The Correspondents’ Dinner is Dead - Long Live the Party
Gossip, Ghosts, & Delusions: New Media Dressed Up for DC’s Most Dysfunctional Weekend
Forgive me. I’m a week behind. Honestly, it’s a wonder I finish anything at all on this schedule. Thank you to the writers who noticed and approached me during the parties asking how I find time to write. It’s a constant struggle. But I’m home now for a bit.
Next week, I’ll reveal details about another upcoming adventure.
In the meantime, please enjoy an overdue WHDC recap.
My knowledge of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is limited. I know only that it was once a celebrated event—a high-gloss convergence of celebrities, the president, a comedian, and the mainstream media elite.
What it’s become is something else entirely: an ideological graveyard dressed as a party no one wants to attend.
Last year was my first trip to DC. Exhausted from campaign travel, I boarded a plane with 24 hours’ notice to attend Substack’s WHCD alternative. Denied tables at the official dinner, they threw a party of their own on the same night in a hallway at the Willard Hotel. Black tie for the black sheep.
At one point, Hamish McKenzie—Substack co-founder and unofficial philosopher king—gave a three-minute speech. I posted it to my stories, then deleted it hours later when women flooded my DMs all asking the same thing: Is he single? (He’s not.)
This year, the same party was scheduled. But this time legacy media showed up in droves. No surprise there—mainstream institutions are collapsing, public trust has evaporated, and predictably, the old guard is now slipping into the seductive, profitable terrain of independent media.
Out here in the wilds of fringe journalism, we’re thriving. So career journalists once paid to protect institutional power are now rebranding as renegades—launching newsletters, fueled frequently by contrived conflict that pits them against the old ways, and repackaging themselves as dissidents on the very platforms they once tried to sink and discredit.
Legacy print is dead. And people need jobs. It’s also as simple as that.
What constitutes “journalism” these days can be confusing. I know my corner certainly is. What I’m doing doesn’t follow any playbook, so no one really knows what to call me.
Amid all these social collisions, there’s also a sense that something new is blooming on a collective scale. Ideally, more connected and human than the predictable choreography we’ve grown used to.
Which brings us to the parties orbiting this new media moment in politics.
Substack + UTA: Minetta Bar
Bad vision is a choice. I refuse to wear glasses because that kind of clarity feels too jarring. I prefer my visuals framed by soft focus blur; like a grainy 35mm lens, with sunglasses as added filter. I have no medical excuse for wanting to avoid crisper vision. I’ve read that light eyes are more sensitive to brightness—let’s run with that.
During my brief fling with prescription lenses, I was horrified. All the details I had blissfully overlooked for years came abruptly into focus. Ceiling corners were covered in cobwebs. Baseboards were dusty. People were uglier. I was uglier. Worst of all, I became hyper-aware of expressions—catching glances across the room and stuck wondering what I did or said or wrote to earn them.
So now, by design, I navigate the world half-blind, which means in a room full of suits, I typically have no idea who’s standing in front of me.
Hence, my party faux pas two nights before the big Substack event. Had I known Ryan Lizza—Politico’s exiled editor and Olivia Nuzzi’s famed ex-fiancé—was seated behind me, I might have chosen a different topic than passionately defending RFK Jr. to a table of DC power lesbians. (In my defense, they pushed me to it.)
The setting was exactly what you’d expect from a UTA-adjacent soirée: a bar above a lovely French restaurant, tucked into a seedy corner of town. Outside, it was all crumbling concrete and graffiti; inside, old Parisian jazz on stereo, exotic wines flowing, and silver trays piled high with buttery pastries. I sank into a red velvet couch and watched the room fill with unfamiliar faces until it was time to eat.
When I introduced myself to a UTA agent, he stopped me mid-sentence: “It’s my job to know everyone in the room.”
At the table, introductions unfolded with the usual industry shorthand about what we “do.” It’s hard to explain why I’m in town covering the White House without mentioning Bobby Kennedy’s campaign and my investment in it. And if your table-mate is an inflamed liberal, primed to reject any sort of Kennedy praise, you’ll notice a shift in demeanor immediately.
I can only assume my table-mate Googled my name as soon as she excused herself to the restroom and returned with browser-fresh bias just as our steaks arrived.
Her next inquires appeared hot off the search bar.
She wondered “how I felt about all the deaths he is causing?”
I choked slightly on a generously buttered baguette.
“What deaths?”
The measles, of course. Another plague RFK Jr. has allegedly resurrected for sport. Millions will die, she insinuated. All thanks to his anti-vax lunacy now infecting HHS.
I pointed out that RFK had recently recommended the measles vaccine. Was that not the line they’d been begging him to recite? Isn’t that what she wanted to hear?
