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  • Brown University Shooting Suspect Found Dead in New Hampshire

    Authorities announced in a press conference late Thursday night that they found Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown University, dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a Salem, New Hampshire storage unit.

    According to police, the case is now believed to be connected to the killing of 47-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology nuclear fusion professor and Portuguese native, Nuno Loureiro, which took place two days later, on December 14, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, 45 miles from Providence, Rhode Island, where Brown University is located. This is a significant change from the FBI’s earlier statement that there seemed to be “no connection” between the two murders.

    A car believed to have been rented by the person of interest in the Brown case is the same make and model of the car identified in connection with the MIT case.

    Brown’s president Christina H. Paxson revealed in the press conference that Neves-Valente was enrolled as a graduate student in physics from 2000-2003 at Brown, mostly at Barus and Holley engineering building, where the mass shooting was carried out.

    According to records from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), the Portuguese engineering school, a person named Claudio Neves-Valente was terminated from a monitor position in February of 2000, the same year that Loureiro graduated from IST.

    This story has been updated.

    Clara Molot

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  • Jennifer Lawrence, Chloe Sevigny, and New York’s Cool Crowd Celebrate The 50th Anniversary of Raoul’s

    At just after 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday December 9, the burlesque performers showed up at Raoul’s. 8:30 p.m., yes, seems early to see a little bit of titty. And yes, Tuesday also seems early in the week to see a little bit of titty. But shimmy and sashay they did—to a jazz rendition of Britney Spears’s …Baby One More Time—with one dancer even climbing atop the spiral suitcase near the bar.

    It was an occasion to throw propriety to the wind: The SoHo bistro’s 50th anniversary. Although Raoul’s has often been described as a downtown institution, now, it felt like an indisputable fact. While the neighborhood has transformed from warehouses and art galleries to designer boutiques and chain megastores, the dark and moody Raoul’s has remained the same—as has much of its clientele. In the seventies, it became a go-to late-night spot for the Belushis, Aykroyds, and many other cast members from Saturday Night Live. Half a century later, it remains a haven for artists, creatives, and New York City’s cool kids.

    Jennifer Lawrence and Cooke Maroney.

    Courtesy of Moda Operandi

    Elise Taylor

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  • Paramount, Netflix, or Comcast? Insiders Debate Potential Warner Bros. Discovery Buyers

    “I feel so sad,” says one studio executive. They’re not alone: All of Hollywood is currently bracing to hear which of three media corporations will change the landscape of movies and television forever. On Thursday, November 20, Paramount, Netflix, and Comcast each submitted a bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery—the company that owns the Warner Bros. film studio, HBO, and cable networks CNN, TNT, and Discovery, among others.

    Each of the three companies comes into the potential deal with different ambitions. Paramount Skydance, which was created from an $8 billion merger by David Ellison earlier this year, wants to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets, while streaming giant Netflix and Comcast—NBCUniversal’s corporate parent—have bid only for the company’s studio and streaming business.

    The swallowing up of another legacy Hollywood studio, just a few years after Disney bought the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox in a $71.3 billion deal, feels like yet another seismic shift for an industry that has recently faced setback after setback. “It’s not just Warner Bros. theatrical, which is a mainstream studio and all the IP that goes with it, but it’s also HBO—they’re both these storied homes,” the exec says. “I don’t see a path where those things [still] exist with any of these buyers, because I think they just get folded into the existing structures, even if that isn’t the intention going in.”

    Employees working under the Warner Bros. Discovery umbrella—who are still recovering from WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery, which happened less than four years ago—are battling anxiety about more upheaval and jobs that will likely be eliminated. “There’s a lot of tenured employees at Warner Bros. that have been there for 20 and 30 years,” a Warner Bros. insider says. “This is not their first rodeo. But I think, ultimately, everyone recognizes that this is different—that consolidation is happening, and it’s a little scary.”

    Insiders beyond those employed by Warner are also concerned about what the sale will mean for the industry’s greater infrastructure—and as of right now, there are more questions than answers. “Warner Bros. has been at the red-hot center as this constant target, and I just wonder, when has a Warner Bros. merger gone well?” says one top movie producer. “It’s hard to even know who’s the best. It feels like it shouldn’t be happening.”

    Many believe the best buyer would be the one that keeps Warner Bros.’ theatrical output most intact, though it’s not clear which of the three bidders fits that bill. “We just don’t know yet,” one top manager says. “It all depends on what [they] are going to allow output-wise.” In August, Warner Bros. Discovery stated that its goal was to have 12–14 theatrical releases per year. If the new buyer were to cut that output by half or more, it would be devastating for the market. “[Warner] is on a generational run this year”—thanks to hits like Sinners, Weapons, and One Battle After Another—“and you don’t want to lose that,” the manager says. “You don’t [want to] lose the leaders there that are willing to take shots on directors and stars that want to go after original thought.”

