No, TMZ. There is no "both sides" to this government shutdown

For today's post, we go to the world of entertainment and celebrity tabloid gossip. From The Guardian.

When US federal workers were missing paychecks and the partial government shutdown entered its seventh week, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, was doing what any responsible lawmaker would do: riding Space Mountain and carrying a bubble wand at Disney World in Florida.

Naturally, TMZ had photos of the vacationing senator on its homepage a few days later.

The celebrity tabloid empire – better known for staking out actors and artists outside restaurants, gas stations, courthouses and their palatial estates – has turned its paparazzi prowess on a new and maybe equally chaotic subject: the US Congress. And America’s lawmakers may find themselves uniquely ill-equipped for the Hollywood experience.

The outlet last week put out a public call for tips on lawmaker sightings as the partial government shutdown dragged on, leaving thousands of Department of Homeland Security employees without pay.

Graham’s Disney World excursion earned him the headline: “Living in Fantasyland as Government Shutdown Drags On.” The Senate majority leader, John Thune; the Senate majority whip, John Barrasso; and Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, also appeared in the outlet’s dispatches, with Cruz sitting as the lead story on the site.

But the Fox-owned TMZ doesn’t play sides: it highlighted how Seth Magaziner, a Democratic congressman of Rhode Island, is headed to a Real Housewives watch party this week during the shutdown. The outlet also photographed Robert Garcia, a Democratic California representative, at a Las Vegas casino, which he addressed on X: “Actually I don’t mind what TMZ is doing here,” Garcia wrote, noting he had been visiting his father, and blamed Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, for sending everyone home in the first place.

TMZ has always been trash, but this latest foray into politics has reached a new low. After all, the tabloid was created in 2005 to be first on the scene for breaking news and to stalk celebrities whenever the chance arose. The organization has a well-placed network of paid informants among hotel staff, police stations, limo drivers, airline attendants, and others who provide documents and photos as soon as they become available. This business model of rushing to publish information has frequently gotten the organization in trouble, as it has prioritized speed over accuracy and accountability. This started in 2007 when it released O.J. Simpson's purported fictionalized account of the murder of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. Since then, TMZ has been heavily criticized for releasing previously redacted information on the suicide of Linkin Park's Chester Bennington in 2017, sharing full details of Swedish DJ Avicii's suicide in 2018, reporting on the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant before his family was notified in 2020, and showing pictures of the dead body of former One Direction singer Liam Payne in 2024. TMZ's photographers have frequently become some of the most aggressive paparazzi in the business, and a 2020 Buzzfeed article featured dozens of former employees describing the TMZ newsroom as a hotbed for racism and misogyny. You can only imagine the workplace environment of an organization whose entire business model is based on the suffering of others.

For the most part, TMZ has steered clear of politics since typical tabloid readers couldn't care less about members of Congress. However, it should be noted that its founder, Harvey Levin, was an open supporter of Donald Trump in 2016, a fact that drew the ire of several members of the TMZ newsroom who saw Levin influence the network to publish positive pieces on Trump in the run-up to the election. Levin had a reputation for helping people do crisis control, so it should come as no surprise that he was contact via Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 to potentially help him weasel his way out of a sticky situation. While TMZ's coverage of Trump eventually cooled during his first term, Levin has continued to show his political bias, with a December 2024 video emerging of him claiming that Democrats are "bullies" for the way in which they worked to earn support for Kamala Harris throughout her campaign. As the second Trump administration got underway, TMZ remained largely quiet on the political front, and it wasn't until the past week that they chose to go all-in on the issue of the government shutdown. The timing of this decision couldn't have been more suspicious, and it speaks to just how desperate Trump-adjacent organizations like TMZ have become. 

Because, as we've seen, Donald Trump's approval rating is at an all-time record low. His approval rating on the economy is at a new low, a fact that has terrified the Republican Party, which has used it as its bread-and-butter issue for as long as we can remember. With Democrats more and more likely to retake the House in November, there is a strong sense that Donald Trump could end up being a lame duck president come January of next year. The only thing that could prevent this from happening would be for the American people to somehow reach the conclusion that both Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame for our current situation. One key way to do that is to create the idea in the public's mind that neither party cares about them and that there is no difference between the parties.

This is exactly what TMZ is trying to do with its sudden burst of political reporting. For every article about Ted Cruz on vacation during the shutdown, there just so happens to be one about a Democrat, even though, as we all know, it is the Republican House and Speaker Mike Johnson in particular preventing TSA agents from being paid. But that doesn't matter to Harvey Levin, who put out an open call for anyone to share photos of any of the 535 members of Congress on vacation during these next two weeks. Not just Republicans, but Republicans and Democrats. Because Levin and his team need to bothsides the issue to help the GOP. As Levin said in a recent interview, "This is a problem with Congress, not just one party." To get his views across to the American people, Levin needs to insinuate that Democrats are equally to blame. Doing that sends the message that it is not the fault of Republicans but the fault of government as a whole. And during a time when many people are suffering, the idea of both parties being the same is a targeted voter suppression tactic used to keep people from voting out the useless Republicans that caused this massive mess in the first place.

Sadly, TMZ is simply the latest media outlet to bend the knee to the Trump administration. Harvey Levin simply can't quit Donald Trump. He knows a future Democratic president won't be eating out of the palm of his hand, and he knows a Democratic-controlled House will finally curtail the wannabe imperial presidency of Donald Trump. So he's doing what he can to try to prevent Democrats from winning the House in November. Levin needs Trump and the GOP to continue to have their trifecta in play to avoid any accountability for the deceitful and underhanded tactics TMZ uses to secure stories. Birds of a feather flock together, and Levin knows his shady business model can only truly flourish when Republicans are in charge. To help make that happen, Levin and his TMZ staff are more than willing to play the bothsides game to try and obfuscate the American people. Don't fall for it. It is Republicans and Republicans only who are to blame for this current government shutdown. 

No matter what TMZ tries to tell you.