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: Darline Graham, John McCain, Betsy Klein, Phil Rucker, E. David Luria, Michael McFaul, Pastor Daimon L. King, Lisa Murkowski, Michael Whatley, Manu Raju, Harvey West Jr., Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Jeff Merkley, Dylan Johnson, Tammy Haddad, Mike Lee, and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The Bare Truth About Trump’s Vanity Projects Revealed
Donald Trump may be America’s most obsessed grass enthusiast. The former real estate developer has repeatedly bragged about his turf expertise, at one point even declaring that he knows “more about grass than any human being.” (Perhaps cows know more.)
But devastating photos taken by The Swamp’s Farrah Tomazin have revealed a rather awkward truth about Trump’s grass obsession: his own events are leaving D.C.’s grass looking wretched. And his vanity projects are making the nation’s capital look distinctly down at heel—so badly that tourism is suffering.
“I’ve listed about 17 sites, starting with the Reflecting Pool, which are no longer able to be photographed because they are so ugly and messed up,” lamented E. David Luria, founder of the Washington Photo Safari on Tuesday.
“As a result, my bookings for the first eight months of this year are down about 50 per cent compared to previous years, and I have friends who are tour guides and food truck owners who report similar problems.”
The Swamp’s latest sightings of D.C.’s grass reveals battered, brown and patchy turf across Washington - including huge stretches between the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial, where heavy staging, seating and infrastructure were installed for Trump’s July 4 extravaganza.
Near the newly gilded Arts of War and Arts of Peace statues, National Guard military vehicles sat for months as Trump’s 24-karat gold beautification project took place, leaving a massive patch of damaged grass on the way to Arlington National Cemetery.
And who could forget the White House, which was also hammered by Trump’s UFC 250 spectacle in June? Some of the turf near the Ellipse—the parkland next to the South Lawn where a UFC “fanfest” celebration was held for days leading up to the event—appears to still be recovering.
The damage has become so extensive that the National Park Service has now closed sections of the National Mall until January 24 for a major rehabilitation project. Fixes include repairing irrigation and ripping up compacted soil, aeration, seeding, sodding and fertilizing.
Trump likes to blame vandals, but the National Park Service’s own documents cite “significant restoration due to wear, soil compaction, turf loss, and damage associated both with recent permitted events and sustained high levels of public use.”
Which brings us to Trump’s favorite green men, ScottsMiracle-Gro, an Ohio-based company that donated a cool half-million dollars to a pro-Trump PAC during the 2024 election cycle.
(Scotts MiracleGro might be best known for their TV pitchman Scott, a giant, friendly, red-haired “Scotsman” who turns up with lawn advice. Swamp readers should be warned that, in a Trumpy twist, Scott is not in fact Scottish, and is played by a Norwegian, Kristofer Hivju.)
The company is already riding to the rescue at the White House, where it’s pledged to spend $1 million to replace the South Lawn - including with a blend of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass personally selected by Trump himself.
Then Trump gave MiracleGro an even bigger plug, declaring they would place the turf across 700 acres of Washington parks with “the best grass you can get.”
It’s not clear if the company is doing the mall rehab because NPS hasn’t identified them in its documents. Still, if Trump keeps throwing parties on D.C.’s lawns and MiracleGro keeps fixing them, maybe the president should just hand the company the keys to the parks department.
What is Whatley Doing With These Predators?
Trump’s North Carolina Senate pick can’t stop associating himself with sex offenders.
Michael Whatley has barely escaped scrutiny over Harvey West Jr., a convicted sex offender Whatley appointed to the North Carolina GOP’s Plan of Organization Committee while the would-be senator chaired the party. Now, he’s scrambling to distance himself from yet another convicted sex offender.
A recent campaign stop for Whatley alongside Dr. Mehmet Oz was kicked off with a prayer from Pastor Daimon L. King, a registered sex offender who was sentenced to prison for convictions involving children—twice. When the backlash rolled in, Whatley claimed the Craven County Republican Party hosted and organized the event—not his campaign—insinuating he had no role in the lineup of speakers.