    Rebecca Ford

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  • At Dick Cheney’s Funeral, Talk of “Spontaneous Combustion,” Unlikely Democratic Reverence, and No Mention of Iraq

    Dick Cheney was possibly the most disliked vice president of all. He was the co-architect of the Iraq war and an unabashed defender of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques after the attacks of 9/11. Cheney, along with his partner Bush, helped pave the way for the populist revolution of Trump and his MAGA movement. Yet at the time Cheney wore his dismal approval rating like a badge of honor and relished being caricatured as Darth Vader.

    But there was another Cheney—a kinder, gentler one, recalled in eulogies by his cardiologist Dr. Jonathan Reiner and notably by George W. Bush. In remarks that never mentioned 9/11, Iraq, or the 2008 financial meltdown, Bush praised Cheney’s judgment, reticence, loyalty, and humor. In a touching tribute, Cheney’s granddaughter Grace Perry spoke movingly of how much Grandpa loved driving her to rodeos across Wyoming in his pickup truck (without using GPS).

    Chris Whipple

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  • Hollywood 2026 U.S. Credits

    The credits behind our 2026 Hollywood Issue.

    Vanity Fair

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump Are at War. What’s Her Endgame?

    What, I asked, would it take for Trump’s supporters to start asking Trump the questions they would ask anyone else under the same circumstances: Did he take part in Epstein’s crimes—and, if not, what did he know about them?

    Greene suddenly turned rational. The web of yarn untangled. She noted that she met with several of Epstein’s victims in September, as part of a bipartisan group, to hear their stories. Democrats questioned the victims about their interactions with Trump. “I sat in a closed-door, private meeting with them, with no press, and they over and over said that Donald Trump never did anything wrong,” she stated.

    When it came to why the administration and Republican leadership had worked to keep further revelations on Epstein secret, Greene was at a loss. “I can’t comprehend it. I honestly can’t,” she said. “That’s why I’m committed to keeping my name on the discharge petition, even though it goes against my own Speaker and the White House. I’m working on the Oversight Committee investigation. I even told the women, I’ll read your list on the House floor because I have speech and debate protection. They do not have any protection legally. So I’m going to full lengths, even though it’s not always in my favor, to be committed to transparency.”

    “Gulf of America” hats are stacked in the sitting room of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office.

    Aidan McLaughlin.

    Inside Greene’s office, three newspapers are displayed: The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and The Epoch Times. “Live, Laugh, Love”–style plaques occupy nearly every surface; one sits on a desk in the room where we met, beside a collection of MAGA hats. Greene swigged from a large can of Monster Energy as she insisted, over the course of 45 minutes, that she hadn’t changed.

    “Everyone thinks that I have suddenly changed, and I haven’t,” she said. “I’m doubling down on how much I love this country and its people. I’m radically doubling down, to the point where it doesn’t matter who I disagree with. I’m disagreeing with my own side.” The only difference now, she said, is that she’s earned a strange new respect in the mainstream. CNN invited her on the network for the first time in her career. She appeared on Bill Maher’s Real Time, with the host calling her “the one Republican who’s dissenting.” She only did The View because she had never been invited on before. Joy Behar joked, “You’re taking my job.” She said she remains blacklisted from Fox News over her criticisms of the network, adding that she no longer watches much. “I watch Fox News the least,” she said. (A Fox spokesperson disputed this, noting Greene was last on Fox News in June and February before that). Greene said she prefers to watch CNN, NBC, CNBC, the BBC, and local news.

    Aidan McLaughlin

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  • Prince Albert II on His Mother Princess Grace’s Wish to Be Remembered “As a Decent and Caring” Person

    Still, the gala’s unofficial theme, not apparent in the white roses and grilled branzino, was most definitely Wicked, in honor of the Prince Rainier III Award winner, Jon M. Chu. In a call ahead of the gala, the director—who rocketed to fame with Crazy Rich Asians before tackling the two-part Oz tale—explains how his 2001 Princess Grace Award funded an ambitious senior thesis, complete with a 20-piece orchestra, a choir, and dancers. The musical that resulted was the “thing that unlocked my whole career,” he says. Agents and managers saw it; Steven Spielberg did too. “When you are the recipient of generosity as a young artist, you don’t forget it because you need it so badly,” says Chu, who now sits on the foundation’s board of trustees.

