Paparazzi vs. Politicians

Today’s notice: “I think everybody knows it’s not on the House.” More mixed messages on Iran. So much for regime change. Sean Duffy goes back to his roots. And: TMZ takes on Capitol Hill.

THE LATEST

Under the bus: House Republicans are preparing for battle against … Republicans in the Senate, NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer reports.

Anger over the lack of progress in the upper chamber has permeated the House Republican Conference, and now members are prepared to return to their districts during the two-week congressional recess and argue that Congress’ current state of gridlock is the Senate’s fault.

“That’s not on the House. That’s on the Senate,” Rep. Jeff Hurd said of the lack of accomplishments this legislative session. “We’ve accomplished a heck of a lot in the House.”

When constituents ask about congressional inaction, Hurd says: “I share your frustration with respect to the Senate, and just know that in the House, we are doing everything we can to pass bills that help our district and our state and our country.”

Lawmakers are betting that Americans will understand the cross-Capitol politics. “I think everybody knows it’s not on the House. I think people invariably know that,” Rep. Byron Donalds told Em.

Open tabs: Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz (WSJ); Hegseth’s broker looked to buy defence fund before Iran attack (FT); Members of Jan. 6 mob sue police who fended off Capitol attack (Politico); Inside the Youth Movement at CPAC (NYT)

From the Hill

Papa-paparazzi: Lawmakers have increasingly become targets for celebrity-news outlet TMZ — especially this week after they skipped town without passing a deal to fund DHS. Instead of the tabloid’s typical fodder of scantily dressed A-list stars at the beach or C-list stars’ drunken arrest footage, the site featured images of an unwitting Sen. Lindsey Graham holding a children’s toy and riding Disney World’s Space Mountain.

“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. On the Democratic side, Rep. Robert Garcia was caught sitting at a bar in Las Vegas.

The snaps were the result of a call to action posted to the tabloid’s social media pages last week: “TMZ is on the hunt for photos of politicians on vacay as TSA officers suffer!”

It’s just the latest instance of the outlet taking an interest in members of Congress, NOTUS’ Violet Jira reports. TMZ conducted hallway interviews with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock and Reps. Tim Burchett, Lauren Underwood, Sara Jacobs, Sarah McBride and Eric Swalwell throughout February.

The lawmakers say they don’t mind the opportunity to get in front of different audiences. “You have to meet people where they are,” Underwood said.

The outlet has no plans to stop. In fact, TMZ Executive Producer Harvey Levin told NOTUS that “several months ago we decided to amp up our presence and our voice,” adding a producer and photographer in the Capitol to cover the intersection between pop culture and politics.

“Short story — our D.C. presence will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious,” Levin added.

From the White House

More mixed messages: Donald Trump has said the war with Iran is about to end a dozen times now, Axios reported yesterday. That talk from the president comes as American troops are being moved to the region and as the Pentagon is reportedly preparing for weeks of ground operations.

Negotiations with Iran are going great, the White House continues to say. But Iranian officials are sounding off online to say that’s not true. When asked at yesterday’s press briefing about those discrepancies, Karoline Leavitt said that “the American people are smart enough not to take the word of a terrorist regime that has chanted ‘Death to America’ for 47 years at their word.”

“We have had no negotiations with America,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei doubled down after the briefing.

Iranians are accusing Trump of market manipulation, too, with his ever-changing updates about the progress of negotiations.

“Heads-up: Pre-market so-called ‘news’ or ‘Truth’ is often just a setup for profit-taking. Basically, it’s a reverse indicator,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iranian Parliament, posted to X on Sunday — just hours before Trump posted another message about the two countries’ “serious discussions” to Truth Social.

THE BIG ONE

Regime change rebrand? Trump said on Sunday that because Operation Epic Fury has killed so many of Tehran’s top leaders, “we’ve had regime change.” But scholars and experts tell NOTUS they aren’t so sure that the people in power now are much different than before. Some even said the new people in charge might actually be more difficult for the U.S. to deal with.

“Assassinating the leader of Iran does not constitute regime change any more than assassinating JFK caused regime change in the U.S.,” said Christopher Gelpi, a political scientist at Ohio State. “The selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader represents about the most hard-line choice that the surviving regime could have made.”

Things look worse for the Iranian people, too. Iran’s hard-line cleric leaders remain in place and some reports say that the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has only grown in influence.

Trump called on Iranians to step up and overthrow the regime when the time was right. But there’s no sign yet that’s happening, said Michael Singh with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“A lot of this depends on what you mean by regime change. If you mean just a kind of a different form of dictatorship, then yeah, it’s entirely possible we’ll get that,” Singh said. “If you mean something that really represents Iran’s 92 million people in the direction they want to take, I think right now, there’s no sign of that.”

John Bolton’s silver lining: Trump’s former national security adviser told Jasmine that the war has destabilized the regime and the resulting power vacuums cause lower-level leaders to compete for higher positions. “With enough destabilization and competition, the regime begins to disintegrate from within,” Bolton argued.

And it was Marco Rubio who got the longtime hawk’s hopes up. Bolton pointed to the secretary of state’s comments yesterday on “Good Morning America,” when he said of Iranian leadership: “There’s some fractures going on there internally.”

“That’s how regime change occurs in this circumstance,” Bolton said. “So I thought what Rubio was saying was very important and positive news that this process of disintegration has at least begun.”

NEW ON NOTUS

Back to his roots: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is teaming up with the producers of “The Real World: Boston” — the reality TV show he appeared on back in the 1990s — to launch a YouTube series in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, he told TMZ for a report published yesterday.

The online show, which is currently in production, will feature the Cabinet official and his family touring the country on an extended road trip.

NOT US

• The Unlikely Ensemble Leading Trump’s Hunt for 2020 Election Fraud, by Vera Bergengruen, Josh Dawsey and Sadie Gurman for The Wall Street Journal
  
• A Nursing Home Owner Got a Trump Pardon. The Families of His Patients Got Nothing. By Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica
  
• When ICE Blows Through Rural America, by Emma Janssen for The American Prospect

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