How Christian Nationalism Shapes The Iran War Narrative

A US official can call Iran “messianic” and “apocalyptic” all day, but what happens when the same end-times mindset shows up in Washington wearing a suit and a flag pin? We start by dissecting the Trump administration’s Iran war narrative alongside jaw-dropping clips of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth using explicitly religious language to bless “overwhelming violence” and reject mercy. We talk plainly about religious extremism, Christian nationalism, and why weaponizing faith inside the world’s largest military isn’t just offensive, it’s destabilizing.

From there, the conversation pivots into breaking news: a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton with the President, Vice President, and top officials in the room. We walk through the video, what’s been reported about the weapon, how the suspect was taken into custody, and the big unanswered question that won’t go away: how did someone allegedly bring weapons into the same venue hosting the nation’s leadership? We weigh claims of “security success” against witness accounts that suggest major perimeter and screening gaps.

Then we connect the Iran war to the real economy. Think gas prices, diesel, food inflation, fertilizer costs, jet fuel shock, airline fare hikes, flight cuts, and why supply-side inflation can grind on long after the headlines move. We also sit down with Jacob Wasserman from TMZ DC to talk about why TMZ is planting a flag on Capitol Hill, how social media shapes political coverage, and what it looks like to chase stories in the middle ground between legacy press and TikTok.

If this helped you think more clearly about the Iran war, Secret Service security, and inflation, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review.

Transcript

War Rhetoric And Double Standards

SPEAKER_07 0:48

Radical Muslims, messianic mullahs, religious nutjobs. Sound familiar? That's how the Trump administration has described the rulers of Iran over the last couple of months in an effort to justify starting an illegal war that has now destabilized the entire Middle East.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

This is a regime that is led by radical Shia clerics, by people who believe that it is their calling and their purpose in life to usher in the end of the world.

SPEAKER_14 1:18

It's terrible. A violent, Nesianic, Islamist ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic end game.

A Pentagon Prayer For Violence

SPEAKER_07 1:26

Yes, according to the Trump administration, religious extremists in Iran are looking to trigger the end times and bring about Judgment Day once and for all. But as the saying goes, bigots in glass white houses shouldn't throw stones. It's a message that should be delivered from God's mouth to the ears of none other than Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth, who has literally prayed for war, violence, and lethality against the people of Iran in the name of his God. Just have a listen to what he had to say during this recent Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon.

SPEAKER_14 1:57

Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. Let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse, that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them. We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings. And amen.

SPEAKER_07 2:24

Yes, you heard that right. The head of the world's largest military called on Jesus Christ himself to help his forces unleash overwhelming violence on Iranians and deliver their souls to eternal damnation. Where they belong, apparently. Go into any random mosque in America on a Friday, and that's not the kind of sermon you'll hear from the Imam, I can assure you. Let's call this what it is religious extremism. And don't take my word for it. Take the popes. In his first Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo took direct aim at Heggs and set the record straight about God. Brothers and sisters, this is our God, Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying, Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. And Pete Heggsath's hands are certainly covered in it, because here's just a taste of what the self-styled Secretary of War has vowed to unleash on Iran.

SPEAKER_14 3:23

This was never meant to be a fair fight. And it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down. We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors, trained to kill the enemy and break their will. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. Today will be the largest volume of strike since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today. The only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they're gonna live.

Crusades Obsession And Extremist Symbols

SPEAKER_07 3:57

Perhaps Secretary of War Crimes is a more fitting title for him. In fact, House Democrats have launched a new, albeit doomed to fail, impeachment effort against Hexath, citing his alleged war crimes. And the truth is, Pete Heggseth had had his sights set on a sort of holy war long before he was appointed to his current position. Look no further than his obsession with the Crusades. Yes, the holy wars that happened over a thousand years ago. Hexeth has a Jerusalem cross tattooed on his body, a religious symbol tied to the Crusades, in which Christian extremists wage ruthless bloody wars to take Jerusalem back from Muslim rule. Also tattooed on his body, the Latin term Deus vault, or God wills it, in his 2020 book titled American Crusade, surprise, surprise, he describes the term as a rallying cry of Christian knights as they marched to Jerusalem. And as the New York Times puts it, Hexath argues in the book that the Crusades were justified because they saved a Christian Europe from the onslaught of Islam. These days, Deus Volt, by the way, is associated with the far right, with Christian terrorists, in fact. Oh, and speaking of his tattoos, Heggsh also has the Arabic word kafir inked on his arm, which means non-believer. And as if wearing blatant Islamophobia on his sleeve isn't enough. He also reportedly shouted, kill all Muslims, over and over again during a drunken episode at a bar in 2015. So it seems pretty clear that Pete Hegsath has been itching for another holy war against Islam for years. And this modern-day Christian crusader has had his eyes in particular on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

SPEAKER_14 5:32

They have their own caliphate, they want to export it. They need to come back to the table for talks on their nuclear capabilities. They need to come back limping and begging. I don't care about Iranian cultural sites, and I'll tell you why. If they could, if Iran could, if you understand the Islamic Republic of Iran, they would they would destroy every single one of our cultural sites and build a mosque on top of it.

Christian Nationalism Inside The Pentagon

SPEAKER_07 5:52

It's not just a war against America's mortal enemy, it's a war against Christian America's mortal enemy. Because a key part of Heges' religious ideology is, of course, Christian nationalism. Liking this video? Don't just watch. Hit like, share, and subscribe. And tap the bell so you never miss a video or live show. But if you want early access to exclusive content, then you have to head to zateo.com and subscribe now. You'll be supporting fearless independent journalism. Hegseth is affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, an ultra-conservative network of Christian congregations co-founded by Pastor Doug Wilson. Wilson is one of the loudest religious voices pushing Christian nationalism. And here's what he had to say about it in a 2022 blog post. And not only has this Christian nationalism thing been done before, it has been done in America before. If we succeed, this will not be Christian America. If we succeed, this will be Christian America 2.0. This will be Christian America again. This will be America as the prodigal son, tired of the pig food, coming home to his father. Hegseth invited Wilson to the Pentagon in February to deliver a sermon at the department's monthly worship service, where Wilson said he was praying for a black swan revival or another great awakening of Christianity in the United States. Now, some of you may be saying, but Maddie, how come we know that Hegseth agrees with everything Wilson says? Well, Hegseth shared a CNN video on social media about Wilson's church in which its pastors argued that women should not have the right to vote. Even the Iranian mullahs don't say women shouldn't be allowed to vote. And now let's hear from Heggseth himself on the subject of Christian nationalism.

