Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito, are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out.
In this week’s nooze from the ooze: Barron Trump, Walt Nauta, Kimberty Guilfoyle, Sean Duffy, Melania Trump, Natalie Harp, Barron Trump, Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Donald Jr. and Bettina Trump, Charles Booker, Jared Kushner, Eric Shanks, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller and “Missing” Mitch McConnell.
Darline Graham Finally Questioned on Pro-Choice Cash
Senator Darline Graham faces the voters—again—on Tuesday in the South Carolina run-off election she needs to win to then face the voters, for a third time, to secure six years in her brother Lindsey Graham’s old seat.
She has the endorsement, of course, of Donald Trump, and presumably the goodwill of those Republicans who loved her brother—although on Tuesday night she had a shocker of a debate performance, being booed when she confessed her ignorance of national security, her brother’s signature issue.
But worse for Graham, she has been dogged by a particularly awkward revelation first made by The Swamp: That the only person she has ever been recorded making a political donation to was a state senator who tanked a draconian abortion ban.
We revealed, on July 21, that Graham had given $100 to the campaign for then-State Senator Katrina Shealy. Shealy was a disability rights advocate who went on to become known as one of the “Sister Senators,” three Republicans, a Democrat, and an independent, who blocked a total abortion ban in South Carolina in 2023. Then it turned out that after that blocking move, Graham gave another $100 to Shealy. That was hardly what the MAGA base wanted to learn about Darline, whose brother had carefully tended to the base with his own attempts at draconian anti-abortion legislation.
And since then, Graham has proven to be the opposite of her garrulous brother when it comes to speaking to the press.
Finally this week, she was pressed on her cash for Shealy. “My connection with her was through the disability community, not on the pro-life issue,” Graham told a group of reporters during a campaign stop. When asked about being personal friends, Graham said: “I know her. I’ve never been to her house, so yeah, she’s a nice lady.”
But the response only makes things even more awkward for Graham.
It directly contradicts Shealy’s own take on their relationship. She told The New York Times that she was a close personal friend of Graham. Shealy said they rarely talked politics and never abortion, but her comments on their friendship indicated Graham has in fact been to her home as they live near each other. Shealy said they liked to drink wine on her back porch and talk about faith and families while watching, and The Swamp merely reports what she said, Shealy’s pet donkeys.
Which raises an intriguing question: Which one of these Republican ladies is showing their a-s?
You Won’t Believe How Many Trumps Are Mailing It In
Donald Trump just voted by mail in the Florida Republican primary even as he blasted mail-in voting for others. And now, The Swamp can disclose, it turns out he is not the only Trump to vote by mail. Palm Beach records show that Melania Trump, who has not been seen publicly in a month according to Daily Beast tracking, also voted by mail in the August primary. And the county’s records show that Barron Trump, 20, was in on the scheme: He too voted by mail in the GOP primary. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner may also be mailing it in. County election records in Miami-Dade County show ballots were shipped to them on July 9. Neither had returned their ballots by mail as of Election Day on Tuesday, but that does not mean they did not turn them in directly or vote in person.
Voting in person might have been a little tricky for Kushner, an unofficial representative for Trump with no official government role, who was busy holding meetings in the Middle East earlier this week with both Hamas and top Israeli officials. And then there is the fact that Jared and the missus have been spotted house hunting in Malibu, California, because having a home in one of the most expensive zip codes, Miami, for some is not enough when they can easily afford homes in multiple luxury zip codes. Good news for this branch of the Trumps if they make the Left Coast a permanent home: Gavin Newsom’s California is all-in on voting by mail!
Trump Blows Past Congress With a Checkered Past
First we had UFC at the White House. Then came Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair on the National Mall. This weekend, Washington gets an IndyCar race screaming around downtown D.C.—another spectacle being imposed on a city already used as a backdrop for the president’s vanity projects.
Donald Trump says the event will be “an awesome display of American patriotism” as IndyCar drivers hit speeds of over 200 mph down Pennsylvania Avenue, passing landmarks such as the National Archives and the “go woke, go broke” Smithsonian Museum along the way. Helpfully, he will lead a lap of the course in The Beast, rather like that drive around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
But The Swamp has the inside scoop of how the Freedom 250 Grand Prix almost crashed and burned—until Trump bypassed the people who questioned the event.
The idea for the race emerged last year as a “blue sky” brainstorm between Bud Denker, president of Roger Penske’s Penske Corp, and Eric Shanks, CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Sports. (Penske, whose rental trucks you’ve seen, is a big Trump donor, while Rupert is in an on-off bromance with Trump despite being 95.) Denker then spent months trying to get Congress to approve an original course around the Capitol.
He held 81 meetings on the Hill, from the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. They all balked at turning the Capitol into a rev-head racetrack, citing federal restrictions on advertising, height limits and the precedent of hosting such a spectacle around Capitol grounds.
By Jan. 21, Denker was ready to pull the plug.
