond was frequently seen in the Bahamas, and Salame was spending a ton of time in Washington. He was very devoted to Bond’s two kids from a previous marriage. In 2022, Bond and Salame were spotted on TikTok participating in the Gumball 3000, the affected cross-country, 3000-mile luxury car race, which FTX sponsored.

Bond grew up in Port Jefferson, Long Island, and in the early summer, she decided that she’d try her luck at running for the congressional seat vacated by Lee Zeldin. It was a last-minute decision—she registered to vote in the state just a few days before the filing deadline—and the campaign lasted all of ten weeks. But the first-time candidate made up for her lack of preparation and political experience with her crypto connections—including Salame’s money. She hired Axiom, the powerful and expensive G.O.P. consulting firm led by Jeff Roe, who would effectively run her campaign along with a super PAC funded with $1 million from Salame, called Stand for New York. Friends previously understood her politics to be mostly bipartisan, and were confused when she ran as an ultra-MAGA America First candidate with endorsements from Trump Jr, Ric Grenell and Ted Cruz. Salame, for his part, didn’t just underwrite the effort. He was by her side every step of the way, like Jack-and-Jackie—appearing on campaign literature with her kids, convincing his network of friends and family to donate, and participating on campaign conference calls with her staffers. He was spotted all over the district that Long Island summer, marching in July 4th parades, visiting Greek festivals, and pressing the flesh with Tommy Tuberville and Trump Jr. You wouldn’t know they weren’t married.

It was a traditional, if lavishly-funded, House primary campaign, without a whiff of any scandal beyond some rookie struggles common to first-time candidates, according to people who worked on it. The closest controversy was the George Santos angle to this whole bid, which could be a legitimate issue for Bond given the D.O.J.’s pending campaign-finance charges against Santos. Earlier that summer, Bond had received some encouragement from allies of Kevin McCarthy to run against a, shall we say, problematic Santos in Long Island’s 3rd District—a less reliable Republican seat in a general election, but one where there was no strong candidate like McCarthy-favored Nick LaLota. But Bond, partially dissuaded by Elise Stefanik’s support for Santos, demurred, and decided to challenge LaLota instead. Santos and Bond ended up in an alliance that summer, of sorts: In fact, I’m told that the Santos and Bond campaigns ended up doing a so-called donor swap, wherein they encouraged one another’s max-out backers to donate to the other. (That’s why Salame’s parents, for instance, are also max-out contributors to Santos.) Alas, she got crushed by 20 points. Bond was stricken by the size of the loss.

Deaton, a linebacker-built, gay, Southern-reared operative who had worked for groups backed by Paul Singer, made introductions to key Republican super PACs and leaders, effectively serving as a proxy for the ascendant FTX executive. Nowadays, people closely tracking the case believe that Deaton could very well be ensnared in the FTX campaign-finance mess too, given how closely he and Salame worked together in 2022. Deaton hasn’t commented publicly, including for this story, but in one private conversation a few months ago with a well-wisher, Deaton told a confidante that he just hoped that Salame or Bond didn’t end up in jail.

Neither Salame nor Bond have said anything publicly since FTX’s collapse. It is unclear whether Bond will end up receiving any real prosecutorial scrutiny—she didn’t work for FTX full-time—but she is tied at the hip (and shares the same raided home, of course) with one of the top targets of investigators. Both Salame and Bond are also shepherded by the same lawyer, Jason Linder of Mayer Brown, who has tried his best to keep the two low profile. Linder didn’t return requests for comment on his clients’ behalf for this story.

Prosecutors may find it difficult to coax Salame, who was described by some former FTX colleagues as more obstinate and less able to be intimidated than, say, Singh. Can Salame be flipped? The core question for Deaton, Salame, Bond and the entire Republican side of the FTX political operation is whether that $25 million or so publicly donated by Salame in the 2022 midterms was actually his—or instead was the fruits of a straw-donor scheme, lubricated by the $55 million that Salame received in loans from Alameda Research. On Monday evening, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers offered their first defense against the campaign-finance and other allegations: “The allegations relating to [Salame] are also self-contradictory to the point of being incomprehensible and give no notice of what is actually being alleged.” Bankman-Fried’s lawyers asked in one of their many motions for more information on what exactly he and Salame were actually being accused of.

In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse following Election Day, Bond—who had taken a few months of leave from her lobbying group to run for Congress—formally resigned from the firm amid the scandal, recognizing the water she had taken on after the FTX blowup and her highly-partisan campaign. Salame, for his part, still has his half-dozen restaurant empire in downtown Lenox, at least until FTX debtors come calling. Most of all, the two of them still have each other: They share identical Twitter cover photos, featuring the two of them side-by-side like they’re atop a wedding cake.