SPEAKER_14 7:34

America was founded as a Christian nation. It remains a Christian nation in our DNA if we can keep it. And as public officials, we have a sacred duty 250 years on to glorify him.

SPEAKER_07 7:48

Let's also take a look at the Defense Secretary's closest spiritual advisor, Brooks Pottega, who is also affiliated with Wilson's Church. He recently appeared on a Christian nationalist podcast, literally called Reformation Red Pill, to talk about James Tallerico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas. Here's what he had to say.

SPEAKER_06 8:06

I pray that God kills him. Ultimately, that means killing his heart and raising him up to new life in Christ. That's the first thing. We want him crucified. We are with Christ.

SPEAKER_07 8:18

And despite calling for Tallarico's death, for God to kill the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, Portega is seen as a welcomed spiritual figure at the Pentagon. Just last year he was billed as the main speaker at the Pentagon's monthly worship service and was even given a warm introduction on stage by Hegsath himself. Don't even get me started on the fake Christian sermons that Pete Hegsath gives. Here he is quoting the Bible. Is it pulp fiction?

SPEAKER_14 8:47

The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides. By the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

Blurred Lines Between Faith And War

SPEAKER_07 9:28

Look, Pete Hagsith is not hiding the fact he's a Christian nationalist. He's not hiding the fact that he's surrounded by religious extremists by nutjobs. And he's not hiding the fact that he's waging a modern-day crusade against the boogeyman that is Islam. He's actually trying to ingrain this ideology in virtually every branch of the military. Just recently, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation received over 200 complaints of high-ranking commanders proclaiming that the war in Iran is part of God's divine plan, and President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth. Okay then. So to recap, the United States is supposed to be fighting this radical, messianic, theocratic end times regime in Iran, yet this is the kind of radical, messianic, theocratic end times rhetoric being used to justify it. Are we, in fact, the baddies? To be clear, while Pete Hengsteth remains one of the biggest cheerleaders of Trump's illegal war in Iran, he's also responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranians, including the more than 150 children who were killed by a US strike on a girls' school in Iran on day one of this war. He's responsible for the American military lives already lost in this conflict, too, as well as the forced displacement of millions of innocent people across the Middle East. So I have to ask, as a non-Christian, is this really what Jesus would do? Did you like this video? Don't forget to subscribe to this YouTube channel and turn on notifications for exclusive content and to support our independent unfiltered journalism, head over to zateo.com. Your support matters.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

It is Sunday morning. I'm just going to come here to give you all a little bit of a roundup of everything we know about that shooting that happened last night at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Lots of details. We've chosen to take a little bit of time so we can provide you a fulsome picture. And of course, we're going to have more details for everybody tomorrow. Let's go ahead and start here with the video of what happened. This is by far, I think, the uh most close-up video that we can all see that was taken by a Getty photographer. So I'm going to go ahead and play a little bit of this. And I know that some of the imaging here is a little bit chaotic. There we go. This is the video of the vice president and the president being escorted from the stage of the White House correspondence dinner. Let's take a watch. There was the one that was taken, you know, from the head-on shot that I saw, but that one you could both see the president uh who appears to have either stumbled or gone down on the floor. He's picked up and then taken across. The woman crawling behind him is uh Luija Zhang. She's the president of the White House Correspondence Center. And then the first lady was in front of the president. The vice president was ushered off of a different side of the stage in the background and appears to have been taken off first. So that was the video of again. There's so many different video angles, cabinet officials, RK Jr., almost the entire cabinet was there, a full spectrum of the line of succession. Uh, from the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, almost the entire cabinet was present and in attendance, senior administration officials, the vice president, and the president all sharing the stage. And I think that's what sets the stage for what a shocking uh incident that this all is. Uh speaking personally, I've probably spent days of my life uh in Secret Service lines, like trying to get into conventions, the DNC, uh many others. And so to see a shooting that's able to take place at an event with the president of the United States, in addition to a significant amount of the cabinet. I think some Supreme Court justices were there, members of the uh House of Representatives, in addition to the Speaker of the House, who is third in line uh for succession. I mean, it's it's genuinely shocking. And so, again, just to stick to all of the things that we do know, uh, we do have this video, which was shared late last night by the president. Uh, this is uh the video surveillance photo of the president shared, which appears to show uh the gunman, and I will give you some details on him here in a little bit, actually charging uh the Secret Service uh cordon. Obviously, the video is very grainy, but we can take a look here. It looks like this is a Secret Service perimeter, and you're about to see him come running through. So you could see me sprinting through with a gun, and immediately these Secret Service agents spring into action. Now, a little bit of what we do know here is that the government appears to have popped some shots off with a makeshift shotgun. The shotgun did appear to hit a Secret Service agent in a bulletproof vest. He's been transported to the hospital and is fine. That's all what we know so far in terms of the weapon that was used actually in the course of the shooting. Now, witnesses describe some five to six different shots. It appears that some of those shots were initially fired by the gunman, then Secret Service firing at him. However, it is important to say, and I think this we'll get a little bit later on here in a little bit, about uh what exactly happened, is that the suspect appears to have been taken in custody. This is a photo uh which was shared again by the president late last night, is down on the ground in the lobby of the Washington Hilton. He does appear to be uh unharmed. So even though multiple shots were fired at him, it doesn't look like he was hit. And Wolf Blitzer, the CNN anchor, was actually in the lobby while all of this was going down. He said he didn't see any blood. Now we haven't seen a full release or anything of his condition, but just wanted to share all of that with you. So that's what we know here about the initial details, where the president run off. We know that there were a couple shots fired in the Washington Hilton, and of course, Washington Hilton is not only where the White House Correspondence Center is held every single year, it is also the site of President Reagan, President Reagan's attempted assassination attempt. Again, part of which make this so surreal and shocking is to the area. And you know, let me just take a little bit of time here. Uh, if you ever attended the DNC, the RNC, a Trump rally, or you know, anything, uh especially where there's going to be multiple VIPs, there are levels of security. So what we know about this event is that there were these uh metal detectors that are in that you need to pass through to get into the ballroom. But the security perimeter actually did not shut down the entire Washington Hilton, which explains things because one of the things that we're learning about this government is that he apparently had made a reservation at this hotel in April, right? So he made this uh hotel reservation in April. I can go ahead and share that right here. This is from Catherine Falters. Law enforcement officials said he is believed to have booked a room in the Hilton in early April, declining to answer questions right now, but allegedly made some reference to targeting administration officials was not specific. Okay. So he made this reservation in April, and it appears the DC police telling us late last night that actually he was a guest at the hotel and had checked in earlier and appears to have brought some of his the weapons in uh in his luggage. Now, again, this is very, very shocking. I mean, again, to be uh DFC or an RNC or any event, even private events, actually, uh, that the president or the vice president will enter, you have to go through multiple levels of security just to get near the building. I'm talking about if you're on your person, you'll, you know, you have to pass through the metal detectors, uh, you may or may not, you know, uh x-ray machines, for example, luggage, anything that you're trying to bring in and out of this type of building. None of that appeared to have been the case this time around. Now, the president did give a some remarks uh last night. So, and again, just to give everybody what part of what made this all so surreal, was this shooting happens, the president, the vice president, the entire cabinet is rushed off. So then an announcement comes on and they say that the programming is gonna resume. The president actually puts out a truth social post, it appears from some sort of holding room in the very same building, where he is saying, I want the show to go on, but I'm gonna defer to law enforcement officials. Eventually, the Secret Service is just like, we have to cancel this entire thing. The president has to leave, so he leaves. He actually goes back to the White House, calls a press conference at some 10 30 p.m. Eastern time. Many of the reporters uh you will see are in their regalia uh because they ran from the Washington Hilton back to the White House. I'm trying to think. I've I've done that uh a couple of times. It's not it's not that close. Maybe a mile and a half, like two miles, something. So anyway, so many of them uh were sweaty, and uh, some of them apparently took scooters. So here's some of the remarks. I'm gonna play a little bit of them just so you can get a sense of what the initial statement for the president was.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And in a certain way it did. Because the fact that they just unified, I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful, a very beautiful thing to see a man charge a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service and they acted very quickly. And I've just released for purposes of transparency, clarity. I've ordered it to be put out. You probably have it by now, put out on truth and put out on many other platforms. A tape showing the violence of this thug that attacked our constitution, and also showing how quickly Secret Service and law enforcement acted on our country's behalf.