“This race is not happening,” he recalls telling Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on January 21. The project, Fox Sports chief Shanks admitted, was “kind of on life support.”
Then Trump intervened. Rather than persuade Congress, he simply went around it, signing an executive order on Jan. 30 directing federal agencies to make the race happen.
Now crews are scrambling to build a 1.66-mile, seven-turn street circuit, with more than 220 manhole covers welded shut, and roughly 1,800 concrete barriers installed around the course, which will start and finish in front of the U.S. Capitol. The $35 million cost is being covered, they say, by corporate sponsors. (To which The Swamp says, hmmm, haven’t we heard that before?)
It’s hardly a hit with the locals. “What a s—t-show,” quipped one disgruntled Washingtonian as he observed the fresh fencing outside the Archives-Navy Memorial metro station.
Residents, start your engines… to leave town.
Nauta Lot of Attention on Trump’s Male Aide
Everyone is talking about Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old aide who seems to be permanently attached to Donald Trump. Spare a thought for Walt Nauta, Trump’s longtime body man and now director of Oval Office operations. Like Harp, he has been a regular fixture beside Trump for years, and was also in the catering truck with him during last month’s extraordinary escape from Air Force One in Turkey. But Nauta’s loyalty has come with considerably higher stakes than carrying a portable printer and a giant, mysterious bag. He was also indicted alongside Trump in the classified documents case, pleading not guilty to helping move boxes at Mar-a-Lago and later concealing documents for the president. Trump’s blonde companion may be getting all the attention, but would she be willing to put her freedom on the line for him? You’d better believe it!
Where’s Melania? Was She in Scotland?
An intriguing photograph reaches The Swamp from a rather far-flung destination: Scotland. The country of tartan and whisky played host over the weekend to an exotic plane: A Boeing C-32 painted in Jacqueline Kennedy blue. C-32 is the official Air Force designation for the VIP 757s flown by, among others, the vice president, and sometimes used as Air Force One for trips to places with short runways. Another use of such a plane: Transporting first ladies. So why was a VIP plane at Glasgow Airport when the president’s wife was missing? The Swamp has asked… and has no reply.
It’s All Greek to Kimberly
Kimberly Guilfoyle may be out of the headlines in her home country, but she’s still front page news in Greece. Back in Palm Beach, she may have watched, green-eyed, as her exes, Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump Jr., and more pertinently, their partners, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Bettina Trump, remained in the spotlight. But the U.S. ambassador in Athens is big news in the hometown newspaper, the Attica Times. Her photo is on the front page of almost every recent issue. Now if only her Greek was good enough to know what they are saying about her… At the very least, we hope she’s memorized her most famous line in Greek: Τα καλύτερα έπονται!*
On the Button
It might come as some solace to Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller and members of the White House pool who were herded onto the decoy plane by the Secret Service in Turkey as Donald Trump and Natalie Harp slipped quietly onto their food truck getaway to know that they are not alone. Apparently, according to a button being passed around Washington circles: “WE ARE ALL ON THE DECOY PLANE.” And yes, isn’t that how it feels to be American right now?
What’s in a Name? About $10 Million
When Sean Duffy announced Trump’s $1 billion “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” fund last December, the local airport for Mar-a-Lago was still known as the Palm Beach International Airport. Then, in February, the Florida legislature decided to rename it the Donald J. Trump International Airport. The change was implemented just last month, and, what do you know, DJT is now the biggest beneficiary of Duffy’s much-vaunted travel fund with a $10 million grant for new bathrooms, baby-changing rooms and a family “sensory” room where children and adults can find a supportive environment to “relax, self-regulate, and feel safe.” (Sounds kind of, let’s be honest, snowflake-y?) Would the airport have been given such a bumper gift without the name change? We guess we will never know. But there’s definitely a pattern. It turns out he was making travel family-friendly… to the Trump family.
This Kentuckian Doesn’t Have the Itch to Be Like Mitch
Mitch McConnell’s more than two-month absence from public view has sparked a greater conversation about the need for term limits in Washington, D.C. The Democratic candidate vying to replace the 84-year-old senator told The Swamp he supports capping how long someone can serve. “I absolutely support term limits,” Charles Booker said. “I’ve taken a pledge myself.” Booker, who is running against GOP Rep. Andy Barr to replace McConnell when he officially retires at the end of his term, said it was less about capping age and more about focusing on a person’s capacity to do the job. “That’s what’s called into question with Mitch McConnell’s health because he has been struggling with his health for some time,” Booker explained. (Booker, incidentally, is 41.) Booker has said he does not believe McConnell is having 20-minute policy phone calls with allies, which some have claimed to have enjoyed. Governor Andy Beshear has repeatedly asked the Senator to call with an update on his health, but says he’s been—to use what might be an unfortunate term in the circumstances—ghosted.
*Obviously, Kimberly knows already but “Τα καλύτερα έπονται!” means “the best is yet to come!”
