Cockburn’s Diary

It’s finally here: the Donald Trump mugshot, already one of the most iconic images of the twenty-first century. Trump scowls into the camera at the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, clad in his trademark navy suit and red tie, eyes brimming with contempt. And his campaign is well aware of the image’s power. “If you are a campaign, PAC , scammer and you try raising money off the mugshot of  @realDonaldTrump and you have not received prior permission …WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU    you will NOT SCAM DONORS,” Trump 2024 senior advisor Chris LaCivita posted on X Thursday.

Is the Democratic Party trying to be more masculine? An eagle-eyed political observer pointed out recently that the DNC’s official logo has mysteriously changed color without any public fanfare. The logo, which features a “D” inside of a circle, used to be a sky blue. At some point in 2022, the “D” went quite a few shades darker to a royal blue. You can spot the difference in this side-by-side: A graphic design expert tells Cockburn that the change might have been an attempt to make the party’s colors better match its newfound lip service to the working class under Biden. Alternatively, they may be trying to cash in on those “dark Brandon” memes! A tale of two Naomis There are few things more annoying than being mistaken for someone else.

Fumble! Everyone is dropping the ball when it comes to mixing sports and politics. President Joe Biden tried to relate to former Democratic senator Martin Heinrich with a ham-fisted football reference, telling him, “I’m glad I was a flanker back. I’m glad I didn’t have you on the other side as a tight end.”  https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1689355172957323265 Unfortunately, the term “flanker back” is only known to anyone under the age of eighty as a wide receiver. Plus a flanker would never be squaring off against a tight end, since they’re both offensive positions. Oh, Uncle Joe!  Meanwhile, one of Biden’s potential 2024 opponents, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, clearly should have stuck to baseball.

Are you a NATO member, single and ready to mingle? Following former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin’s split from her husband of nineteen years, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced, via a heartbreaking Instagram post, that he and his wife Sophie were set to separate. Rumors that two of the world’s most photogenic leaders could shack up appear to be jumping the gun — but Cockburn is somewhat curious that Sophie, a close pal of Meghan Markle’s from her Suits-taping days in Toronto, is set to ditch her powerful hubby. Needless to say, the leaders of Finland and Canada could have existed in marital bliss had they only considered the very French option of marrying your schoolteacher, as Monsier le President Macron did... Jared Kushner’s uncle donated to... Chris Christie?

South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace has been floated as a potential vice presidential pick for Donald Trump. If her remarks at a prayer breakfast this week are anything to go by, she’d be a great fit, as she shares the Donald’s knack for scandalizing evangelicals. “I woke up this morning at 7,” Mace told the group Thursday morning. “Patrick, my fiancé, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed and I was like, ‘No baby, we don’t got time for that this morning. I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.’” An online furore followed, with some puritans pearl-clutching over the fact that Mace, a divorcée, was bragging about having premarital sex. “I go to church because I’m a sinner not because I’m a saint!

An official guide to covering the White House created by the White House Correspondents’ Association confirms that Karine Jean-Pierre is intentionally selective about which media outlets she calls on at White House press briefings. The document, last updated in March 2023, notes that “the current press secretary has indicated she prefers not to call on people who are standing.” Of course, the seats in the briefing room are assigned by the WHCA and mostly reserved for left-leaning legacy media outlets — particularly the first few rows. Anyone else looking to get a question in is probably better off staying home... Tucking in to Tucker Fox News may have gone cold on him, but Tucker Carlson’s biographer Chadwick Moore sure knows how to put on a spread.

Get in loser, we’re going to brunch! The Biden White House is proving its liberal bonafides by eschewing “lunch lids” in favor of the much more elite — and very DC — “brunch lid.” The White House typically calls a temporary press lid for a couple of hours each afternoon. This is a period of time where there are no public events on the president’s schedule and everyone in the press corps is allowed to rest and recharge. Previous administrations were big on calling these “lunch lids,” but due to the pause on activity starting earlier in the day and the Biden admin just being bad and bougie, “brunch lid” has become the new favorite term.

The case against Kamala’s coke The latest twist in the White House cocaine saga sees NBC News clarify that the substance was found in an entrance area “near where some vehicles, like the vice president’s limo or SUV, park.” But Cockburn isn’t convinced of Kamala’s credibility as a possible culprit. Just listen to the Veep at the Essence Festival this week: https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1677092627567595521 Well, I think culture is... it is a reflection of our moment in our time. Right. And... and... and... present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment. And... and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment. That is a reflection of joy because, ev- you know. It comes in the morning (laugh).

It’s not just women’s high school and college sports that need to be protected from biological men, apparently. The DC intramural softball circuit has become another battleground for “trans rights.” Cockburn has learned that Democratic and progressive co-ed teams are skirting league rules regarding how many women must play in each game by filling their spots with trans women — i.e. those born as males. The Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank, fielded an over-six-foot trans woman in a recent game against a conservative media outlet. Some players on the team said that it didn’t matter much because the person was not very good at softball, while others got the impression that he/she was intentionally playing poorly to avoid criticism.

Journalists are OUT, influencers are IN. That’s the chief finding from a new report by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, which discovered that 55 percent of TikTok and Snapchat users, and 52 percent of Instagram users, get their news from “personalities,” compared to 33-42 percent who get it from mainstream media outlets or journalists on the same platforms. “This Reuters study once again validates what I have been saying for over a decade,” Taylor Lorenz told Cockburn, “content creators are the new media and it’s been that way for a while.” The Washington Post columnist has long banged the drum about the importance of emerging social media platforms and the importance of members of the media cultivating brands on them.