Suspect Identity And Travel Trail

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Okay, so that was the initial statement. Uh it was really, you know, not much not too many questions, but uh basically detailing what happened. Cash Patel also was in attendance. He was uh rushed out. You can read some of the details of how all that went down, which perhaps, you know, we'll definitely have a lot more to say. But tomorrow I'm just trying to do a general news roundup. Now, in terms of the suspect, uh some of the things that we know now so far, I'm gonna go ahead and share this from the Wall Street Journal. Uh the uh f suspect's name is Cole Allen, who is now in custody after an attack outside of the White House Correspondence Dinner. He is a graduate of Caltech University. He was a teacher of the month, and he has been named as the Washington shooting suspect, 31 years old. He was from Torrance, California. Uh so what we know, as you can all see here, is that he was armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives, and was a guest at the Washington Hilton where the dinner was taking place. They have not yet shared a motive. As they said, that Trump has called the shooter, quote, a lone wolf and a whack job. Allen graduated from Caltech, one of the most academically rigorous schools in America, in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering, appears to have been an intern or fellow, I think, at JPL of NASA. So very, very bright uh individual. He was registered with no party preference, donated$25 to Act Blue in 2024 with a memo, quote, earmarked for Harris for president. He worked as a teacher at C2 Education, a private tutoring and test prep company, where he was named the teacher of the month in December of 2024. And he also pursued a master's degree in computer science from Cal State University. Uh, posted a photo of himself in a cap and gown last year on LinkedIn, writing, pretty sure my master's in CS is done. Lives in Torrance, 15 miles from Los Angeles, in a middle-class neighborhood, primarily composed of single-level ranch homes. A blue scooter was parked on his lawn, and a neighbor said he had seen Alan riding it around the neighborhood. So obviously, big questions here. How did he even get from Torrance, California to the White House correspondent's dinner? We do know a little bit about that uh from the initial statement here, which was released by the deputy attorney general, or I guess the acting attorney general, now Todd Blanch. He said in an interview this morning that the suspect, Cole Allen, traveled from LA to DC via train and passed through Chicago on the way. And so obviously a very, very long way of getting across, uh likely, you know, perhaps transporting weapons, the handgun, the shotgun, and the knives that he had in his uh in his luggage, which he used and checked the hotel. But obviously, premeditated attack. Uh, if you're booking a hotel long in before we don't really know a lot about him, and he is not really cooperating with authorities. They're telling people that he was targeting, quote, administration officials. So obviously, he's question marks uh surrounding still this entire incident. I think the big story outside of, you know, not just the official details. And let me just, of course, say uh I'm I'm just choosing to do an entire news roundup. For many of you who still have bigger questions about the assassination, don't or sorry, the assassination attempt. We will, or perhaps even just a shooting. I shouldn't even necessarily say that. We don't know any of that yet. We will do uh more of a deep dive tomorrow. You know, the team and I we're all researching all of this, but I'm just choose sticking with what we know and what the official story is now so far from the government. So I just want to make that very, very clear. Here is uh an Weird and frankly bizarre comment uh from the uh from the deputy attorney general, uh Todd Blanche, who said that the gunman was able to fire five to eight shots when he charged through a security checkpoint outside the dinner. And she asked, was this a massive security failure? And he says, to the contrary, it was a massive security success story. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_09 25:02

The gunman was able to fire at least five to eight shots when he charged through a security checkpoint outside the dinner. Was this a massive security failure?

Security Gaps And Conflicting Spin

SPEAKER_12 25:14

Oh, to the contrary, it was a massive security success story. I mean, if you think about what happened, as as far as what we know right now, this this suspect barely breached the perimeter. And so when you have a perimeter of a situation like we had last night, where you had over 2,000 people in a room, including the the leaders of this country and and and many other dignitaries, you have a perimeter where you have law enforcement willing to risk their lives to keep to keep people who don't belong from getting in. This man, um, from what we know from video surveillance and from witnesses who were there, barely got past the the perimeter. He was immediately subdued. And yes, it he got off a couple shots. Our brave Secret Service agent who who took one to the chest, uh, although he was wearing a bulletproof vest, um, the president talked to him last night from the Oval Office. He was in great spirits. He was um very appreciative. The president expressed his his his appreciation.