Naturally, the conversation veered to autism, which we debated politely even though I felt a flush of anxiety once it occurred to me that I might not be among assumed peers, but rather the token conservative tossed in for good measure. Behind me, I heard someone mention Jim Acosta. Sure enough—there he was. A few seats down from him sat Tara Palmeri, newly entangled in a legal war with Sean Spicer.
I glanced across the room as paranoia spiked: Was that Jake Tapper at the head of the table? Anderson Cooper beside him?
My god, what exactly was I dealing with?
I felt like Leah Remini at a buffet with Scientologists. I regretted not having my glasses on hand for emergency use.
Next to me, Taylor Lorenz took over the vaccine debate. She interjected to argue that it was actually the Democrats who fueled distrust in Big Pharma by refusing to acknowledge vaccine injuries at all. I nodded along in agreement. Her face half swallowed by her signature mask, she fired off statistics and personal stories about what her family endured thanks to a corrupt medical industry.
With my point validated, I regressed into juvenile tendencies by tossing in off-topic comments purely out of spite, superficial details that had nothing to do with anything of importance: RFK’s sailboats, skinny ties, a reformed Democrat avenger posed as a shiny diplomatic trophy to Trump’s admin, and God knows what else.
Eventually, my table-mate turned and asked me, point-blank, what exactly I agreed with him on.
I leaned forward and answered, “Everything.”
That ended polite small talk.
As the hour wrapped, I sat back and surveyed the scene—a strange end chapter to media’s messiest breakup.
I hadn’t planned on breaking bread with Ryan Lizza or the ghost of Olivia Nuzzi impeding our celebrations. Her old world connected her to nearly everyone seated in that room—a job once described to me as “the best and highest-paying gig in media,” still unclaimed and, by all accounts, unmatched by another female in print.
“They won’t fill it,” one reporter told me months ago when I asked who might take her place. “To them, it’s just another expense to scratch off.”
Her exit from New York Mag triggered an editorial extinction. What remained was reduced to tabloid fodder; articles to ashes (despite even her harshest critics admitting they miss her profiles).
And so, the night concluded with a toast to reinvention. Old names reshuffled into new roles. Legacy press redressed as liberated rebels. A younger blonde on Ryan Lizza’s arm, rumored to be a pro-abortionist on the Kamala Harris campaign, who in dim lighting—amid the blur of bad vision, wine, and noise—could almost pass for his ex-fiancée. A perfectly poised stand in.
On our way out, someone asked if I was headed to Oliver Darcy’s afterparty.
Oliver Darcy...?
Was Don Lemon busy?
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Between Parties
There’s always a reason to be out in DC. Between garden parties and long afternoons, someone always has a new place to show you, someone you simply must meet. Happy hour at the Waldorf never disappoints. The gossip is elite, and you never know who’s going to stop by. The downside is the odd menu. It’s…questionable. One day I arrived starving and ordered the French onion soup, which came in an expresso sized cup.
“You would’ve loved it back in the day,” a friend told me. He meant the first Trump term when the Waldorf was still the Trump Hotel, and the lobby operated like a 24-hour Republican war room. It was a scene I would’ve fully embraced.
At Officina, I had the best grapefruit margarita of my life. I tracked down the owner to tell him. He listened, unimpressed.
On another night, Paula Dhier—a gorgeous, DC-based lifestyle and travel blogger who’ll be debuting a local feature here soon—invited me to Occidental, her new favorite for drinks and small plates. Upstairs, she led me through a dim room wrapped in textured wallpaper and black-and-white portraits of politicians.
In Georgetown, I finally found where all the good shopping lives so I’ll never stress wardrobe miscalculations again. After a long morning writing, I wandered the neighborhood alone and was relieved to find all my favorite shops neatly lined along one charming strip. The weather was perfect. It felt like wandering around a 1960s movie set.
At the local health shops, women are thrilled by the news that RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines have moved to town. They’re on high alert because he was spotted solo on foot, dining out. Wellness shopkeepers are hopeful he’ll eventually wander into their haunts and inquire about whatever bone broth or supplement they’re selling.
As for the Kennedy footprint—Washington’s appetite for myth never wanes. The Birth of Camelot is a lovely place to pregame. Outside Scott Stewart’s row house, a bronze plaque marks it as the site where JFK first met Jackie. Inside, the house, a shrine to nostalgic American romance, is immaculately preserved. An enormous portrait of Jackie hangs on the wall next to a quote about asparagus uttered by a young, smitten Jack Kennedy.
It was Sunday, May 13, 1951—Mother’s Day. Charles Bartlett, a family friend and fellow WWII veteran, hosted a dinner party for eight. On the surface, it was a casual gathering. In reality, it was a matchmaking mission orchestrated by Joseph P. Kennedy, who hoped to steer his son away from bachelor life. Among the guests: Jacqueline Bouvier, a freelance photographer Bartlett had worked with. Over Rob Roys and Manhattans, chicken casserole, and blueberry cobbler, John was quickly taken. According to Edward Klein’s All Too Human, he later said, “I’ve never met anyone like her.”
