TMZ is flexing in Washington, with high-profile results. What took so long?

WASHINGTON — A former reality television star is in the sixth year of his presidency. His Cabinet includes a former wrestling executive along with a onetime "Real World" cast member who was filmed decades ago dancing in nothing but a towel. More than a half-dozen stars from the "Real Housewives" franchise just swung through Capitol Hill. Shouldn't TMZ have been in Washington already? The tabloid gossip site that reinvented Hollywood and celebrity gossip coverage is taking a swing at the nation's capital of late with TMZ DC, deploying staff to confront lawmakers paparazzi-style in Washington and turning to the public to capture candid images of politicians living it up on the road. The push has already created viral moments, including an image of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., holding a wand at Disney World as chaos gripped airport security lines because of congressional inaction on a funding bill. On Friday, TMZ put its Beltway foray on display at the Pentagon, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth calling on the outlet and singling them out as "new members of our press group here" — a subtle dig that mirrored his not-so-subtle campaign criticism of legacy media outlets. Washington and Hollywood have long had an awkward relationship, with players in each power center harboring insecurities and misunderstandings about the other as politics and entertainment have steadily merged into a single cultural force. Earlier efforts by TMZ to build a Washington bureau faltered. But this time may prove different. President Donald Trump's return to the White House further normalizes a particular brand of celebrity culture in the nation's capital that made him a tabloid fixture for decades. Moreover, Congress is currently gripped by scandal, with three lawmakers resigning in April alone after varying allegations, which include sexual misconduct and fraud. Also, Gallup polling released this week found that disapproval of Congress has climbed to 86%, tying the record high. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump's overall job performance, according to AP-NORC polling released this week. That's a decline of 9 percentage points since early in Trump's second term. Washington's institutions are held in low regard With Washington's institutions held in such low regard, the bigger surprise may be that TMZ hasn't attempted such a flex here sooner. "I am legitimately surprised they weren't already there," said Ana Marie Cox, who wrote the Wonkette blog, which covered Washington with an irreverence that was rare in the early 2000s. "They're actually a little bit late to the game." A representative for TMZ did not respond to a request for comment. TMZ was founded in 2005 and is still run by hard-charging Los Angeles lawyer and media figure Harvey Levin, who has had an off-and-on relationship with Trump. Within a decade, TMZ made its name with a combination of sleazy and sensational celebrity news. Early in its life, TMZ broke stories that included antisemitic statements made by actor Mel Gibson during an arrest and an angry voicemail message left by actor Alec Baldwin to his daughter. But the site, whose initials reference the 30-mile zone from the historic center of the television and film industry in Los Angeles, really established itself by breaking news of Michael Jackson's death in 2009 and the drug use that led to it. Its tactics can cross traditional journalistic boundaries, particularly when it comes to paying sources. Beyond the professional breach involved with such arrangements, the payments could run afoul of congressional ethics rules. Levin has not denied paying for story tips, which is frowned upon by traditional journalism outlets. And TMZ has also had some high-profile failures, including reports that Beyoncé would perform at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which didn't happen. Some of TMZ's work is being applauded Yet some of TMZ's early work in Washington is being applauded. Robert Thompson, a trustee professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, said the photo of Graham at Disney World was genuinely newsworthy because it showed lawmakers away from Washington during a political crisis. A representative for Graham didn't respond to a request for comment. TMZ published images of lawmakers from both parties who left Washington during the recent congressional recess that overlapped with the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Beyond Graham, the site published pictures of Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Robert Garcia of California. TMZ is not currently credentialed by the congressional press galleries. That limits its Washington coverage to walk-and-talk interviews on the sidewalks outside the Capitol or in the hallways of public office buildings — a feature of its ambush-style celebrity interviews. Some of the interviews are entertaining for audiences who are in on the bit. In one video this week, Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., seemed confused by questions about a party hosted by the gay dating and hookup site Grindr ahead of this weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner. "I don't understand," Downing said. "Are they a media company?" Others go in unexpected, sometimes touchingly personal, directions. When Rep. Lateefah Simon, D-Calif., was asked how lawmakers celebrate the 4/20 marijuana holiday, she spoke of how the day marked the anniversary of her father's death. "4/20 is the day that my daddy died," she said. "My dad was an amazing man in San Francisco. I think about him every single time there's 4/20." And sometimes the gotcha nature of the reports backfires. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., was among the lawmakers whose image was captured away from Washington during the DHS shutdown. He was shown at his son's basketball game, prompting defense from colleagues, including Republicans, who said he shouldn't be shamed for being a present father. At Friday's briefing, TMZ's Charlie Cotton eagerly played into Hegseth's branding of "the Department of War," and the Trump administration's claim that the war in Iran is necessary. "Would you consider changing the name again to the Department of Peace since that's what we're all after?" Cotton asked. Hegseth gushed over the "great question" and declared that "the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year is the United States military." The long history of the ambush interview The TMZ approach isn't particularly new. Longtime CBS correspondent Mike Wallace made a habit of the so-called ambush interview, catching unprepared subjects on camera. Before he broke the news of an extramarital affair that would doom Democrat Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign, Tom Fiedler confronted the Colorado senator in a Washington alley. A reporter for the Miami Herald at the time, Fiedler said he "didn't set out to do that." "We simply found ourselves in that situation," he recalled this week. "At that point, we knew that he knew we were there to observe what he was doing. Our feeling was we needed to let him know who we were so he wouldn't think there was, in the worst case, an attempted assassin stalking him." Nearly 40 years later, journalism in Washington is drastically different. The Washington Post cut nearly a third of its staff in February in a brutal blow to the legendary newsroom. Other outlets are growing. The website NOTUS is rebranding as The Star, with ambitions to fill the gap left by the Post, particularly in local and sports coverage. Cox, the former Wonkette blogger, is now a writer living in Austin, Texas. Reflecting on her time in Washington, she said her goal was to "demystify politics and show that these are people who don't necessarily deserve our respect." But she expressed concern about coverage whose tone reinforces the eye-rolling aspects of Washington. If she were starting Wonkette today, she said, "I don't think I'd be as funny." "Funny is how we got here," she said. "Making fun of Donald Trump did not work." ___ AP Media Writer Dave Bauder and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.