Ballroom Politics And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Okay, so you can see there that the Deputy Attorney General is calling this a uh massive uh security success story. I can just say as an independent person, uh I don't think that that is in any way true. So the Washington Hilton, as I said I've been to that hotel many times, uh I used to live right next to it, and that Washington Hilton, uh apparently, so there's the ballroom, which is inside of the hotel, but the rest of the hotel was not locked down, not just for guests, and obviously he was a guest at the hotel and the security, no, there was no x-ray luggage. I have attended events in the past as a reporter where I had a suitcase or something like that. Let's say I had to bring it to an event that had to be passed through an X-ray machine. And I'm talking about hours before any sort of VIP were even gonna get there. So that's what kind of makes this a little weird, right? So there's no standard security protocol. So there's that. Number two is again, for anybody who's attended some of these events, it's the entire building is usually locked down. You're not, you can't even go in and out. We also have a lot of testimony from guests uh who were shocked at the lack of security at the event. I'm not gonna play all of this, uh, but this was Simone Sanders, who's recounting how poor the security was at the White House correspondence dinner. She says, I actually showed up to the Hilton shortly after 8 p.m. I took a scooter right up to the front of the driveway. Crazy. Again, there's usually barricades, multiple different checkpoints. At this matters because, you know, because there's a lot of protesters outside, a lot of those barricades before you actually enter into the driveway. This year there were no protesters. I came to find out people were milling about in the lobby. When I got off the scooter and into the front of the barricade, usually you have to show ID and a ticket. The folks, the security at the gate, who were not agents, they were identified as Secret Service. They were not identified as Secret Service agents. They did not ask me to show ID. They did not ask me to show a ticket. They said, Oh, you're good. I'm sure you're going to your room. She said she wasn't even saying there. As I entered into the driveway, I saw the vehicle, the beast was driving around in a circle of the Hilton driveway, people walking around near it, taking photos. Again, you're not like I and I'm not just a layman. I cover the White House, I've been in the motorcade, I've attended dozens of these events uh as a professional. And I'm telling you, like, this is not normal. When I entered into the Hilton, I asked Secret Service agents, which I saw they were identified as Secret Service Agents, which way the ballroom was. They said they didn't know. When I finally got to the elevator, no one asked me to show my ID, no one asked me to show a ticket. I got all the way down to the red carpet area without ever showing a ticket to anyone in the Hilton. I'm saying it like this because this is unusual. So I went to the DNC, right? With the whole team, me and Ryan. We passed through probably four barricades before you're even allowed to get into the convention. As a journalist, even with the press credentials, hard press credentials, which have your photo, your name, that means you've been pre-cleared and all of that by Secret Service, the amount of rigor that you often have to go through if you're not traveling in the president's motorcade, just to be able to get to this event. I mean, again, literally days of my life. The beast, yeah, the only time that you're generally like allowed around the beast normally is if you're in the motorcade, and then you can't get out of your vehicle uh and go like up to the president's uh I mean it look, uh you know, words barely begin to describe. And some members of Congress are also uh highlighting this. Here's Mike Lawler, uh, the congressman. He's saying, while the security perimeter outside of the ballroom worked, the Secret Service and federal law enforcement acted swiftly to secure the ballroom and move the president and high-level officials out of harm's way. The fact is, numerous glaring security issues. There was no photo ID, no verified list of attendees, which is very common for a White House event, not just common, that's the standard. There were no magnetometers before the ballroom. Prior to the event, there were numerous receptions that someone could have easily gotten into with limited security. The building was still open to the general public. Without getting into details, I will just say there was not a good handle on how many members of this Congress were at the event and where they were in the room. There needs to be a complete, thorough after-action report as to how the gunman got from a hotel room into a secure area with numerous guns. I will also note, we'll go much more into detail this tomorrow. There is a uh reported, you know, shooting that happened a couple of weeks ago, apparently near the White House, which no details that the Secret Service has been able to run down. The trail has gone completely cold. Uh, there have been numerous of these types of incidents. There's a report out there that Trump uh has apparently been subject to more assassination or like public assassination plots, I think, than any modern president. And to see the breakdown in the security perimeter, I think it is very valid for all of us to ask a lot of questions about how all of this happened. And the fact that the administration, frankly, I mean, look, I I I I can only speculate, but you know, them praising the Secret Service, and of course we can praise the individual agents, but at an overall planning level, this is not normal. As I said here, just about the Hilton Hotel, the Hilton ballroom, about how the pact of public people were allowed in, the fact that there was apparently no scrutiny of guests, the fact, I mean, I could go on forever, like the the beast detail there that was shared. There have been multiple guests now, not just that one person, I'm not cherry-picking, who talked about the lack of security and how the fact there was really only security going into the ballroom itself and not securing the entire hotel. Uh, the fact, you know, look, who is this guy? Caltech University, not currently cooperating. We know took out for a train from California to Washington, D.C., booked a room sometime in April. That's you know, it's a more sophisticated level of planning necessarily than some sort of opportune uh style moment, maybe akin, I would say, to the Vegas uh terror, you know, the Vegas shooting that happened, I think that was in 2017, which remains, you know, totally basically unsolved uh in in terms of like why that any of that even happened today. Still tons of questions around all that. So everybody, you know, be uh be very scrutinous, I think, of a lot of the statements. And it's not like you know, you have good reason not to have total faith in Cash Patel, who is said to be leading the investigation. So yeah, uh, we're gonna spend a decent amount of time going through uh even more of what we know, don't know, some of the statements made by the president, by the press secretary uh before any of this at all happened. But I did just want to give a full rundown of everything that we know right now, with also the appropriate level of uh skepticism, as we have seen. Look, it's a breaking situation. Things are always wrong. Don't forget that. Initially, CNN said that the shooter was dead. Now they said he's not even hurt. You know, initially there was, oh, somebody might have been shot. And yes, it was a Secret Service agent, but you know, he wasn't shot and hurt. So I guess it is technically true. But there's a lot of details like that that were very chaotic. Uh also the Secret Service, you know, insecurity details of all these cabinet officials running in and escorting these people out, and then what happened, you know, in the hours after that, and what exactly the detail and decision to cancel the event, what that all kind of broke down into. So there will be quite a bit, I think, of talking about this now in the coming days. Uh, and last thing, just to give you a little bit of a preview of what the main takeaway from the president and uh some of his supporters are here is uh Trump this morning. What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great military, Secret Service law enforcement, and for different reasons, every president for the last 150 years have been demanding a large, safe, and secure ballroom be built on the grounds of the White House. This event would never have happened with the militarily top secret ballroom currently under construction of the White House. It cannot be built fast enough. While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature. There is a plus. There are no rooms sitting on top for unsecure people to pour in. It's inside the gates of the most secure building in the world, the White House. The ridiculous ballroom lawsuit brought by a woman walking her dog, I don't know what this is about, who has absolutely no standing, must be dropped. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with this construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump. So that's been echoed by the president at the podium yesterday in his most recent uh Truth Social Post, and I believe even John Fetterman and others saying now it's enough to drop the TDS to support the construction of the ballroom, which appears to be, I guess, you know, outside of not just Secret Service takeaway, which is kind of what I think it should be, and or questions, you know, about the official story is also about uh the ballroom, right? So apparently, you know, this is now the reason the reason why it absolutely must and has to be built. We can talk about that uh at a later time. You know, don't usually want to immediately uh pile on with obviously which is not the most important story of this. So I hope this is helpful for kind of understanding everything that we from shooting, what we know, suspect, Caltech, Grad, Cole Allen, currently in custody, the fact that the president, the initial statements and all that about how and what this all went down from law enforcement, uh, then we got to the ballroom, uh, which seems to be like a bigger thing and bigger, much bigger question to me. United States, Secret Service. I don't know why I've been wasting all my time in all these lines if this continues to keep happening, uh, something like this. So that's just my own personal takeaway. It's it really is just, you know, can't understand enough. I'm sure you've heard this from every person who's quote in the new, but you know, if you've ever had to been through so many dozens of these types of things, it's crazy. It's that was my first takeaway. I could not believe the security failure just in terms of the perimeter and how it all went down. I've I've never seen anything like it. And I have been to multiple of these types of events uh over the years. So that's uh that's what we got, and we will see you all tomorrow, as we said, with some bigger questions if we need to, uh, about some of the information that's coming out, the fallout, and any potential investigation and new details. Thank you all very much. We'll see you later.