    Back in the ballroom, the musical theater veteran Jessica Vosk, who had a nearly yearlong run as Elphaba on Broadway, sang a medley from Wicked. The auctioneer peddled a pair of tickets to next month’s New York premiere of Wicked: For Good, with Chu sweetening the pot: “I will grab you by the hand on that carpet, and I will walk you to whoever we see and get you in there!” It sold for $55,000. Bowen Yang, who explained that Chu cast him in the Wicked films despite “bravely” forgoing an audition, was a presenter alongside the musical’s composer and lyricist, Stephen Schwartz. The costume designer Paul Tazewell, who earned a historic Oscar win for his work on Wicked, was there too.

    Jared Siskin/Getty Images.

    Laura Regensdorf

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  • 10 French Trolls Are Tried for Cyberbullying Brigitte Macron—and They’re Mostly Not Sorry

    “If you had Madame Macron in front of you, would you have told her about his cock?”

    On the witness stand, Jérôme A. was silent. Perhaps he “wouldn’t have made jokes in front of” Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, if she had been standing right before him. But “it all depends on the context and the moment,” he stammered.

    The 49-year-old IT specialist was among the 10 defendants, aged between 41 and 65, for whom prosecutors requested suspended prison sentences, ranging from 3 to 12 months, after they were charged and tried for cyberstalking the first lady. In the Paris criminal court on Monday and Tuesday, they were accused of having published or relayed on social networks jokes, insults, photomontages, and other caricatures claiming that Brigitte Macron was a man. Ahead of the verdict, expected on January 5, 2026, most of them pleaded that they had a right to humor, satire, and impertinence, while others outright evoked the “Charlie Hebdo spirit.”

    The defendants’ tweets compared Macron to an “old tranny” and “a first lady boy” “who wears size 47 shoes.” Jérôme A., for his part, wrote: “An ultra minority of weirdos have taken power in Paris. Who doubts Brigitte’s cock?”

    When confronted on the stand with tweets that he considered harmless, the defendant tried to play down the significance of his comments. Since 2022, he has published more than 36,000 tweets in total, an average of 30 per day; not all have been about Macron. “I’m accused of nine tweets spaced over four months,” he pointed out, as if surprised to find himself in court for so little. Why, in the flood of vulgar, insulting comments on the internet, did the law take an interest in him? “I wonder what I’m doing here,” he complained. “Today, you can send people to police custody for a few harmless tweets, end up in cells that smell of piss, be summoned for several days in Paris. It’s frightening.”

    Most of the defendants are internet users without outsize influence who don’t see the point of this cyberstalking trial. “Madame Macron has a certain notoriety,” recalled Jean-Christophe P., a 65-year-old property manager. “I’m just one person among many. I don’t think I’m part of any harassment.” He called the first lady a “degenerate pedo-satanist slut” and a “shitty tranny.”

    They were shameful remarks when quoted by the presiding judge. But for Jean-Luc M., they were merely “jokes” or “quips.”

    Hugo Wintrebert

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  • All Aboard the S.S. Carbone

    I’m going to get straight to the point: Carbone has a miniyacht. Its name is Fortuna. Its port of origin is the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas, whose 8.5 acre chlorined waters reach thirteen feet at their deepest point. A captain named Mike technically could floor it, but he’s not gonna, because that would make you spill your glass of champagne, or your potato chip loaded with Petrossian caviar. There’s also olives and bloody-mary spiced cashews, but that feels like less precious culinary cargo in the grand scheme of things.

    And the schemes are indeed grand: the Fortuna sails for forty five minutes to an hour as the fountains Bellagio erupt behind you in a choreographed sky-high water dance to a soundtrack of your choice, which can be anything from Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” to Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be a Lady” to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. Is the latter an odd choice for a boat ride? Yes. Did I still make it? Also yes.

    The boat is invite only. I was invited because I was writing about it, but in general, you need to be some sort of celebrity, influencer, a Bellagio V.I.P. or a F.O.M.C. (Friend of Mario Carbone.) The kitchen can whip you up a bunch of different things, but they suggest champagne and caviar, because the yacht experience is best before dinner or after dinner. And that dinner will presumably be at the soon-to-open Carbone Riviera.

    Carbone Riviera isn’t your typical Carbone. It’s not dark and clubby but rather maximalist and airy: blue and gold stone mosaics adorn pillars and a ceiling is painted with tan and taupe swirls. (The interior designer is Martin Brudnizki, who designed Annabel’s in London as well as Fouquet’s in New York City.) In the center of the room sits a cornucopic arrangement of roses, oranges, and artichokes. A cherub holds up a bowl of lemons. On the walls hang Mirós, Renoirs, and a Picasso.

