Cockburn’s Diary

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.

If DC wants to eschew its reputation as being “Hollywood for ugly people,” politicos could start by dressing better. While the Senate has been in a marathon session that’s included several late-night votes, the breakdown in dress code has been remarkable in recent days — and the problem goes beyond Senator John Fetterman’s reluctance to wear a collared shirt if civilization depended on it. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of “Derek Guy” — a pseudonymous self-styled menswear expert who is more reply guy than Louis Vuitton reincarnate. In his latest missive, Guy rated the best-dressed members of Congress... and named Senator Bernie Sanders as one of the most fashionable in the upper house.

Massie hysteria: CR holdout branded ‘Congress’s Keith Olbermann’ President Donald Trump and House Republicans have seemingly written off their maverick colleague Congressman Thomas Massie for any help when it comes to funding the government. The party is wrangling with Massie over his opposition to the latest continuing resolution, which would avoid a government shutdown if passed. “I’m not voting for the Continuing Resolution budget (cut-copy-paste omnibus) this week. Why would I vote to continue the waste fraud and abuse DoGE has found?” Massie explained. “It’s oppositional defiance disorder,” one veteran House Republican staffer speculated. “He is Congress’s Keith Olbermann — who was sued by Al Gore and fired by Rupert Murdoch.

Who could have predicted that a pair of (accused) sex-trafficking British-born brothers could cause such a stir in the Sunshine State? The brief return of manosphere influencers Tristan and Andrew Tate to Florida has become a flashpoint in state politics. Governor Ron DeSantis has directed his attorney general, close ally James Uthmeier, to investigate the brothers. DeSantis is thought to favor his wife Casey as a potential successor when he leaves office in 2026, as opposed to Congressman Byron Donalds, who served as a Trump campaign surrogate.

Welcome to Cockburn’s Diary, a new newsletter from The Spectator sent twice a week from the nation’s capital. Your intrepid correspondent will keep you informed about all the whispers circulating around town. Coming to your inboxes on Tuesdays and Fridays... President Donald Trump is addressing a joint session of Congress tonight — but don’t you dare call it a State of the Union; that term is reserved for speeches given in non-inauguration years. The president is expected to tout successes from the first forty-three days of his second term, while some Democrats are expected to skip it — or to protest by holding up props like egg cartons to spotlight the high cost of groceries.

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” wrote billionaire Jeff Bezos in a Wednesday note to the staff of his newspaper, the Washington Post. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.” The missive from on high sent shockwaves around the capital. David Shipley, the Post’s Opinion editor, stepped away from his role over the new directive. Libertarian magazine Reason had a field day: “If this sounds like something you might want to read, may I suggest @reason where we’ve been doing this since 1968?” wrote editor-in-chief Katherine Mangu-Ward.

National Harbor, Maryland Cockburn has been poring over ostentatious Elon Musk fan art, reexamining that guide to which salutes are allowed and playing a mental game of “what’s that nice lady done to her face?” He is, of course, addressing you from the press pen of the Conservative Political Action Conference across the river from DC. The crowd seems older than previous years, with fewer college students milling around. Cockburn feels like the only person who wasn’t in the Capitol on January 6, 2021: he saw a couple of gents in Proud Boy attire rolling around, beers in hand, at 3 p.m. on Thursday — and while on his way in he was behind one recently freed prisoner and his four-month-old service dog in training, Whitney.