SPEAKER_08 35:45

This is a good um transition to talk about what we already see in terms of the economic impacts of this war. Let's put C1 up on the screen. Um, this is from Tracy Alloway of the Oddlots Podcast, fantastic podcast, great reporters. And she's got information here about food inflation. Cost for food companies jumped almost 8% year over year in March. That's versus 4.2% in February. This is basically just from higher fuel costs. We're still waiting for the impact of higher fertilizer, plastics, et cetera. So what she's saying there is this is just the beginning. This is just when you're considering, okay, gas prices and diesel prices have gone up. That's now being reflected in costs at the for food companies. And of course, they're not going to just take that, they're going to pass it on to consumers. But what she's saying is that doesn't even deal with these longer-term impacts like fertilizer, the higher price of fertilizer is something that farmers are shouldering right now during planting season. That is going to mean that down the road, when those costs also get incorporated into food prices, prices are going to continue to go up. I don't feel that I even need to really explain this because we all basically lived through all of this, through COVID. We saw the way that inflation built and built and built, and that this was not something that just happens when you flip a switch. There are follow-on effects that continue even after the, you know, the worst parts of the crisis are finished that take a long time to work their way through the system. So what she's saying here is we are now just starting to really see the impacts and that this is just the beginning.

Airlines Brace For Fuel Shock

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah. I hate to, you know, there was a lot of accusations of doomerism in the beginning, but it's because, and I think anybody who's been watching, been watching a show for a long enough period, we all lived through Russia, Ukraine together. And just because things seem to be fine, they're really not. You know, the entire global economy completely shifted, the energy markets dramatically changed, the amount of LNG, a reliance on Qatar became dramatic, and then we've got into a war with Iran, and now the straightover moves is closed. That's why we talk about, I mean, everybody seems to believe, let's say with COVID, uh, we had the lockdowns that came in March. When did we really start to feel the supply shock? July? Maybe August? It took a while, right? Because we had just in time delivery. So there was this decent amount of stuff that was on hand. And then with closure and with the stray or with the shipping containers and all of those supply chain problems, we began to see shortages and problems in July and August. But the real-time inflation hit when? When the thing started to reopen, demand was high, and the supply, there was it took, I would say, over a year probably from the lockdown for everything to show up. But because we lived through all of that, plus Russia-Ukraine, we have now seen the story play out multiple times. Like you are not going to have things end overnight. However, there is a dramatic under-appreciation. Gas is still$4 a gallon. Gas was$290 six weeks ago. Diesel's like$520 something a gallon. Like, am I taking crazy pills? Like, when have we ever seen gas go by over a dollar in a single month and then stay there with no real end in sight to the point where the president is, you know, bemoaning his energy secretary for saying maybe gas will have a three in front of it next year, sometime from now. I mean, again, just looking at the straight, I could be wrong. I'm not a total energy, I'm not an energy expert or analyst. I read some people who we trust a lot here on the show. All have basically said if the strait remains closed for this X amount of period of time, gas will hit$6 a gallon. Gas will hit$5 a gallon. That seems very likely, absent some extreme intervention on behalf of the United States. I also just look to big corporations where this stuff, same thing. It's not going to immediately affect your life. But it sometime in the future, you're going to be checking. Then the way that I went to McDonald's recently and paid$4.50 for the medium fry, you're going to be like, wait, what? Whenever you try to check out, let's go to the next one. Put this on the screen. The United Airlines CEO has now come out and say fares may need to rise by 20% to offset the fuel charge, jet fuel costs. Quote, signaling a significant test of consumer willingness to absorb higher fare as the industry grapples with volatile oil prices. This was on their earnings call. He said United is aiming to recover the full increase in fuel costs as quickly as possible and expects to move toward a 100% pass through. God, don't you love corporate speak? A 100% pass-through as it targets double-digit pre-tax margins next year. What does that mean? So again, corporate speak. Yields need to increase by 15 to 20%, whenever it comes to core. That means what? That means your ticket price is going to go up by one fifth.

SPEAKER_08 40:36

Every cost increase for them passing directly to you and potentially an increase above above and beyond that. I mean, that's what we saw the last time there's a huge inflationary spike, is that corporations, oh, I can get away with raising my prices even beyond the cost of the increase input inputs. Of course I'm going to do that. Yeah. And so that's why you have corporate profits as a share of the economy that continue to be at all-time highs, even as costs go up, because they've taken advantage of that dynamic. And of course they'll do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Oh, totally. And yeah, let's just do like back of the napkin stuff. Most people take some small vacation uh in the summer statistically. Uh, and let's even put aside in Europe, you're already upper middle class if you can afford to do that. Let's just say here in the US, you want to go to Disney. Oh, by the way, Disney prices are very high. But let's say you got to get to Disney. So let's say family of four, it was gonna cost you$600 a person uh if you're flying from California. Well, whatever, Midwest,$500, something like that. Now it's$750 per person. And you're like, oh, okay, well, that's a lot of money, right? And so then you have the increased jet fuel cost. Oh, and the need to do a rental car. Oh, well, the rental car cost has gone up too, because of gas and because of increased insurance. And then, oh, the Disney cost has also gone up because they have all this energy input and stuff that they have. I mean, this is craziness, and that's just vacation. That's the easiest thing.