    About that Picasso: it’s from the restaurant that used to be here, which used the artist as its namesake. Picasso was a legendary fine dining staple on The Strip for 26 years, before it closed in 2024. After the chef, Julian Serrano, retired, MGM Resorts (which owns the Bellagio) knew it had tough kitchen whites to fill.

    Douglas Friedman

    Elise Taylor

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  • Juan Carlos, Former King of Spain, Finally Comments on Princess Diana Affair Rumors

    “Cold, taciturn, distant, except in the presence of the paparazzi.” That’s how King Juan Carlos of Spain describes Princess Diana in his long-awaited memoir, Reconciliation, which is due out next month.

    For an interview in Le Figaro Magazine, journalist Charles Jaigu traveled to the former monarch’s residence in Abu Dhabi to discuss the memoir, which was written in collaboration with French writer Laurence Debray. He also denied ever having a relationship with Diana, whom he got to know when she spent summers at Marivent Palace with King Charles III, her then husband, and their two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.

    The late princess’s marriage to Charles had already begun to founder by the time they first visited Marivent, and Diana might have found an ally in King Juan Carlos. This might explain why Diana decided to stay in Marivent after Charles returned to England, and she ultimately returned for another three years.

    “The king was very attentive to her, perhaps too much so,” Roberto Devorik, Diana’s former adviser and confidant, later told Vanity Fair España. “One summer he told her that she looked very much like the British journalist Selina Scott. After one of those vacations, Diana confessed to me that Queen Sofia had not liked her very much,” he said, adding, “[Diana] flirted with Juan Carlos, but innocently, as any woman would do.”

    August 1987: Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and their sons William and Harry on holiday with the Spanish royal family at the Marivent Palace in Mallorca, Spain.Photo by Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images.

    Vanity Fair

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  • Kathryn Bigelow’s Gripping Netflix Thriller Hits Because It’s So Realistic

    Beyond the costume and production design, many of the film’s most astounding details are true. Yes, there is an individual who follows the president around at all times with a briefcase full of nuclear retaliation options. Yes, the US’s main line of defensive anti-ballistic missiles only have a 50% success rate in tests. Yes, there really is a highly classified, self-sufficient underground city built for nuclear fallout at the Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania.

    Karbler, who had a small acting role in the film as Stratcom’s chief of staff, was very focused on the language in the film; he encouraged Bigelow to add a line about “dual phenomenology,” the requirement that both satellite and radar must confirm the existence of a missile before the US can launch a retaliatory strike. “That’s very important to get that little phrase in there, because that’s an important part of determining that truly is a missile coming in,” he says.

    Bigelow’s movie focuses most on the human element—how normal people, even the most highly trained, might react to a catastrophic event. “We make sure our processes are done correctly. We make sure our reporting, our communications, procedures, weapons, employment, is [all] done correctly. It’s very sterile, but very process-oriented,” says Karbler. “This movie brings in the human element in spades.”

    Watching this story from the vantage point of 2025, the unsettling fact Oppenheim pointed out is especially striking: The president of the US has final decision-making power in a theoretical retaliation effort. Elba’s president in the film is well-meaning, and the decision weighs heavily on him. Oppenheim—who began writing the script before Donald Trump took office for his second term—says that, in many ways, the movie presents a best-case scenario. “If everyone in authority is responsible, smart, prepared, and well-intentioned—even in that scenario, this is the outcome,” says Oppenheim. “We’ll leave it to everyone to contemplate how bad things could be, or are, if the folks in those chairs are not smart, prepared experts, and well intended.”

    Rebecca Ford

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  • Queen Camilla Paid Homage to Queen Elizabeth For Historic Meeting With Pope Leo XIV

    Another sovereign was on Queen Camilla’s mind the day she met Pope Leo XIV. Joined by King Charles III, Camilla used Vatican dress code to shift the spotlight away from Prince Andrew’s current headline-making misdeeds and invoke another member of the royal family: the late Queen Elizabeth.

    This was no mere audience or regular state visit: the king and head of the Church of England prayed together with a Catholic pontiff for the first time in 500 years. And Camilla dressed for the occasion. She opted to forgo a tiara like the one Queen Elizabeth donned when she met John XXIII on solemn occasions in 1961 or John Paul II in 1980. Instead, Camilla sported a mantilla—a more all-encompassing black veil encircled in a crown of matching leaves designed by Philip Treacy, the celebrated milliner discovered by Isabella Blow. Treacy often lends his services to the sovereign, but also works with other celebrated figures like Grace Jones. The creation is very similar in concept to the Jess Collett x Alexander McQueen signature silver leaf tiara sported by Princess Catherine on Charles’s coronation day, another subtle nod to the past.

    Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Philip at the Vatican in 1961.

    Fox Photos/Getty Images

    Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Philip at the Vatican in 1980.

    Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Philip at the Vatican in 1980.

    Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

    Queen Camilla’s stylishly-framed face looked like a 16th-century portrait—a contemporary Catherine of Aragon. Which is slightly ironic, since relations between the Church of England and the Church of Rome broke down with the schism of 1534 when Henry VIII repudiated Catherine and married Anne Boleyn. Perhaps this sartorial reference was also a studied diplomatic move—a nod toward the concord that Charles, who has called himself a “defender of all faiths,” hopes to achieve.

    In addition to the veil, Vatican protocol for occasions such as this calls for an all-black, simple dress code with no visible marks or flashy jewelry. Camilla wore a no-frills dress designed by Fiona Clare, adorning the frock with a special brooch that once belonged to Elizabeth II. It was a Georgian-era cross called the “raspberry seed,” a nod to the rubies embedded within it. The accessory took on a whole new meaning when Queen Camilla and King Charles met—and prayed with—Pope Leo XIV.

    Originally published in Vanity Fair Italia

    Giorgia Olivieri

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  • November 2025 U.S. Credits

    Vanity Fair’s November 2025 issue, featuring Charli xcx

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  • Trump’s YouTube-Insurrection Settlement Will Fund Golden White House Ballroom

    Over the summer, the Trump administration announced that it would construct a 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House, which press secretary Karoline Leavitt described to reporters as a “much-needed and exquisite addition.” Not surprisingly, a rendering looks very Versailles-esque and includes an unrestrained use of the color gold; though the room was initially expected to have a seating capacity for 650 people, Trump later said it would hold 900.) In a statement that she may or may not have been contractually obligated to release, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told the public: “President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail.” Following the announcement, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wondered aloud. “Where’d this money come from? Did Congress appropriate it? I don’t think so. It’s almost like DOGE was never about waste.” In September, CBS reported that a collection of individual and corporate donors—including Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir—had pledged to donate nearly $200 million for construction costs.

    Last month, when a reporter asked how he was “holding up” in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk, Trump responded, “I think very good,” before quickly shifting focus to the ballroom. “And by the way,” he said, “right there, you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it’s gonna be a beauty. It’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.”

    *Will Jimmy Kimmel file a similar lawsuit over his show having been temporarily suspended following comments by Trump’s FCC chair about doing things “the easy way or the hard way”? Stay tuned!

    Bess Levin

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  • Tory Burch, Art Garfunkel, Michael Eisner, and More May Be Forced Out of Their NYC Homes

    Howard Lutnick has not earned many fans in the eight months since becoming Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, a turn of events that probably has something to do with his embrace of deeply unpopular tariffs, his declaration that said tariffs are “worth it” even if they cause a recession, and his bold claim that only a “fraudster” would complain about missing a Social Security check. But according to new reports, the billionaire former trader and ex-chairman of a real estate firm also recently earned a number of enemies a lot closer to home, i.e. his neighbors at The Pierre, some of whom are pissed about a possible deal to sell the building and potentially evict the residents in the process—which they’ve blamed squarely on the Trump appointee.

    A source told Page Six that at a “star-studded” and “contentious” board meeting last week, fashion designer Tory Burch “lost her usual cool and reserved demeanor” when discussing the prospect of The Pierre—which is both a hotel and a residence—being sold, with part of the funding being provided by the Saudi Khashoggi family, according to The New York Times. It’s a potential transaction that has been negotiated under the guidance of Lutnick’s former real estate firm, which could result in Burch and other homeowners being forced to move out. “Tory, polite at first, raised her voice and was clearly angry about the ‘fast’-moving deal that would displace her from the apartment where she has lived for about two decades,” a source told Page Six. Said another insider, “Tory got progressively madder…. There were dozens of shareholders in the private meeting room, with others joining in by Zoom.” Tina Beriro, another resident of the building, reportedly told the board in an email, “I am an 84-year-old widow with no family and have just redone my apartment at great expense…. To find new accommodations and go through the trauma, exhaustion, and money involved in a move would seriously affect my health, well-being, and finances.” Other residents of the building include former Disney chief Michael Eisner, musician Art Garfunkel, and media mogul Shari Redstone. While Lutnick purchased the biggest unit in the building—a 12,000-square-foot triplex penthouse—in 2017, he apparently has yet to move in.