The speculation in Trumpworld surrounding Mark Meadows, and whether the former congressman and White House chief of staff handed Special Counsel Jack Smith the tools he needed to indict the former president, continues to rise.  It’s already known that Meadows’s staff was the source of an audio recording where the former president made comments about the classified documents he took from the White House — they recorded an interview in July 2021 at Bedminster for Meadows’s memoir about his time in the White House, The Chief’s Chief, which you can purchase at Amazon in hardcover for a very modest $8.07. Trump discussed a document, one that he said he ought to have declassified before leaving the White House, about potentially attacking Iran.

Mad Joe Manchin yells at journos Senator Joe Manchin is furious — and he’s letting reporters know. Sources close to the West Virginia senator tell Cockburn that Manchin is fuming over a recent article in Fox News giving credit to House Republicans, and not Manchin, for the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The new major pipeline could help Manchin politically as he faces a perilous path to reelection next year. “Manchin is furiously calling reporters himself to push back on it,” according to a West Virginia source, despite that “the truth is that he played a relatively minor role in finally getting MVP done.

Emma Tucker has had her work cut out for her since she was moved from London to New York, and from the editorship of the Sunday Times to the helm of the Wall Street Journal. The step up to the pride of Murdoch’s newspaper stable from its plucky British cousin was enough of a challenge. Then Evan Gershkovich was arrested by Vladimir Putin’s goons, putting the paper’s leadership into full-blown crisis-management mode. Cockburn understands that the flat-out Tucker has been underwhelmed by the work ethic of her new American colleagues. “What do they all do all day?” she is reportedly prone to wondering out loud.

Senator Joe Manchin is eyeing the presidency... of West Virginia University, multiple Mountain State sources tell Cockburn. While Manchin hasn’t publicly expressed interest in the job, the stars may be aligning perfectly for him. Charleston political circles have been abuzz with the rumors of his interest for weeks now.  Seventy-five-year-old Manchin will be weighing all options that don’t entail a near-certain defeat at the ballot box in West Virginia next year, meaning a near-certain defeat at the national ballot box with a quixotic third party presidential campaign is unlikely. The presidency of WVU, which Manchin attended on a football scholarship before an injury derailed his career, makes a lot of sense for both parties.

Has FreedomWorks gone FreedomWoke? FreedomWorks has gone FreedomWoke? That’s the charge of a new campaign by Berman and Co, which says the Koch-funded group’s new COO, Marty Irby, has a history of working with radical animal rights groups with close connections to PETA... and Democrats. FreedomWorks, meanwhile, is a grassroots organization that advocates for free markets, personal liberty and lower taxes.Cockburn notes that Irby’s biography on the FreedomWorks website leaves out these details, instead listing only his lobbyist and consulting work with Republicans. According to his LinkedIn, the last time he worked directly for a member of the GOP was between late 2013 and early 2016, when he served as a communications director for Representative Ed Whitfield.

You’d think Fox Corporation would be sick of lawsuits by now — but there’s life in the old dog yet. The company has sent a letter to Media Matters for America, after the left-wing watchdog spent the week drip-feeding what they’ve brazenly titled “FOXLEAKS.” So far the “scoops” consist of... Tucker Carlson cracking a few jokes between segments.Fox lawyers write that the footage was “unlawfully obtained.” This has ruined Cockburn’s chances of winning $5, because he was sure Fox were the leakers. Cockburn’s second guess was Abby Grossberg, the former Tucker booker suing her old bosses for maintaining a toxic work environment — but a source familiar with the show says they don’t think it’s Abby.

A couple of years ago, you’d probably know Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for being one of the world’s most vocal antivaxxers, the black sheep of an American political dynasty and somehow married to Cheryl Hines from Curb Your Enthusiasm. A couple of years from now... might you know him as the US’s unlikeliest president?RFK Jr. is challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024. The DNC has declared that it won’t host primary debates — yet a Fox News poll this week showed Kennedy with 19 percent to Biden’s 62 percent. If the Facebook algorithm can help RFK inch that support up ten points or so, could the Democrats be forced to platform him?And who knows: Kennedy’s candidacy could prove to be a real shot in the arm for the Democratic grassroots.

Mood inside Fox ‘ebullient’ after Dominion settlement This week’s biggest surprise was Tuesday’s last-ditch $787 million settlement of the Dominion v. Fox News lawsuit. Despite the eye-watering payout, Fox sources tell Cockburn that the mood internally at the network was “ebullient.” This is perhaps unsurprising, given how Fox’s foes were slavering at the prospect of Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity et al being hauled before the court. Also Cockburn understands that Fox will only end up shelling out around half of the settlement fee, due to insurance liability coverage. Plus, the payout is tax deductible: what a bargain! Cockburn guesses we’ll have to wait for the next trial of the century...

Welcome back, Cocaine Mitch! Cockburn reported Thursday that three top Republican senators — John Barrasso, John Cornyn and John Thune — had been “actively reaching out” to other GOP senators ahead of a possible leadership vote, “including the sixteen who voted to delay the leadership election earlier this year.” Shortly after publication, Leader McConnell tweeted, “I am looking forward to returning to the Senate on Monday.” And in an emphatic response to his Senate colleagues’ machinations, McConnell returned to the Capitol on Friday afternoon, for the first time in over a month. https://twitter.

Dylly dilly! Conservatives have been dumping out their Bud Lights lately — or in Kid Rock's case, shooting them —over the beer giant's decision to enter into a brand partnership with trans TikTokker Dylan Mulvaney. Higher-ups at Anheuser-Busch are thought to have been caught flat-footed by the scandal and resulting boycott and are fearful of potential financial ramifications. Could Mulvaney's other corporate partners be next? They include Nike, MAC Cosmetics, Ulta Beauty, the Qatari-owned Plaza Hotel and, most bizarrely considering Dylan's lack of a womb, Tampax... The Little Mermaid (she/her) Disney’s new live-action remake of The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey is going even more PC.