SPEAKER_08 41:52

And your budget's already been stretched at home because of increased gas prices and increased food prices, so things are tighter to begin with. Yeah, you're just gonna say, uh, we can't do it this year. Right. We'll go somewhere later. We'll drive to the lake here instead, instead of and even when you do drive, it's gonna cost more.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

All right, so then let's put the next one up here. Lufthansa. Lufthansa has now cut 20,000 flights to save fuel from the Iran war fallout. Quote, global jet fuel prices have now jumped 70% since the start, pressuring airlines in Europe, the largest consumer of jet fuel, now shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Lufthansa says it will cut 20,000 flights over the next six months to save jet fuel as the pressure builds on the company to address surging prices. The airline said Tuesday it had already announced which flights it had trimmed through May. So this is just in the next month or two of the 20,000 that they're cutting. And overall, that the cuts would save 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel through the end of October. So basically, what that means is that they're gonna have to cut any of the lesser demand, you know, routes. It's over. So yeah, if you're flying to Smolensk or something, you better drive. I guess. Uh and the head of the International Energy Agency had already said last week Europe has exactly six weeks of jet fuel supplies left, and they're already meeting on Tuesday to discuss the energy crisis. So likely, I mean, I could be wrong. I'm guessing, you know, just thinking about the intersection of business and government in Europe, is it's almost certain that the German government was like, look, guys, this is all gonna get cut. They're like, this is a national, you know, a national crisis. X amount of you need to save 40,000 metric tons to give us some runway. Any flight which is even remotely unprofitable, it's gotta go like immediately. And then all the all the fuel fare prices, they have to go up. Another thing we really haven't grappled with is the Gulf. If hostilities resume, I mean, that is a massive amount of air traffic that can no longer move through the Dubai was one of the busiest airports in the world. That's right. Like millions of people flew through there. So that means almost every, especially here in America, a lot of the way that people were going to Asia, des Asian destinations, was via Doha, via Dubai, and via Abu Dhabi. Now they would have to fly via Europe, which is already strained and has to cut flights. You could just see an escalation here where unless you got to go for business purposes of what you really got to go, you're just not gonna go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 44:19

Well, and here at home, uh the weakest players are already collapsing and could put C4 up on the screen. And it looks like our government's gonna bail out um Spirit Airlines by buying a stake in it. Um, so this is the latest company that the Trump administration is considering taking a stake in. And so here the headline is Trump administration nearing rescue deal for Spirit Airlines signaled this week the government could help the discount carrier, which has struggled with surging jet fuel prices. Trump administration nearing a rescue deal, struggling, they're struggling to survive during a run-up in jet fuel prices. Now, they had some issues that predated this, but this is like the thing that is really pushing them over the edge. Under the agreement being discussed, the US government would loan the embattled discount carrier as much as$500 million, receiving a return warrant to take a potential significant stake in spirit. People familiar with the matter said the investment could help keep spirit afloat as it seeks to emerge from its second recent bankruptcy filing. So now our government is basically creating distressed assets because of our insane policy and decision to get into this war, and then buying up parts of those distressed assets. Um, so congratulations, American people. You're about to be proud owner of a portion of Spirit Airlines, very possibly.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

I don't hate it.

SPEAKER_08 45:28

Is that a bad thing to say? I like it.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Well, here's a here's the thing is Spirit is a very look, I would I hate Spirit, I hate flying it. It is still a very important part of US air travel, which is the extreme budget airlines for the hyper infrequent traveler who just needs to be.

SPEAKER_08 45:45

Look, I like the fact that fly once a year of government-owning uh key assets. Yeah, me too. I I like the ceasing the means of the product of production. So if it's, you know, the Trump administration is gonna pay the role. I mean, the part of it that's preposterous that's like preposterous and not good is the fact that it is the Trump administration policy itself that has in large part created these problems for Spirit Airlines and obviously just another sign of like how dire things are for the airline in industry in particular.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

It's a little complicated. Basically, what they say, Spirit Airlines would be on firm or financial footing had the Biden administration not blocked the airlines merger with Jet Blue. Remember, they were supposed to merge with JetBlue, was blocked by antitrust because of worries about budget consolidation. Now that, yeah, it really look like do I trust trust Trump and all these people to fix it? No, not really. But I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to keep a critical airline which you know keeps it serves those budget customers and it's better than letting it go.

SPEAKER_08 46:41

What would be even better is to not have double war. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Again, let's all be fair. Like they've been in chapter 11 for like years. Airlines itself, I don't even really know how they make money. Actually, I do. It's from credit cards. But in terms of actually flying, I've never I still don't really have to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_08 46:56

Well, and not just from credit cards, it's from like financial speculation. Like a lot of larger airlines in particular are as much like you know, financial entities, like, you know, trading as they are, hedge funds as they are actually airlines.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I remember reading once, it was like half of the profits or something from American come from freaks like me who are always gaining airline miles from all the swipe fees, uh, from people who use their credit cards for frequent flyer mile. Like a significant portion of their uh profit only comes from credit card swipe fees, which is kind of crazy. That's why they push it so hard. Which that's why every time you're on a plane, they're like, you get 25,000 morals if you sign up right now. I always want to be like, who's doing that? You're signing for a credit card and on an airplane? That's kind of crazy. No? Maybe it's just me.