    As The New York Times reported earlier this month, in 2023, Lutnick urged The Pierre’s board of directors to hire a new management company for the building, which its residents considered to be “falling apart.” The board retained his then real estate firm,* Newmark Group. According to the Times, after “months of discussions” some members of The Pierre’s “transactions” committee determined the current management company, Taj Hotels, was unwilling to put enough money into the property to address the issues, and Newmark and the board began to explore a sale. They are now in the “final stages of negotiations” to sell for approximately $2 billion, with the Khashoggis expected to “provide at least some of the funding for the purchase,” and the Dorchester Collection, owned by the sultanate of Brunei, managing the building following a renovation. Residents could be required to move out.

    According to the Times, through the summer of 2024, Newmark earned nearly $100,000 in monthly consulting fees; industry experts told the outlet the company could collect tens of millions on the possible $2 billion sale. While 50% of residents are said to be opposed to the plan, if two thirds of the residents’ shares are ultimately cast in favor of the deal, it will go through. Per the Times, as Lutnick owns the largest unit in the building, and the 129,000 shares that come with it, he holds both the most voting power and stands to make the most money on the sale when the proceeds are divided.

    *Lutnick stepped down from Newmark (and his other firm, Cantor Fitzgerald) after being confirmed as commerce secretary. Several months later, he sold his stock in Newmark (according to the Times, his family members “retain stakes there”). A spokesperson for the Commerce Department told the Times that Lutnick has not been involved in the potential sale for many months, and that he is unaware of the specifics of the most recent offer.

    Bess Levin

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  • October 2025 U.S. Credits

    © 2025 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices

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  • The Looming Shutdown Is a Test for the Democrats’ Resolve

    On Friday morning, the House passed a stopgap measure to keep the government’s lights on through November 21, in a mostly party-line vote. But it failed in the Senate later in the afternoon as Democrats stood against it, setting the stage for a shutdown at the end of the month.

    “Our Republican colleagues seem to think Americans are happy with the direction of this country,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday. “They’re voting like they think the status quo is good enough, even though they’ve heard from so many of their constituents the fear of hospitals closing, of health care being diminished, of premiums going way up.”

    Schumer, of course, blinked during his first standoff with this Republican majority six months ago, arguing that a shutdown would do more harm than good—and angering fellow Democrats, who lamented that he had relinquished the little leverage he had. Not so this time: “The situation is much different,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.

    In March, he had worried that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would use a shutdown not only as a political attack line against Democrats, but that they would exploit it to consolidate even more power. But Trump’s power grab is only accelerating, and the MAGA right has gone from accusing Democrats of obstruction to all but casting them as terrorists in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder on a college campus in Utah last week—an event the administration is using to justify a crackdown on “the left.”

    It’s an extraordinarily dangerous moment in the country—and both progressives who opposed Schumer’s capitulation in March and more moderate figures like Ezra Klein are now warning that partnering with Republicans to keep the government open would be to effectively collaborate with a president that is using government “to hound his enemies, to line his pockets, and to entrench his own power.”

    “Democrats, morally speaking, should not fund a government that Trump is turning into a tool of personal enrichment and power,” Klein wrote earlier this month. “Joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It’s complicity.”

    The opposition party played hardball Friday. But where things go from here remains to be seen. Democrats, in their own funding bill, have planted their flag on health care, demanding Obamacare subsidies be extended and Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” be reversed. “It’s the Republican shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on the floor of the lower chamber Friday. “We’re fighting for the health care of the American people.”

    But Republicans have given little indication they’ll budge from a “clean” continuing resolution. And it’s unclear what negotiations will look like going forward, with lawmakers back on recess next week for Rosh Hashanah and GOP leadership reportedly considering extending the break through the end of the month to put pressure on Democrats, who don’t seem to have an obvious path out of a shutdown: “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse,” as Democratic congressman Jared Huffman put it to Politico this week. “I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”

    Eric Lutz

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  • “The Kind of Event I Was Warning About”: Charlie Kirk and Our Era of Political Violence

    In June, after the assassination of a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota, Robert Pape, a leading expert on political violence as the director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats at the University of Chicago, warned in a New York Times op-ed that “we may be on the brink of an extremely violent era in American politics.” The killing of Charlie Kirk, on a college campus in Utah on Wednesday, was “tragic but predictable,” Pape tells VF. “This is exactly the kind of event I was warning about.”

    Pape is one of the most prominent voices warning about the dangerous climate in the country over the last several years. “We are on a dark road as a country,” he says.

    Kirk, a prominent right-wing activist and key ally of Donald Trump, had just begun a speaking engagement before a large outdoor crowd at Utah Valley University and was answering a question about gun violence when he was shot in the neck. Trump announced his death soon after. “All who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror,” the president said from the Oval Office later Wednesday. “He’s a martyr for truth and freedom…This is a dark moment for America.” Kirk, who had a wife and two young children, was 31.

