Natalie Winters

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.

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.