Lady Victoria and I went to Scott’s for lunch. We started at Martin’s Tavern and sat in the proposal booth—where JFK asked Jackie to marry him. Every booth has a story. The one at the entrance, outward-facing and barely big enough for one, is where JFK, as president-elect, used to write. Clinton and Bush have theirs, too.
Later, we ended up on Scott’s couch with wine and crackers during a rain spell, gossiping and watching The Clinton Affair into the late afternoon.
Out back, I snapped a Polaroid of the two of them standing beneath Jackie’s mural. Her gaze serene, but unmistakably present—watching over us like a quiet witness to our conversations. These stories—like the city itself—will always find new people to intrigue.
We skipped Steve Bannon’s birthday bash after word got around that he was sick and wouldn’t be there (what’s a party without its host?). That didn’t stop Butterworth’s from packing the place wall-to-wall with a grip of Bannon’s usual rambunctious, “uninvited” renegades.
At the British Embassy party, I spotted Savannah Chrisley in an oversized pink bow and chased her down a long, purple-tinged hallway, up the stairs, and into a marble alcove—where I found Hogan Gidley, former deputy White House press secretary, stationed at a cocktail table, champagne in hand, clad in black satin ballet flats, each toe topped with a neat bow (opera pumps, I later read—a style dating back to the 19th century). Only he could.
Wardrobe aside, Hogan is a gentleman of the old kind. Charming. Attentive. Helpful and funny. The type who notices your empty cup and refills it without being asked.
The night’s vibe shifted when news broke of Virginia Giuffre’s passing.
I got the text, and informed Victoria, then Vicky Ward, who was one party ahead of us. The shock hit hard for those of us closely tied to the story. In response, the internet lit up and suddenly everyone was an expert on the whole sordid saga, with pitchforks out, blaming the three of us for pushing her over the edge.
(Never mind the extended series I did that exposed corruption with the lawyers involved—three years of me begging readers to see it as a more complicated framing, where the lines between villains and victims blurred beyond what immediately meets the eye.)
At The Line, they transformed the restaurant into an electric party space with the Substack logo in glowing white lights splashed across the upper balcony.
I met Vicky Ward downstairs beforehand at a dingy cafeteria. We both laughed at the sight of it. She, in a black and white gown; I, in a white suit with a red Bowie tie. We ordered a salad and burrata to split. When it arrived, the plates were not divided. We didn’t dare try—not in black tie.
Upstairs, the crowd was a mix of left and right working awkwardly to mesh. Cindy McCain arrived on the arm of her daughter in red. Taylor Lorenz floated by, while Michael Cohen was overheard asking how to grow his subscriber count—what did he need to do to explode it? To which Hamish answered: a good scoop.
After our brief intro, I posed for photos with Cohen, my arm tight around his neck. I got a text from Mike shortly after it posted wondering if I was crazy. What was I doing with that traitor, and was I trying to have my access revoked?
Then Tina Brown appeared. Goddess of gossip, icon of cultural synthesis, in a cream tuxedo dress, effortlessly stylish, looking unfairly refreshed. We crammed together for a Polaroid, a snapshot of this enchanted collision.
Some people read the Bible to feel closer to God. I keep Tina on audio to gossip smarter.
I flashed the photo to beloved Substack handler, Hanne, who got it immediately—my idol.
Hamish reappeared on the balcony as things winded down. His toast a call to arms to the crowd gathered below him, declaring us all new power brokers in a shifting media landscape.
Afterward, as everyone scrambled to decide which afterparty to attend, I was swept into a black car headed to the Occidental to celebrate the reveal of Don Jr. and Omeed Malik’s new venture: a private club for the ultra rich with an annual $500K fee, planned for Georgetown. On our way up, guests paused on the stairwell, caviar bumps piled onto wrists, flutes of champagne balanced and ready to go. Karoline Leavitt ventured down from VIP and mingled among the crowd briefly.
Atop a plush couch, Omeed stood to give a speech about creating what’s missing in this town—and how it’s always best to create something better when you are not satisfied by what currently exists.
Another testament to the city’s ongoing revival. Everyone from every craft trying to figure out their footing under new rule. How to pivot. Profit. And succeed.
And to that we raised our glasses, yet again—to the undying drive that keeps us all pressing forward in the trenches of this endless word war.
Up Ahead: 24 hours with Pam Bondi: fajitas and fentanyl + a cute tour of RFK’s HHS headquarters
I tried reading Tina Brown for the gossip but got bored by her Trump Derangement Syndrome. I can put politics aside for gossip, but it just seemed to be all the time and at this point I just find snarky anti Trump comments boring.
Taylor Lorenz still masks? Who is the guy in purple hugging her? Fascinating photos and stories, feels like the last hurrah of the MSM titanic. They are the past. Independents like you are the future!