Mary Margaret Olohan

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.

Pole position Where did you take in last night’s car crash of a presidential debate? Cockburn was holed up in his DC townhouse, washing away the night’s many embarrassments with a glass of Macallan 15. If only he’d known he could have enhanced the viewing experience by watching at a New York gentlemen’s club — as @botticellibimbo, who writes the Strippernomics newsletter on Substack, revealed. “the worst thing about them playing the debate at the strip club rn is that neither sound nor subtitles are on so its just the vibe of the debate,” she tweeted. “the never ending loop of mindless edm playing over this... i imagine it’s what’s going inside their minds.” “ok update at our back bar they do have the sound on!

Are books about Tucker Carlson not guaranteed bestsellers? That’s the claim of Politico’s Michael Schaffer today, who revealed that Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind by the New York Times magazine’s Jason Zengerle has been shelved by Little, Brown & Co. According to Schaffer, “the cancellation stems at least in part from the belief that Carlson, once the biggest name on cable, no longer has the kind of cultural footprint to warrant a pricey, complicated book by a top-shelf writer.” Tucker Carlson, publishing house poison?

With her vote to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, Nancy Mace has made herself the pariah of the House. And after donning a red, Scarlet Letter-style “A” on her chest to reflect this as she headed into House GOP meetings this week, she caught the ire of the Capitol Hill Fashion Police too. One of her colleagues intimated the “A” must stand for “attention” — and lamented that “there wasn’t enough bling” on it and that “a light-up version would’ve been better.” In a Congress filled with all but literal skeletons, Mace stands out for her relative youth. One staffer had no problem with her choice of outfits this week.