00:00Why did you guys want to do this? This is not something that I normally associate TMZ with,
00:05but it seems to be blowing up. Well, we've been doing politics for years,
00:09so it's not anything new to us. Honestly, this was very spontaneous. We were interviewing a TSA
00:20agent last week, and she was telling us what she is going through. And it's not just worrying about
00:29losing her apartment, not being able to feed her kids, being in food lines, but her mental and
00:34physical health were just deteriorating. And to listen to her and then know that these members
00:43of Congress were just going to bail and leave town and not fund a bill that would give them something
00:53that's lifesaving was just enraging. And we spontaneously just said, look, if anybody's
01:00watching this who cares enough, send us pictures, send us videos of these members of Congress who
01:08are vacationing and living their lives as people like this woman are suffering the way she is.
01:15And we got a big response. That's what I was going to ask you, how the response has been. I
01:20mean,
01:20I've seen the CODEL, which is the congressional trip to Scotland. You had a bunch of pictures from
01:25that. I saw Cory Booker in L.A., Lindsey Graham with a bubble wand in Disney World, Ted Cruz. I
01:31mean,
01:31you seem to be getting a lot of pictures. Are you paying for these? Are you getting more than
01:35you're publishing?
01:37They're giving us, people are giving us pictures. They're mad. I mean, that's the other thing.
01:42It's, it's, it's amazing to me how insulated people are, you know, in the beltway where they
01:51don't seem, I don't think they really understood, um, what they were doing when they did it. I don't
01:58think they knew the outrage people felt that they were leaving town. You mean going on vacation while
02:03DHS shut down? Yeah, because we were calling their offices. When we got a picture, we would call their
02:08offices and they would almost be shocked that why are people so upset about this? I mean, they,
02:15they just couldn't process it. Is there any concern that this could backfire and make being a reporter
02:22on Capitol Hill even harder? Press access, getting these guys to talk about anything substantive
02:27is difficult. We do chase them down hallways frequently. Is there any concern that this will
02:33make them hide from us even more? Okay. So let me tell you something. Um, we are going to increase
02:40our presence in DC. We're going to have full-time people there. And, um, especially in the last week
02:47or so, I cannot tell you how many people, in some cases, members of Congress, and in other cases, their
02:56staffs who have called us and said, this is great. Um, we're going to give you stories. Um,
03:03we, we are excited. You're like policy stories or is this like dirt on the guy they're fighting
03:08with down the hall? Dirt. I mean, look, we're, we're going to do two things because we've already
03:13been doing, you know, this idea of pop culture meeting politics. And we've had frankly, a lot of
03:18success with that. Um, and, um, and it's fun and there's a dirt, it's just fun. And we're going to
03:25be
03:25doing a mix of that with real important stories. And people are actually more willing to give us
03:32stories, um, because of this. I mean, this is not just, you know, people on the outside. There are
03:40members of Congress who feel they were kind of roped into this recess because they really didn't
03:44have a voice because it was the leadership that made the decision. So don't think that, you know,
03:52535 members are going to scurry away from reporters. Uh, in a way it's the opposite.
03:57I was a DC reporter for most of my career, covered the white house, covered state department,
04:01Congress. Part of me thinks exactly what you're thinking. It could use a shakeup. We could use
04:05fresh blood. We could always use accountability. The more the merrier. But part of me is worried
04:10about, you know, there's an argument that beat reporting kind of broke Congress because all these
04:15little sound bites and all these little like incremental scoops, lost sight of the bigger
04:20issues. And they made the conversation so myopic that big things can't get done. And I guess I am
04:25a little bit concerned about that. Does that worry you at all?
04:29You know, it's funny you say that. I think it's the exact opposite. That what we've noticed is,
04:35I think you're right, that they have gotten involved in looking at small things and thinking
04:41that that's the story. Yeah. And when you look at what we're doing with these photographs and
04:46videos, it's really the big thing we're doing. Because what we're doing is we're showing how the
04:52public feels about them. And I think they've lost that big view of it and started looking at it, you
05:00know, the blame game that the Republicans didn't vote on this or the Democrats didn't do that.
05:04And they're not stepping back and looking at Congress as a whole. Before I let you go,
05:10I just want to ask you, you're you seem so passionate about this. And I'm wondering if
05:14this is, is this a legacy issue for you? Is this something that you want to make part of your
05:19brand? Or is it just that you got really pissed off and wanted to do something about it in the
05:23moment? Well, first of all, when you ask us, is it a legacy issue? I think what you're saying is
05:27I'm going to die soon. So thank you. I'm not. And I realized it came out that way. But I
05:32was
05:32already committed at that point. So I just, that's okay. I know the reality. I'll be honest
05:38with you. Two years into TMZ, and this was 18 years ago, when we were with Warner Brothers,
05:47we were going to launch TMZ DC way back then. And we, I went back to Washington numerous times,
05:55hired a staff. The night we had our dinner before the next day when we were going to launch, I
06:00got
06:01a call from Warner Brothers saying, we're killing it because they just got cold feet and they were
06:06scared. And so it's not something we just thought of. This is something, at least for me,
06:12it's been in my head for many, many years. And we've covered it kind of, you know, piecemeal,
06:18but we're going to jump in now. And yeah, I mean, I have a personal passion for it because I've
06:27always
06:28been into politics, but I also think it's important. And frankly, I also think this is a part of pop
06:33culture. And, you know, even before Trump, I mean, Obama was a rock star and, you know, for many
06:40years, you know, politicians have kind of captured the imagination of a lot of people in various
06:45different ways. I mean, John Fetterman is just an interesting figure. So, you know, what is a
06:52celebrity? What is somebody who is in the middle of pop culture? That's a very broad thing in this
06:57country.
Comments