Cockburn’s Diary

At the start of the week, The Spectator wondered how on earth Speaker Mike Johnson would get the Big, Beautiful Bill through the House, in the face of unified Democratic party opposition and seemingly intractable divides on the GOP side. The answer, it turns out, involved copious amounts of alcohol, side deals, naps, late-night staff shifts and the Democratic gerontocracy. Congressman Gerry Connolly’s sudden death on Wednesday shocked Washington. It also proved to be a boon to Johnson’s math. The Speaker ended up with more wiggle room, because one Republican who failed to vote slept through the late-night final tally. After months of debate, the House passed the bill 215-214; it now heads to the Senate, which is poised to change it and send it back.

Alina Habba, President Trump’s new United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, got her first major collar this week: Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, who Habba charged with assaulting, impeding or interfering with law enforcement after a scuffle outside an ICE facility got rowdy. One of McIver’s Republican colleagues in Congress quipped to Cockburn that there are “so many Democrats breaking the law,” yet “so few US Attorneys ready to charge them for it.” Habba’s actions were predictably opposed by all Democrats in Congress, and may already be reshaping the governor’s race in Habba’s home state of New Jersey. Where you sit on this issue determines whether you think McIver is guilty of assaulting ICE agents.

Who knew what about Joe Biden’s mental state and when did they know it? That question has driven a lot of Washington chatter this week, thanks to the upcoming release of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Ex-Biden aides, cabinet secretaries and 2028 potentials have been under scrutiny – but so have the book’s authors. Tapper has gone so far as to retain top crisis PR agent Risa Heller, the Breaker newsletter reports. Heller’s clients have included Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents. Why does the CNN anchor find himself in such esteemed company in the week of his book launch?

How Biden blew it Joe Biden’s final act is to serve as the Democrats’ tell-tale heart. His public appearances are a haunting reminder of the lie told by so many in their party: that there was nothing wrong with the 46th president during his time in office. Biden is on a “don’t call it a comeback” tour ahead of the release of a book from Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper that threatens to reveal the poor physical and mental state the president was in during his time in office. So far we’ve learned that Biden’s “physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024 that advisors privately discussed the possibility he’d need to use a wheelchair if he won re-election.

Melaniabsent Where in the world is Melania Trump? That’s the topic of a dishy piece from the New York Times’s Shawn McCreesh. The First Lady “vanishes from view for weeks at a time, holing up in Trump Tower in Manhattan or in Florida, where she can lie low at Mar-a-Lago,” writes McCreesh. “It’s like having Greta Garbo as first lady.” Despite staffing up the East Wing, “she rarely goes into the office.” It has been suggested that the First Lady would not be spending much time in Washington during her husband’s second term, preferring to be in New York with her son Barron or down in Florida. However, McCreesh writes, “Even regulars at Mar-a-Lago say they don’t often see Mrs. Trump around the premises.

Met Gala turns @TheDemocrats into @PopCrave Celebrities from the music industry, the NFL and Hollywood joined Kamala Harris at the annual Met Gala fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. In an embarrassing tweet emulating viral celebrity accounts such as @PopCrave, @TheDemocrats (yes, the official social media account for the entire Democratic party) wrote, “Kamala Harris stuns at the Met Gala.” The defeated presidential candidate wore a black and white dress in a possible homage to Cruella de Vil. Despite the online slavering at DNC HQ, Emily Smith notes elsewhere in The Spectator that Harris’s audience might have been on the other coast.

Lateral moves instead of scalps in Trump 2.0 “You’re fired” is the phrase that catapulted Donald Trump into the public imagination two decades ago – but it’s something that he seems reticent to tell the people who work in his administration. Trump briefly set the world on fire (again!) after everyone learned that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was… leaving. One Trumpworld veteran told Cockburn that Waltz’s departure was a “disaster.” While the specifics remain murky, Trump gave Waltz what one administration insider called a “golden parachute” by announcing that Waltz is shipping up to Turtle Bay as America’s next ambassador to the United Nations, nomination pending. The writing was on the wall for Waltz as soon as the Signalgate scandal blew up.

By now, you have surely got a flavor of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and all the accompanying parties that took place over the weekend. After all, the DC media has nothing to talk about other than itself. The President long ago chose not to attend, and that the intimation was that members of his administration should skip the “MSM” events too. There were fewer celebrities than ever – not least because the White House Correspondents’ Association got rid of the comedian who was set to provide the entertainment. The gargantuan TIME after-party – your correspondent saw the entry tally at over 2,470 when he arrived at 11:30 – smelled like feet due to the Raclette on the rear terrace.

The White House press corps ouroboros If there’s one thing worse than a journalist writing about the media, it’s a journalist writing about other journalists writing about the media. Cockburn hopes you can forgive him for this gross transgression – but White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend seems as good a time as any to take stock of the very odd relationship between reporters who cover the White House and the President’s press shop. Take Donie O’Sullivan’s CNN segment this week on “Trump-friendly journalists,” in which he speaks to LindellTV’s Cara Castronuova, Real America’s Voice Brian Glenn (aka Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend) and, of course, War Room’s Natalie Winters, who he groups together as “MAGA Media.

A surprising item from Down Under: Aidan Maese-Czeropski, the former Senate staffer who was fired after he and his partner filmed themselves in flagrante delicto on Amy Klobuchar’s desk in Hart 216, has resurfaced in Australia after touring the world. Maese-Czeropski gave an interview to the Gay Sydney News about the fallout from his December 2023 rendezvous – which readers of this newsletter were the first to learn about. Maese-Czeropski, who worked as a legislative assistant for then-senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, says he spent “a little bit in the psych ward” after his firing, before moving to Sydney by way of South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean. https://www.instagram.

