DC influencer Tony P has returned to the spotlight, in a Washingtonian profile titled “Guess What? Tony P Hates You, Too.” Cockburn would be remiss not to point out that The Spectator was first to cover Tony P’s rise to niche internet local celebrity back in August 2023.
Tony P’s earnest tone has shifted significantly since then, as is made evident by the interview. He appears embittered by the fact that his brand-partnership earnings have decreased, from making half a million dollars at the height of his influence to now bringing in less than he made as a consultant (just below six figures). He is wistful about his “25 minutes” in the spotlight: “I stretched it out a decent amount of time. A year and a half is not that bad. I think 15 minutes is like, you know, Hawk Tuah.”
Cockburn’s favorite Tony P fact is that he’s represented by Courtney Klain, daughter-in-law of Joe Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron. Presumably keeping confused men in the limelight for a little too long is a trait that runs in the family.
A central theme in the story is that while the money is drying up, the snark persists. Haters, after all, are the most loyal of fans. Cockburn only keeps up with one person from high school, the friend turned enemy whose downfall he eagerly awaits. “I have this intense anger at those people,” Tony told Washingtonian.
Tony wants to pivot to a more sustained career in television – his original dream was to be a broadcaster, before going to the University of Richmond for accounting like a reasonable person. It could be a beautiful arc.
Cockburn remembers the last time he saw Tony P, at Eebee’s, a fake dive bar for yuppies. Tony seemed different in person than Cockburn expected (confident, relaxed, he was with a girl). Last winter, when the run-in happened, his earnings would have already been dipping. Perhaps this Washingtonian profile is a last-ditch effort to pull in the pity clicks. And look at us, feeding right into it.
On our radar
FOR TODD’S SAKE Senator Bill Cassidy announced his support for Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general, clearing the way for his confirmation.
BRITISH INVASION UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband met with Marco Rubio this week. Then Reform’s “shadow chancellor” Robert Jenrick posted a picture with J.D. Vance this morning.
HOME IMPROVEMENT DC is America’s “next billionaire boomtown” according to a Wall Street Journal piece that looks at the purchase of trophy homes in the area.
You shan’t go to the ball
Donald Trump’s Cinderella story is on pause. A federal appeals panel ordered the halting of White House ballroom construction Friday. In a 2-1 decision, the DC Circuit reaffirmed that the President had exceeded his authority by funding the project with $400 million in private donations – and asserted that congressional approval was required. Cockburn is sure this measured, gradual approach to redevelopment will go down well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
And they were roommates
Amusing scoop courtesy of TMZ DC: Mitch McConnell is Thom Tillis’s landlord. The tabloid’s correspondent Charlie Cotton was staking out McConnell’s DC address awaiting the former Senate majority leader’s return from hospital when he encountered Tillis, the North Carolina Republican, jangling his keys at the rear of the property. “You just visiting Mitch?” Cotton asked. “No, I live here!” replied Tillis, grinning away. Tillis is renting McConnell’s carriage house until the end of his term.
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Miller time
Where were you when you learned that Eric Swalwell and Katie Miller, the wife of Trump ultra-loyalist Stephen Miller, used to hook up? Cockburn was two martinis deep on the smoking terrace of a steakhouse when he read the scoop in Juliegrace Brufke’s Sources Say newsletter.
The report describes an effort from Team Swalwell to prevent the release of information about the congressman’s relationship with “Fang Fang,” a Chinese intelligence operative. His lawyers apparently briefed the Justice Department about Swalwell’s “long-concluded sexual relationship with former senior administration official Katie Miller” who “had been involved with Swalwell when she was in her early 20s.”
“She interned and worked as a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill before serving in the Trump administration,” Brufke writes. Well, Eric does have a type.
It’s intriguing to reflect on that particular coupling of the early 2010s as a cultural sliding-doors moment. How she, the young staffer, would go on to marry the most hardline immigration restrictionist in the American government and how he, the freshly divorced congressman in his early thirties, would become a failed presidential candidate, failed gubernatorial candidate and failed recruit of the Chinese Communist party. What did they talk about? The mind boggles.
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