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TMZ, a tabloid that usually focuses on celebrities, has opened up a D.C. branch

April 15, 2026 | | Print Article

TMZ, a tabloid that usually focuses on celebrities, has opened up a D.C. branch so that it may now start focusing on politicians as well.

“Consisting of three producers—Jakson Buhaj, Jacob Wasserman, and Charlie Cotton—TMZDC is, according to its own announcement, ‘on the hunt for good stories’ as it sets up a new outpost on Capitol Hill,” the Washingtonian reported on Monday.

Speaking with Bloomberg TV earlier this month, TMZ founder and Executive Producer Harvey Levin said that the decision to launch TMZDC was based in part on Congress going on vacation without first approving funding for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA).

“We were interviewing a TSA agent last week, and she was telling us what she is going through — and it’s not just worrying about losing her apartment, not being able to feed her kids, being in food lines, but her mental and physical health were just deteriorating,” he explained.

“And to listen to her and then know that these members of Congress were just gonna bail and leave town and not fund a bill that would give them something that’s lifesaving was just enraging,” he added.

But it was also motivating, in that it convinced TMZ to ask the public to send in photos of members of Congress on vacation. This led to someone forwarding TMZ a picture of Sen. Lindsey Graham wandering around Disney World while holding a bubble wand:

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As part of its first D.C. scoop, a TMZDC interviewer confronted Graham about the bubble wand while at the Capitol on Monday.

Watch:

As seen above, Graham wasn’t very responsive.

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TMZ also used its first day in D.C. to bother Sen. Ted Cruz about the current spat between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV.

“I’ve got a question for you — are you on the Pope’s side or the president’s side?” a TMZ interviewer asked the senator.

“You know what? I’m quite confident both the Pope and the president can speak for themselves,” Cruz replied. “Look, I understand you want to get me in the middle of that. I trust both of them to express their own views.”

The interviewer then tried questioning him about former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s stunning and abrupt fall from grace after years of rumors.

“I had not heard those rumors. I don’t generally pal around with a lot of Democrat House members,” Cruz insisted. “But given just how widespread these allegations are, it seems very likely that it was widely known on the Democrat side.”

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Democrats, meanwhile, are reportedly already maneuvering to take advantage of TMZ’s presence in D.C.

“[S]ome Democratic staffers are already trying to get ahead of TMZ’s arrival,” according to the Washingtonian. “After the outlet’s call for photos of lawmakers during recess, internal discussions began about setting up more formal lines of communication with the gossip site.”

“[I]n a message sent via Signal to more than 250 digital staffers last week, a Democratic aide said the party’s messaging arm would help coordinate outreach to TMZ—while cautioning individual offices not to contact the outlet directly,” the Washingtonian’s reporting continued.

During his Bloomberg interview, Levin vowed to expand TMZDC even further.

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“[I] don’t think that 535 members [of Congress] are going to scurry away from reporters,” he said. “What we’re doing is showing how the public feels about them.”

Vivek Saxena
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