Long Grind Of Supply Side Inflation

SPEAKER_08 47:38

Somebody's doing it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Um, let's go ahead and put C6 up on the screen here. It's one more impact that we're we're facing now. Aluminum faces a black swan supply shock, uh, according to this analysis. Uh, this is, of course, due to the war in Iran. It's triggered a supply shock that will lead to major shortages this year. The Middle East accounts apparently for about 7 million metric tons of annual aluminum smelting capacity, roughly 9% of the estimated global supply this year. It's a key material for transport, construction, and packaging industries. So you're talking um aircraft actually, is one of the things that needs uh aluminum, significant amounts of aluminum. You're talking about automobiles. Um US has uh, you know, some domestic capacity, so we're probably somewhat sheltered from this particular impact, but obviously it's going to push up the prices, and then that flows through to consumers in all sorts of ways. I think China is the biggest producer of aluminum, but the Middle Eastern region, again, you learn you learn new things in war about where things are made and what they go into and how critical they are to day-to-day life and how much people suffer when the uh flow of those goods stops.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Well, we will continue to track it. It's the worst energy crisis literally in modern history and coupled with the straight before moves news that we just went through. I don't see a way where we are not going to have rampant and persistent high supply side inflation. Now, as you said, uh that in no way, and this is why when we look at stock markets, people are like, how could this be possible? We live through 2021 and 2022. They make a shitload of money whenever people are uh have to pay more. It's everybody else that suffers. That's how you have the S P 500 up 60, 70% under Biden, and people saying this is the worst economy that I've ever lived through. So do not look to the market to validate like your personal balance. If anything, that's a direct reflection of why they're doing so well. So I think the companies will all be fine. I think the airlines will be fine. There are enough business travelers and other rich people who will pay. Top 10% of the United States pays 50% of all consumer spending. They can actually they can absorb all of this in their bottom line. It's everybody else that will suffer. So I don't think that many of this will show up in the market data or some sort of a crash. I just think it'll be like a continued long slow grind for everybody's pocketbook, which is a disaster.

SPEAKER_08 50:00

And remember, uh, to your point about the way that the impacts may not show up all at once. Basically, because of the Ukraine-Russia slash COVID inflation, almost every incumbent party and uh president or leader, almost all of them got tossed down, like globally. Yeah. I mean, it was this massive, massive reckoning, politically, political reckoning. Obviously, it's we experienced it here in the US with uh Biden and then Kamala Harris being rejected in favor of going back to Trump. But the the outliers were places like Mexico where they stuck with the same party. That was very unusual. Almost everywhere else, the incumbent party got tossed down if there were elections during that time period. So it just shows you how much turmoil can be caused um by these changes in prices. So that's what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Of course, in housing. I mean, if you let's think about, you know, there are a lot of young guys who voted for Trump, right? I would say the economy is probably number one. Number one in culture. Those are the two things, right? Where a lot of young dudes who voted for Trump. Well, let's say you were like 26. Well, after Trump is gone, you're gonna be 30. That's actually like a different phase in life. Yeah. And you're still facing the same economic conditions. That's gonna make people real angry. I think they should be angry. And that is something where if you look at his approval rating, the main reason that, let's even say economically, why did Trump get re-elected? It's actually, if you think from a normal voter's perspective, well, gas was X price when he was president, inflation was low, Biden came in and it was high. That's all they really have to think about. So I vote for Trump and it goes back.

SPEAKER_08 51:29

My life was easier during Trump one than it was during Biden.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Right. Extremely logical, actually, in terms of a vote. Well, now, this time around, it's not going to be that way. So it makes a change election not only more likely, but it makes it so that the solution will be a lot more radical, I think. Very possible. There you go.

Why TMZ Opens A DC Bureau

SPEAKER_08 51:48

All right, let's get to There is some big news here in DC. TMZ has officially set up shop. And when I heard that, I thought, we should really be friends with these people. So we're gonna be joined in studio this morning by Jacob Wasserman. He is the co-managing editor of TMZ DC. So welcome to studio the studio and welcome to town.

SPEAKER_10 52:09

Thank you so much. It's such a treat to be here. I mean, you two have been such a foundation of my understanding of politics. I've been watching you guys since rising. Wow. So like this is like a big deal for me to do that. Oh, I had no idea. That's really cool to hear. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_08 52:22

So just give us a little bit of a sense of like why TMZ decided to open this DC Bureau and what you guys' claims are, what you've been up to.

SPEAKER_10 52:29

Well, first off, TMZ's been covering politics for years. I think this lost on a lot of people. Like, we have a national television show called TMZ Live that routinely has big politicians coming on. I myself have covered numerous campaign cycles. And uh, I'm sure you saw the Lindsey Graham photos of that. Oh, yeah, I really have it. And also Robert Garcia. So this was all born by our fearless leader, Harvey Levin, who was calling out members of Congress for not passing VHS funding and told our audience, like, hey, send us photos if you see members of Congress out and about during their recess. And our audience responded in a huge way. So we decided to kind of uh yeah, we decided to roll with the momentum, and now I'm be on Capitol Hill.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Responding, man. We like it. Uh so some of the first things that you guys have been doing, you you have a very good eye, always have, TMC has, uh, for what's gonna, you know, what the public wants. Uh, you covered some of this feud with Tucker Carlson. So more recently, Tucker uh went on his show and issued an apology, basically, uh, not just voting for Trump, but for advocating for Trump. Let's take a listen and then we're gonna take a look at what you got in terms of member of Congress reaction. Let's take a listen.

Tucker Carlson Apology Street Reactions

SPEAKER_05 53:37

Looking back, being because I mean, you and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him. I mean, we're implicated in this for sure. Yes. It's not enough to say, well, I changed my mind, or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out. It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now, I guess. So I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. Uh you know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And and I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people in it was not intentional. That's all I'll say. But anyway, but the question does present itself immediately like, what is this? Was this always the plan? You don't want to be a conspiracy nut, but like clearly there were signs of low character. We knew that.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

So that was very big, and you got this reaction from a Randy Fine. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_10 54:35

Is Tucker Carlson he's apologizing to his supporters and his fans, saying that, you know, he was a big reason why Donald Trump got elected and do the Iran war. He's kind of reeling back and saying, hey, you know, I'm taking accountability. Uh that's got to be a kind of a big blow to the Republican Party, considering he's like, if not the biggest influencer. You know, what do you make of all that?

SPEAKER_11 54:57

I think he was. I don't think he is anymore. Look, I called Tucker Carlson the most dangerous anti-Semite in America uh last October. And I don't know that I would say that anymore. I think be careful, don't get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I think he's lost so much credibility within the party. I wouldn't I wouldn't make that statement that he's the most, you know, whatever you described him as.

SPEAKER_14 55:18

The most dangerous anti-Semitic.

SPEAKER_11 55:19

He was in December, sure.

