TMZ is bringing its celebrity-gossip playbook to Washington, deploying a “TMZ DC” team to confront lawmakers “paparazzi-style” and to capture candid images of politicians outside official settings. The Associated Press reported the initiative has already produced viral moments, as Congress and the Trump administration operate under intense scrutiny.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew attention to the effort on Friday by calling TMZ during a Pentagon briefing and describing it as “new members of our press group here.” The AP reported that the remark also echoed criticism Hegseth made during the campaign of legacy media outlets.
The outlet’s Washington push is also tied to the broader overlap between politics and celebrity culture, a dynamic that has intensified since Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term. The AP said TMZ’s move arrives as Congress is in turmoil and public trust in Washington institutions is low, citing Gallup polling released this week.
TMZ’s team has sought moments that play well online by spotlighting lawmakers away from the capital. The AP reported one viral example involved an image of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., holding a wand at Disney World as airport security lines were gripped by chaos during a period when Congress had not acted on a funding bill. TMZ also published photos and encounters involving lawmakers from both parties during a recent congressional recess, including Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Robert Garcia of California.
A key operational constraint shapes how TMZ DC does its work. The AP reported that TMZ is not currently credentialed by the congressional press galleries, limiting coverage largely to walk-and-talk interviews outside the Capitol or in hallways of public office buildings, where staff can conduct ambush-style questioning.
In interviews filmed for the project, TMZ staff have asked lawmakers rapid-fire, celebrity-media-style questions. In one video this week, Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., appeared confused by questions about a party hosted by the gay dating and hookup site Grindr, saying, “I don’t understand,” and then asking, “Are they a media company?” The AP also reported that Rep. Lateefah Simon, D-Calif., responded to a question about how lawmakers celebrate the 4/20 marijuana holiday by speaking about a personal loss: “4/20 is the day that my daddy died,” she said, adding, “My dad was an amazing man in San Francisco. I think about him every single time there’s 4/20.”
The AP reported that TMZ’s gotcha-style approach can also backfire. It said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., faced defense from colleagues after his image was captured away from Washington during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with the context being that he was at his son’s basketball game. The AP also described a Pentagon briefing exchange in which TMZ’s Charlie Cotton asked whether the Trump administration’s labeling of the Iran conflict could be changed, prompting Hegseth to respond with praise for the U.S. military.
Hegseth’s exchange at the briefing came as the administration has promoted a naming frame for the conflict. At the briefing, the AP reported that Cotton asked, “Would you consider changing the name again to the Department of Peace since that’s what we’re all after?” Hegseth replied that it was a “great question” and declared that “the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year is the United States military.”
While TMZ’s Washington ambush approach is new to the outlet’s current branding, the AP said the tactic itself has precedents in the capital’s media ecosystem, including longtime CBS correspondent Mike Wallace’s “ambush interview” style. The AP noted that nearly 40 years ago, Wallace and reporters confronted then-Sen. Gary Hart in Washington ahead of his 1988 presidential campaign, illustrating how unprepared public figures can be caught on camera in street-level encounters.
Still, observers questioned why TMZ took this long to make a more formal push. Ana Marie Cox, who wrote the Wonkette blog and covered Washington in the early 2000s, said in an interview with the AP: “I am legitimately surprised they weren’t already there,” adding, “They’re actually a little bit late to the game.” The AP reported that a representative for TMZ did not respond to a request for comment.
TMZ was founded in 2005 and is still run by Harvey Levin, who has had a complicated relationship with Trump. The AP said that, within a decade, TMZ made its name by breaking stories including Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 and related drug-use coverage. At the same time, the AP reported that the outlet’s tactics can cross traditional journalistic boundaries, including issues involving paying sources and failures such as reporting that Beyoncé would perform at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which did not happen.
Even so, the AP reported that some early TMZ DC coverage has been considered genuinely newsworthy, including the Disney World photo of Graham, which one media scholar described as showing lawmakers away from Washington during a political crisis. Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, said the photo was “genuinely newsworthy,” according to the AP. The AP also reported that representatives for Graham did not respond to a request for comment.
In Washington, where newsroom staffing has been strained and outlets are competing for attention, TMZ’s arrival suggests a bet that politicians’ off-guard moments are becoming more valuable—and more shareable—than ever.