“Are you gay?” a tall young man in a cowboy hat asked Cockburn, under his breath. Your correspondent was hovering in the foyer of the American Airlines Center, looking up the RNC schedule on his phone.
“Excuse me?” Cockburn said.
“Are you gay?” the young man asked again.
“Am I gay?! No,” said Cockburn.
“Oh,” the young man said, a touch disappointed. “Seemed like you might be gay.”
Cockburn had never read too much into the viral internet chatter that accompanies large conservative conferences, about the surge in activity on homosexual hookup apps. This interaction in Dallas gave him pause for thought. Perhaps there was something to the rumors about that one bathroom in the AAC.
Generally, though, there was decidedly less action at this first ever midterm RNC in Dallas. Your correspondent bopped around the smattering of events and receptions on offer nonetheless.
The central social hub of the convention was the Daily Wire’s “BaRNC,” which occupied a concrete slab immediately outside of the arena. Cockburn heard RFK Jr.’s dulcet tones from the stage as he entered. The DW podcasted from the venue throughout the week’s proceedings. Ben Shapiro was mobbed by selfie-seeking fans as soon as he entered to cohost a show with Clay Travis. Earlier in the convention, Shapiro shared a moment with James Fishback; the defeated Florida gubernatorial candidate made a beeline for the Daily Wire founder to introduce himself. Fishback was better received by Shapiro than by RNC staff: Cockburn understands he managed to get a floor badge he wasn’t supposed to have and was promptly thrown out as a result.
After the Thursday speeches, a throng filtered in to watch the Wire’s District Club podcast with Ben Domenech, Mary Margaret Olohan and Tim Rice. Their guest, Vanity Fair’s Aidan McLaughlin, was a last-minute replacement after Tara Palmeri had her credentials revoked by Secret Service, for asking congressional candidates about the Epstein Files with Epstein victims present. “Wait, is that Shawn McCreesh’s boyfriend?” a Fox News regular asked Cockburn, looking at McLaughlin. Apparently not.
When the hosts were not podcasting, BaRNC was pumping out rap music. Cockburn found himself nodding along to Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” as he typed up his notes.
Spotted: Michael Alfonso and Evita Duffy, Natalie Allison, Billy Binion, Harry Cole, Josh Christenson, Calli Cooper, Roma Daravi, Dylan Housman, Max Kendix, Scott Jennings, Dana and Chris Loesch, Katie Pavlich, Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, Secretary Brooke Rollins, Brent and Cassie Scher and Kara Voght.
As the conference was in the Blaze’s backyard, the outlet hosted a Wednesday night reception at the Monterrey Club. Seasoned convention guests hit the liquor hard and chomped on cigars at the fashionable Mexican restaurant. The venue offered respite to a number of the journalists who’d been complaining about the “beige food” on offer in the convention center.
Spotted: Glenn Beck, Christopher Bedford, John Campbell, Vince Coglianese, Cory Crowley, Steve Deace, Rikki Fellman, Sara Gonzalez, Pat Gray, Mike Howell, Giuseppe Macri, Bill McMorris, Breanna Morello and Andy Olivastro.
Jetset
On the flight to Dallas, one tipster spotted Comfortably Smug and Josh Holmes, the public affairs gurus who cohost the Ruthless podcast, posted up in first class. Further back the plane slumming it in coach: former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Consulting pays.
Get. Their. Attention.
Erika Kirk chose to spend the anniversary of her husband’s killing in private, with her two children. She hosted a dinner with friends and Turning Point USA employees in Arizona last week, the Daily Mail reported. “There was a lot of love in that room,” a source said.
A respectful somber news item that the Mail ran with the subject line, “Erika Kirk’s secret death anniversary summit.”
On our radar
SAUDI SLAM Family members of 9/11 victims offered harsh criticism of the past presidents in attendance at the memorial in New York, for failing to investigate Saudi Arabia’s role. “Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what’s left of the victims families are still alive to see it,” said one.
POOL DUTY Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor that re-lined the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work was responsible for the peeling lining, not vandalism.
FANCY A PINT? The new pub at the British Embassy, the Two Georges, will open next week.
Britannia rules the waves
Cockburn was at Georgetown’s Cafe Milano Tuesday for the second anniversary of GB News’s US operation. Enormous flags, the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, loomed over the restaurant’s entrance. A coterie of Americans and Brits crammed into the event space, quaffing wine and gin and tonics and sampling Italian hors d’oeuvres. “I recognize a lot of the people here from online because they would go to the opening of a mouth,” said one attendee. Bev Turner, anchor of the network’s Late Show Live, introduced a roster of speakers. Cockburn hears Turner will be leaving DC in the coming weeks, to be replaced by Tom Harwood, who is being dispatched from London.
Remarks followed from British Ambassador Sir Christian Turner (no relation), Undersecretary of State Sarah Rogers and border czar Tom Homan, who offered a protracted diatribe on the sexual assault of migrant children which went on a touch too long for a cocktail reception. Nigel Farage, slipping away from the scandals his party is mired in back in Blighty, concluded the speaking section in good spirits. The party was a successor to a flamboyant affair at the Ned to announce the channel’s launch this time last year. GB News was nonetheless content to talk up their 2.7 billion views on YouTube in 2025. Britain and America’s mutual fascination continues.
Spotted: Tim Andrews, Katy Balls, Tiffany Marie Brannon, Sam Clark, Steve Clemons, Kellyanne Conway, Tom Corbett-Dillon, Melinda Haring, Jacob Heilbrunn, Reem Ibrahim, Raheem Kassam, Ben Leo, Adele and David Malpass, Alexandra Preate, Sarakshi Rai, Robby Soave and Jie Jung Shih, Sir Christian and Lady Turner, Sarakshi Rai, Will Ruger and Caroline Wren.
Libertarians gone seedy
Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie have been thorns in the side of the second Trump administration – holding the torch for fiscal rectitude in an age of populist MAGAnomics.
Yet this week, the two libertarians have exhibited a certain grubbiness when it comes to public money. First came Massie’s tongue-in-cheek response to Trump’s proposal to give every American adult $5,000 if the GOP wins the midterms. “I don’t know about you all, but frankly I’m insulted by the notion that my vote this November could be bought for 5k,” he said. “All things considered, I cannot in good conscience accept a penny less than 10k!” Let the good times roll, Congressman.
More seriously, an investigation by Politico has now revealed that Senator Rand Paul spent $18,000 of taxpayer money renting a private jet for himself and six aides. Paul chartered the plane while participating in a bipartisan investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. A worthy cause, perhaps – but this was for one flight, from the nation’s capital to Pittsburgh. An ex-Trump official has called the move “highly irregular.”
That’s not all, however. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the Senator has spent around $82,000 on private jets since the middle of 2024, according to Senate expenditure records reviewed by Politico. Tea was once dumped into Boston Harbor for less…
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