    Kirk is one of several victims of assassination in recent months: Melissa Hortman, the Democratic Speaker of Minnesota’s House of Representatives, and her husband were killed in June; one of her colleagues, Minnesota state senator John Hoffman, and his wife were allegedly shot by the same perpetrator but survived. In the last few years, there have also been attacks directed at Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a potential Democratic candidate for president; House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi; and, of course, Trump himself.

    The assassination attempt on Trump last year in Pennsylvania was initially said to have softened him. But the president has remained a bellicose figure in American politics, including in his address on Kirk’s death, during which he lamented “demonizing those with whom you disagree”—and in the same breath blamed the media and the “radical left,” his catch-all for those with whom he disagrees. “I think that the political rhetoric about opponents being the enemy from within—that concept has taken on a life of its own,” says Matt Dallek, a political historian at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

    “The United States has been experiencing a period of political violence unlike anything we’ve experienced since the 1960s and early ’70s,” Dallek says. “The violence is not apart from the politics and culture of the past decade; it’s actually endemic to it. It’s central to it.”

    Political leaders of both parties condemned the Kirk killing. Trump and a number of elected GOP officials, as well as Republican members of the media, remembered the influential conservative activist. Former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden each expressed their condolences to Kirk’s family and opposition to political violence, as did other elected Democrats—including California governor Gavin Newsom, who hosted Kirk on his podcast earlier this year. “Charlie Kirk’s murder is sick and reprehensible, and our thoughts are with his family, children, and loved ones,” Newsom wrote. “Honest disagreement makes us stronger; violence only drives us further apart and corrodes the values at the heart of this nation.”

    But the sober statements competed online with the belligerence of figures like Elon Musk, who wrote on his social media platform that Democrats were the “party of murder,” and Steve Bannon, who suggested that the country was now at “war.” The condemnations were also threatened to be drowned out by the graphic video itself, which was nearly unavoidable in the social media scroll on Wednesday. “I think it’s destabilizing,” Dallek says. “It’s not the kind of thing that one would expect from a stable, healthy democratic polity.”

    And Pape warns that it could portend even more darkness to come. “This needs to be taken seriously, because otherwise you could end up having this snowball, even in the near term,” Pape says. “It will not fade away on its own.”

    Eric Lutz

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  • Trump Allies: Actually, the Epstein Drawing Is Proof Trump Is Innocent

    Remember, back in July, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump had celebrated one of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s birthdays with a drawing of a naked woman, and a reference to a “wonderful secret” the two men allegedly shared? And the response from the president and his allies was to claim the story was “complete and utter bullshit”? And that Trump doesn’t “draw pictures”? And that the letter did not, in fact, exist? In light of the fact that the House Oversight Committee was able to obtain the letter in question from Epstein’s estate, and that Democrats on the committee went ahead and posted an image of it Monday, you might think the president and MAGA world would be singing a slightly different tune right about now. But, surprise! They are not only continuing to insist that the drawing is in no way damaging for Trump, but that it actually proves he’s innocent.

    Yes, in an incredible display of whatever is German for “You could show us evidence that this guy is the direct descendant of Satan and we’d still defend him,” allies of the president have spent the last 24 hours arguing that the letter, which appears to bear Trump’s signature, exonerates him. “Does the below from the WSJ look like this actual signature from the President? I don’t think so at all. Fake,” right-wing activist Charlie Kirk wrote on X. “Is this really the best they could do? Trump has the most famous signature in the world. Time to sue them into the oblivion,” chimed in podcaster Benny Johnson. (In fact, Trump has already sued WSJ publisher Dow Jones and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, among others. A Dow Jones spokeswoman said in a statement Monday, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting.”) “The latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal PROVES this entire ‘Birthday Card’ story is false,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared on social media. “As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it. President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation.” Another White House official, Taylor Budowich, added to the “it’s not his signature” chorus and said that Murdoch’s media empire would need to “open that checkbook” in response to the president’s ongoing lawsuit. Vice President JD Vance cried “fake scandal.” Eric Trump went on TV and said, “I can tell you my father does not sketch out cartoon drawings.”

    Unfortunately for Eric, his father’s drawings have literally been sold at auction, and Trump has spoken publicly about his artistic process. As for the claims that the signature on the Epstein birthday card is not Trump’s, analysis by the Wall Street Journal suggests the signature in question looks remarkably like one Trump used at the time:

    Bess Levin

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  • What’s Going On With the Lisa Cook–Donald Trump–Federal Reserve Drama?