Biden his time Cockburn struggles to get inside the mind of a billionaire. You amass or inherit a great fortune and can spend it however you please. You could send your spicy second wife to space with Katy Perry, or import Instagram influencers to your Gulf state. But surely there are more charitable uses of great wealth? Here’s one: help the aged and get Joe Biden to speak for you, as best he can. Steven Nelson of the New York Post revealed yesterday how the former president had been struggling to find takers for speaking engagements after leaving office. “CAA is having trouble booking gigs, which isn’t surprising,” a source told the Post.

Former governor uses AI to co-author housing plan If you were worried about disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo being too “hands-on” during his run for New York mayor, fear not: the Love Gov’s campaign has an impersonal touch to it. Local news site Hell Gate exposed how the 29-page housing plan released by the Cuomo campaign bore the hallmarks of being partially put together using ChatGPT. One particularly unparsable passage: Nevertheless, several candidates for mayor this year have either called directly for a rent increase or for other measures that would tilt the scale toward lower rent increases. This is a politically convenient posture, but to be in. Victory if landlords — small landlords in particular — are simply unable to maintain their buildings.

Douglas Murray and the end of ‘historians’ ‘It’s pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, “I don’t know what I’m talking about but now I’m gonna talk”’ Who gets to call themselves an expert? That’s the big question featured in a bruising episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, in which Rogan hosts The Spectator’s Douglas Murray and the libertarian comedian Dave Smith. Murray accuses Rogan of opening “the door to quite a lot of people who’ve now got a big platform, who’ve been throwing out counter-historical stuff of a very dangerous kind.” The nearly three-hour-long program begins with Murray asking if Rogan feels that his show has been “tilted one way” in its guest selection: Dave Smith v.

The British aren’t coming Congresswoman requires US ID to cover her panel Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene chaired a meeting of the House DoGE committee this morning, with the express purpose of cracking down on unused government buildings. “Federal agencies shouldn’t be maintaining empires at taxpayers’ expense,” she said in her opening statement. But Cockburn’s curiosity was piqued by the new wording at the bottom of her office’s media advisory ahead of the event, which specified that journalists seeking to cover it required American documentation: “Media and the public entering the building will need a valid U.S. passport or driver’s license and will need to be escorted to the auditorium.

MILFS for America Porn star date proves to be mother’s ruin for top DC lobbyist Marty Irby is one of DC’s top lobbyists, commended four times in the last six years by the Hill, largely for his work on animal wellbeing. But one client of his was less pleased with his choice of humans. Irby represented Moms for America, the conservative education nonprofit that gathered steam during the Covid pandemic. His taste in women proved to not be to their liking: he brought the adult film star Alexa Payne as his plus-one to a Moms for America gala at Mar-a-Lago last November. Payne, 28, starred in films including this year’s Stepmom Sex Ed 9, 2023’s Free Use Stepmom Vol.

Wisco inferno Billionaires and carpetbaggers dominate first elections of Trump’s second term Voters in Wisconsin and Florida head to the polls today, including one local election that’s set to break spending records for a race of its kind. In Wisconsin, the open race for the state’s Supreme Court takes top billing, as it will determine whether Democrat-backed judges keep their majority. The stakes are high and the spending reflects that; billionaires from both parties have poured tens of millions of dollars into the race. White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk hosted a GOTV rally during which he also doled out million-dollar checks to Wisconsin voters.

Hill Country bye-bye-Q Cockburn wishes farewell to karaoke mainstay and watches baseball fans fight DC is evolving. Cockburn honored the memory of Hill Country Barbecue Karaoke on Wednesday night, ahead of the downtown hotspot closing its doors for good today. No tickets were available at the door and the line snaked throughout the restaurant as Hill staffers, hacks and college students pored in for one last singalong. The live band whipped through staples such as “Mr. Brightside,” “Redneck Woman” and “Before He Cheats” (twice). A number of veterans also took to the stage: one former host told the crowd that he’d had his first kiss with his now-wife upstairs.

District winos Washington second for excessive drinking – behind Montana Cockburn’s malign influence appears to be spreading its way across the capital: new data reveals that DC is now tied second in the nation for having the most excessive drinkers, alongside North Dakota and Iowa. Only Montana has the district beat, according to a 2025 update to the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps report from the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute.

Wired for sound Rumors abound about god king’s exit The right-wing media rumor mill threatened to spin off its axis earlier this week with the shock announcement that “god king” Jeremy Boreing was stepping down as co-CEO of the Daily Wire. Boreing, a keen film enthusiast who starred, wrote and directed in the Wire’s comedy movie Lady Ballers, is withdrawing to “focus on creative projects for the company,” per Axios’s Sara Fischer. The DW’s many detractors had a field day with the news – speculating that there was more to the story. Boreing and Ben Shapiro had fallen out, one hater claimed, and were retaining different PR agents to brief against each other!

Can you pass the MAGA moral purity test? The White House’s Presidential Personnel Office is ticking off Republicans with some of its policy hires – or rejections. While President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dead set on slashing government jobs via the Department of Government Efficiency, some in the GOP are frustrated that PPO is rejecting political appointees with apparently sterling MAGA credentials. They feel that PPO is flexing its muscles over both agency heads and Republican senators. Both groups have made requests for specific hires only to see their chosen candidates rejected by PPO, oftentimes with virtually no explanation, multiple high-level spurned applicants told Cockburn.