TMZ, the Hollywood-based tabloid, is known for unleashing its throng of paparazzi and tipsters upon celebrities and then releasing photos of them in embarrassing or compromising situations.
On the 41st day of the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, as members of Congress began flying home for their scheduled spring recess after failing to reach a deal to reopen the agency, TMZ’s founder, Harvey Levin, decided they should receive the same sort of scrutiny.
He published a series of photographs of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, including one of him holding a bubble wand at Disney World. There was an image of Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat of California, hanging out at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas resort. Some were pictures of lawmakers rushing through airports or on planes, making their escapes from Washington.
The goal seemed to be to show members of the House and Senate doing anything other than their jobs of funding the government, while federal workers went without pay.
“Maybe they’re on a cruise somewhere, or in Hawaii or some other great place. We want those pictures,” Mr. Levin said in a video encouraging members of the public to send in more such material. “And the point of this is to show how fed up the American people are — because we are.”
Peeved travelers have heeded the message, and the result has been a rash of bipartisan shaming. TMZ published photos of Senators Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont; Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee; and Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, all independently flying home from Washington.
The outlet called out Representative Seth Magaziner, Democrat of Rhode Island, for plans to host a watch party for the inaugural season of “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island.”
Perhaps no one fared worse than Mr. Graham, whose trip to Disney World TMZ has documented in an ongoing series featuring vignettes of him at Chef Mickey’s, pouring a beverage steps away from a toque-clad Mickey Mouse mascot and waiting in line at the buffet; at the Magic Kingdom, carrying the bubble wand (on behalf of a child, his office told TMZ); and waiting in line to ride Space Mountain.
Members of Congress have become accustomed to being subject to “gotcha” moments on social media. But the extraordinary campaign, waged by a tabloid organization known for its aggressive reportorial methods including sometimes paying eyewitnesses for photos, is something of a departure for Washington, which has long been derisively termed “Hollywood for ugly people.”
“Actually I don’t mind what tmz is doing here,” Mr. Garcia wrote on social media after the site published the photos of him at the casino. “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.”
Mr. Garcia added: “Like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home.”
Mr. Graham, in a statement that TMZ published, said that his stop at Disney World was to “meet friends” after a meeting with President Trump and Steve Witkoff, the diplomatic envoy. “I voted 7 times to fully fund the government. Call a Democrat,” he said.
On Sunday, he posted a picture of himself shooting skeet in South Carolina, apparently eager to show that while he was still on vacation, he was not spending his entire break at the “Most Magical Place on Earth.”
In a separate video posted on Monday, Mr. Levin appeared to reject the explanations from members of both political parties, as he made a broad call for Americans to vote out members of Congress, even the ones they like, to send a message that they no longer trust the institution.
“There has to be some kind of a movement, because they are insulting our intelligence by thinking, ‘Oh, we can get over on them by blaming it on the other party,’” he said. “It’s not the other party, it’s both parties, and we are kind of sick of the way they are patronizing us.”
TMZ in recent years has bulked up its Washington coverage, sometimes stationing a cameraman at area airports, on the Capitol steps outside the House chamber where lawmakers exit after votes and, in one case, outside the MAGA-favored bistro Butterworth’s on Capitol Hill as it hosted the Christmas party of the pardoned former Representative George Santos of New York.
“TMZ has covered politics for years, but several months ago we decided to amp up our presence and our voice,” Mr. Levin said in a statement. “We now have a producer and a photog circulating in the Capitol, showing the intersection between politics and pop culture.”
The site previously provided in-depth coverage of the fallout from an incident involving Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, after she was caught on a security camera in 2023 vaping and groping her date shortly before being ejected from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” in Denver.
It has routinely published short video interviews with the congresswoman as she departed a Washington-area airport, blaring headlines such as “Rep. Lauren Boebert Says Nothing Brewing With 50 Cent After Flirty Photo” and “Rep. Lauren Boebert Says Hookup Theater Guy Won’t Get Another Date.”
Members of Congress in both parties, many of who routinely answer questions from reporters in the hallways of the Capitol, have recorded video interviews with TMZ, billed in screaming headlines as “EXCLUSIVE” to the site.
Mr. Levin said the staff “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.”
TMZ’s presence in Washington, he added, “will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious.”
Katie Robertson contributed reporting.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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