    The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency took to CNBC on Thursday morning to defend Donald Trump’s firing of Dr. Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors. During a contentious interview, Bill Pulte—the Trump appointee who publicly accused Cook last month of committing mortgage fraud and has claimed to have invented “Twitter philanthropy”—insisted Cook’s firing was not politically motivated, refused to divulge his “sources and methods,” and told cohost Andrew Ross Sorkin, “I don’t need you to help me explain things, Andrew.”

    But let’s explain how we got here. Throughout his first term and for most of his second, Trump has been extremely angry with the Federal Reserve, whose policymakers he apparently thinks know less about being good stewards of the economy than he does, a man whose companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times. Often, that anger has resulted in Trump publicly lashing out at Fed chair Jerome Powell, whom the president has called, among other things, “low IQ,” “a stubborn mule,” “a very stupid person,” and “a knucklehead.” But in late August, the president turned his ire on Cook, whom he accused of committing mortgage fraud and fired via Truth Social, a move he would undoubtedly like to follow up by replacing Cook with someone inclined to give him what he wants, i.e., lower interest rates. Cook has denied the fraud allegations and sued the president, saying he lacks the cause to get rid of her. Where do things stand? What does it mean for the economy? Who is this Bill Pulte guy? Your burning questions, answered.

    What has Trump accused Cook of doing?

    In a letter posted to his Truth Social account on August 25, Trump accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud, specifically claiming that she indicated on 2021 mortgage documents that both her home in Michigan and her house in Georgia would be her primary residence. He wrote that he was removing her from her position “effective immediately” and added, “The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve. In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity.” On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into the allegations against Cook.

    How has Cook responded?

    Cook has denied the accusations, with her attorneys declaring in a court filing that she “did not ever commit mortgage fraud.” Cook’s lawyers—who have sued the president on her behalf—also told a judge that even if she had done the things Trump has accused her of, they would not rise to the level at which he could fire her for cause, particularly in light of the Fed’s status as an independent organization. “Setting aside the fact that Governor Cook did not ever commit mortgage fraud, any such pre-office offense plainly would not have been ‘so infamous a nature, as to render the offender unfit to execute any public franchise,’” they wrote. Cook’s team has argued that her firing was politically motivated and tied to Trump’s anger at the Fed for not lowering interest rates this year; they’ve also claimed her due process rights were violated when she was not given an opportunity to respond to the allegations prior to being fired. Cook’s attorney Abbe Lowell—whose previous clients have included Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump—has said Trump’s “reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis, or legal authority.” In response to the news of the DOJ probe, Lowell told the Journal, “The questions over how Governor Cook described her properties from time to time…are not fraud, but it takes nothing for this DOJ to undertake a new politicized investigation, and they appear to have just done it again.”

    Who is Bill Pulte?

    Pulte is the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Trump’s most prominent soldier in the crusade against Cook. On August 20, he posted a letter on X in which he claimed Cook “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud.” The same day, Trump demanded via Truth Social that Cook resign; five days after that, he fired her. Pulte has similarly accused Trump foes Adam Schiff and Letitia James of committing mortgage fraud. (According to NBC News, Attorney General Pam Bondi has appointed a “special attorney” to investigate the Democrats; Both Schiff and James have denied the allegations.)

    During his interview with CNBC on September 4, Pulte refused to offer any details re: where he obtained the “tip” that led him to accuse Cook of fraud, telling the hosts, “I’m not going to explain our sources and methods, where we get tips from, who are whistleblowers.” When CNBC’s Sorkin told Pulte that Cook’s targeting could be considered “political weaponization,” and said that if “the tip came from inside the administration, or came from even inside your agency, with somebody who works for you…then that creates the perception issue,” Pulte angrily responded, “I don’t need you to help me explain things, Andrew.” Asked if he was also looking into reports that Republican Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has listed three properties as his primary residence, Pulte said, “If things are made public then, and/or if we decide to make them public, then I will talk about it.”

    Is Cook the first person Trump has fired via social media?

    Of course not. Others have included former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, and more than a thousand federal employees appointed by Joe Biden.

    What does it mean for the Fed if Trump is able to remove Cook from her post?

    It wouldn’t be great! “This is a kill shot at Fed independence,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Aaron Klein told Bloomberg. “Trump is saying the Fed is going to do what he wants it to do, by hook or by crook.” A letter signed by hundreds of economists condemns Cook’s firing and the “unproven accusations” against her, declaring they “threaten…the fundamental principle of central bank independence and undermine…trust in one of America’s most important institutions. That trust is a cornerstone of the system that has fueled America’s economic vitality over the decades.”

    Bess Levin

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