TMZ Has a New Obsession: Vacationing Members of Congress

Nestled between headlines about Britney Spears (“Spears Sets Sail With Sons After DUI Drama”) and Tiger Woods (“The Only One Driving Is Me!!!”), the celebrity tabloid news outlet TMZ is slamming lawmakers for skipping town as the partial government shutdown stretches into its seventh week.

“Lindsey Graham was ineffective talking his colleagues into keeping the government open, but he had a great convo with Mickey Mouse Sunday ... at Disney World!!!” the outlet wrote in one story.

It’s the latest instance of the outlet taking an interest in members of Congress. TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told NOTUS they now have a producer and a photographer circulating Capitol Hill.

“TMZ has covered politics for years, but several months ago we decided to amp up our presence and our voice,” he said in a statement.

Over the past few months, TMZ staff has questioned lawmakers on things ranging from Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show to what it’s like to work on the Hill. For the most part, lawmakers told NOTUS they don’t mind a celebrity-centric outlet covering the halls of Congress.

Recently, the outlet has devoted particular attention to how members of Congress are behaving during the funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security. TMZ requested tips on Thursday about sightings of lawmakers who left D.C. without reaching a funding deal, leaving many DHS employees to miss paychecks for at least two more weeks.

One was Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, who was photographed at a Las Vegas casino, according to TMZ reporting. Garcia shared the post on X.

“Actually I don’t mind what tmz is doing here,” he wrote. “Like the story says my dad has lived in Vegas for 15 years and I had just finished lunch with him. I try to see him whenever I can. And like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home.”

TMZ also reported sightings of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, Sen. Ted Cruz and Graham (who was spotted carrying a bubble wand and riding Space Mountain at Disney World). Their offices did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS.

Levin said TMZ decided to highlight lawmaker travel after interviewing a TSA worker who wasn’t being paid during the shutdown.

“It outraged us so much we wanted to use our platforms to show how Congress — Dems AND Republicans — have betrayed us,” Levin said in his statement. “We spontaneously came up with the idea to juxtapose members of Congress on their Spring Break against federal workers who are losing their homes, their cars, their livelihoods. Short story — our DC presence will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious.”

In February, TMZ did hallway interviews with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock and with Reps. Tim Burchett, Lauren Underwood, Sara Jacobs, Sarah McBride and Eric Swalwell.

Many of the lawmakers NOTUS spoke to said it’s important to get in front of different audiences.

“You have to meet people where they are,” Underwood said.

The Pew Research Center found that more than half of American adults get some of their news from social media, with Facebook, YouTube, X, and TikTok commanding large shares of that audience.

“I don’t know what traditional media is anymore to tell you the truth,” Burchett said last week.

Burchett was stopped by TMZ outside the Capitol Hill Club in February, resulting in the headline: “Congressman Tim Burchett: Only Bad Bunny I Know Is My Late Horny Pet.”

“The big three — ABC, NBC, CBS — seem to be trying to hang on and these other folks are nipping away at them,” he continued. “Frankly, it keeps everyone a little honest on the right and the left.”

Jacobs’ interview with TMZ, in which she compared Congress to high school, received backlash on X, where it was viewed 6 million times. Still, she told NOTUS that it’s important to reach everyone you can — even if the context isn’t strictly political.

The videos TMZ posted on TikTok of lawmaker interviews received lukewarm engagement numbers (none broke 5,000 likes). Sightings of lawmakers across the country as the shutdown drags on garnered more social media attention — Graham’s sighting was viewed 4 million times on X, and engaged with by people from Gavin Newsom to Tucker Carlson.

McBride, who told TMZ working on the Hill feels like a crossover between the reality TV shows “Real Housewives” and “Traitors,” told NOTUS that while lawmaking isn’t entertainment, getting in front of people is still important.

“I’m not someone who thinks politics should be a new form of entertainment, but the reality is in today’s individualized media environment, if we aren’t talking to people where they are, outside of exclusively political news spaces, we’re gonna miss a lot of voters,” she said. “And TMZ is one part of that equation.”