 When Donald Trump and Elon Musk started going at it Thursday, reporters and editors scrambled to get the “tick-tock” — the behind-the-scenes story behind their falling out. But Trump isn’t a behind-the-scenes guy. His impulse for public theater follows the argument, as Steve Bannon makes it, that getting the public to trust you in an age of disillusionment requires conducting government, literally, in public. That’s what Trump has done with his chaotic and riveting live encounters with foreign leaders. It’s how the Musk show played out, as I wrote at the time. The public can’t worry about backroom deals and conspiracies when the whole thing is conducted on a studio set, the thinking goes. There the walls are plywood, the doors lead nowhere, and there are no backrooms. It’s a puzzle for the kind of inside Washington reporting I’ve spent much of my career doing, and requires a different set of priorities. And, of course, the White House isn’t a stage set. The doors lead to offices and SCIFs, and the decisions at some point spill into legislation and the economy and into people’s lives — a reality that, most days, keeps journalists in business. Also today: Politico’s AI garble, Michael Kassan and UTA make peace, and Netflix’s Daily Beast deal. (Scoop count: 5) Join Ben and Max or a special Cannes Lions live taping of Mixed Signals, where they’ll be joined by New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. Request an invite to join us in-person here. |