SPEAKER_13 55:21

Because he was espousing anti-Semitic views. Because he was espousing anti-Semitic views. Trading on a reputation that he created over all of his time in Fox News. My father was someone, wasn't that we're gonna go this way? My dad was someone who uh would hang up the phone with me when Tucker was on. He loved him. And you know, watching his sort of descent into the mental sickness that he has is very okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Well, clearly you're not a fan. All right, so that's what you got there, Jacob. So talk to us about how you guys choose stories, like and what you decide. So this, as you I'm sure you've seen now, there's hundreds of reporters on Capitol Hill. One of the fun things about Capitol is you can go stick an iPhone in everybody's face. How do you choose what to ask different people?

How TMZ Picks Stories And Reports

SPEAKER_10 56:05

Well, I don't there's not much of a science to it. It's like we just are paying attention to what's online and seeing what the big stories are. That day it was Tucker Carlson going against Trump. So we're gonna ask someone about it. And I mean, that's where I think TMZ really fits in well here. To your point. Like, as I've been on Capitol Hill now for a week, I see two groups of people. I see traditional media and I see TikTokers. And I think we're right perfectly in between because we have a really good understanding of social media and how to connect with people online. And we also pride ourselves on fact-checking and I think and handling ourselves like journalists. Right. So in this case, I saw Randy Fine. I knew his beef with Tucker Carlson, so it was just a natural fit. Yes.

SPEAKER_08 56:46

Yeah. Have you studied up on like because I feel like I some of these characters I would recognize, but not all of them. In fact, I'm not even sure I would have recognized Randy Fine. He's got the beard going, clearly, you know, on some sort of weight loss regimen from his peak. So have you like studied up? Because we do have like a Facebook that you're trying to memorize.

SPEAKER_10 57:03

Well, to your point, I mean my colleague Charlie Cotton, he actually printed out full sheets of everyone's faces. So we do look through it because we're we're just getting our feet wet here. I moved to DC. I actually don't even have a place here yet. I'm living in an Airbnb. So it's all very new. And yeah, we want to get familiar with everyone. Of course, we're gonna talk to the big names, but we want to get to know all 300 plus people in uh Congress.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

So I do want to ask you, there was some speculation. I know TMZ has paid for stories in the past. Is that still a practice uh that you guys are gonna employ here in Washington?

SPEAKER_10 57:36

No, and I'm I'm happy you brought that up. Uh that's not a practice. Okay. We pay for photos and we pay for videos. In the same way that other news outlets do do too. It's like if you're a news channel and you throw up a Getty photo, that's not free. Right. If you know you pay for that. Okay. Uh so yeah, we pay for footage, but we do not pay for information. I mean, we dog stories. That's how TMZ works. And we have an incredible office in Los Angeles full of reporters, and you know, Harvey Levin, who uh we just get on the phone and we bang out calls, we do FOIA requests, we do all the things that I think good journalists do. And uh, I just think unfortunately people try to sometimes like discredit us. No, no, I don't know. Not saying you, yeah. I see it in the ether too. Sure. So uh yeah, we definitely do not pay for information and we are a hundred percent not doing that here. Got it. All right.

SPEAKER_08 58:25

Well, one of the things to your point that I think is different is you've always had, you know, people on Capitol Hill trying to chase down representatives, because you they you can, right? They have to come in and out of their offices, there's an opportunity there, the office buildings are open to the public, so you can just come in. Um, but we haven't had a lot of outlets that are in independent media, which you guys aren't exactly, but that have that connectivity to what people are actually talking about online. And so more of that grassroots feel. And um, our you know, colleagues and friends over at Dropsite News, they now have someone on Capitol Hill. And it's so different. The questions that he's gonna ask an AOC or who he encounters versus what the mainstream press would be asking them. I think that's part of what you guys could really, you know, will really be in a position to exploit.

SPEAKER_10 59:09

Definitely. And I think like what we're just trying to do is pull back the curtain on DC, and that can be found in a variety of ways. Like we're asking people sometimes it could be funny, we can keep it light, we can keep it pop culture, and then we can also be straight shooters. I I think TMZ is a personality, and it's like it could be funny and it can also be really serious, too. So that's kind of the balance that we're trying to find. And I think it's a great opportunity for people on the hill who want to show off their personality. And I mean, is it the point of politics or not the point, a part of it to show like you could get a beer with someone? Like, isn't that what to say?

SPEAKER_04 59:44

Unfortunately, as you're as you're finding out, that's not actually.

SPEAKER_08 59:47

No, exactly.

SPEAKER_10 59:49

What a what a great opportunity for people to kind of you know shoot the shit with us and uh again, serious issues, fun issues. What has the reception been from most members?

SPEAKER_08 59:58

It's been mostly like run away from you, or are they impeached?

SPEAKER_10 1:00:01

Absolutely not. It's actually been incredible. And we're yeah, and we're working with people on both sides of the aisle. I mean, that's what's really important to us is we are nonpartisan, and uh, we've seen a huge reception from politicians. Politicians are actually like, yeah, they're they're happy to see us. Sometimes it's like the staff that's like a little bit tougher. Uh, but they've been great. People are usually pretty chill, personally.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

Uh yeah, if that persists. Um, what's the press corps been like? How have they treated you?

SPEAKER_10 1:00:31

Cool. You you actually just mentioned that guy from Drop Site News. Like I met you yesterday. He's great, like, super nice guy. And people in general have been really nice and encouraging.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

Yeah. All right. Uh yeah. Any any scoops? Anything you're working on? What do you got?

Scoops Pipeline And Contact Details

SPEAKER_10 1:00:45

Well, we're definitely working on scoops. Okay. I know that people know us maybe for the clips that you see when we're on the hill, but that's only a fraction of what we're doing. Uh, we're definitely here to work on tips and to compete. Uh, we did a story yesterday, a very sensitive one. I mean, it had to do with Max Miller and his ongoing uh custody battle with his wife involving an injured child. And I mean, that's as serious as it gets. Yeah, but her wife is the daughter of a senator. It's a yeah, Bernie Marina's daughter. Yeah. So so again, like, and then on the flip side, like you'll see us talking to Shamari figures about like the basketball game between members of Congress. So that's what I'm saying. We we're we're uh there's a spectrum, and uh we can really play in both sides of the field. Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:32

Um I think there's a lot to be exposed. Welcome you to town. We're excited to see what you are able to turn up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:01:39

Yeah. I mean, listen, contact me on Twitter at Jacobloss. Uh, you know, you can also just email me at jacob.wasserman at tmz.com. Uh, I want to talk to everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Great. There's a lot of congressional staff that listen to this, so everybody take them up on it. All right. Contact Jacob. We're uh we're happy to have a lifeline at TNZ. Yeah, happy to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_10 1:01:59

Thank you very much.