But in audio from the event leaked to The Swamp, Whatley sang a different tune.
“Now I got a good friend who was in North Carolina for just a day, wanted to stop by and say hello. He called up, and he said, ‘hey, where’s a good place to be?’ We said, ‘well, let me call the chair of the Craven County GOP.’” And who could that good friend who was just dropping by be? Why, it was Mehmet Oz, now Administrator of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and previously daytime talk show supplement-peddler Dr. Oz.
Oz also seems to have similarly low standards. At a MAHA summit on Tuesday, Oz shared a stage with British podcaster Russell Brand who is about to stand trial on charges of rape, sexual assault, and indecent assault. Brand put in a “not guilty” plea to all charges and denies the allegations. Russell has publicly admitted to having “exploitative” but consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl when he was thirty. What a collection!
Darline Graham Asked if She Knew Her Brother’s Secrets
It can’t be easy for Darline Graham with all the baggage from her brother’s 30-plus years in Congress. Of course, Lindsey Graham’s political transformation from a bipartisan warrior with his pal John McCain to a Trumpy MAGA sidekick was always going to be a subject of conjecture. But she likely wasn’t expecting to be quizzed over her big brother’s private life.
The look she gave a reporter stalking her through the Capitol, as he asked her “some allegations have come out about your brother using gay escorts?” suggested a killer instinct which might take her far in politics. She did give the reporter, “citizen journalist” Patrick Howley, a quote, saying, “I’m not even gonna entertain that question.” But curious minds would still like to know if her brother was entertained.
Red (White and Blue) Flag for State Dept.
It seems staffers at the State Department must have been confused by the 200 different flags of countries with which the U.S. has diplomatic relations flying in the lobby. How else could you explain the fact that 199 of them have now been replaced by American flags?
The switch was apparently made as part of the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations, but the 200 stars and stripes were still there this week and not everybody was happy about it. “This is insulting,” wrote former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on X. “As a State Department official, I took an oath in that building, with my hand on a Bible, to serve my country, as do all @StateDept officers. They are some of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met. No one I ever knew working there needed a “reminder.” It’s also demoralizing if it’s a stunt to fight alleged clientelism. What was [Marco Rubio] thinking? Leaders are supposed to inspire their employees, not ridicule them.”
Predictably, Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, pushed back, saying: “In no other foreign ministry or state department in the world do they display the flags of hundreds of other countries in place of their own. This is the United States Department of State—not the World Department of State.”
It doesn’t really matter in the long run. The way Trump is turning allies into enemies, it won’t be long before we run out of countries we have diplomatic relations with anyway.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow...
Looking for an illustration of the president, The Swamp came upon a windswept Trump with his hair moving in the opposite direction to his face. It seemed a little unkind so we chose another. But then the White House Rapid Response 47 team posted it on X. So, we figured it’s hair game…
Taxpayer Arch Be Damned
Senate Republicans had a chance this week to block taxpayer money going toward Trump’s 250-foot triumphal arch, which Trump bizarrely claimed would also be a military complex. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon took the Senate floor with an attempt to pass the No Funds for Trump’s Illegal Arch Act. It would have blocked the building of Trump’s arch, one of his many vanity projects, that Merkley called a “monument to his own ego.” But Republicans blocked the move. It came the same day that MAGA Sen. Mike Lee also blocked Merkley’s bipartisan bill with Sen. Lisa Murkowski to prevent Trump from tearing down presidential memorials, like the Kennedy Center. Republican unwillingness to cross Trump when it comes to his grand plans make Washington, D.C. in his image very much alive, but then so are the ongoing legal battles over the projects, which could still foil Trump’s arch dreams.
Iran War Gets Brutal Fact Check
The president’s dragged out claims about winning his Iran war has gotten a brutal new website aptly named “About Two Weeks,” a nod to the Trump’s well-worn suggestion that his war would wrap up quickly. The website catalogs the many instances of Trump claiming the war would be over soon as it has dragged on for seven months. A series of more than 130 videos document Trump not only claiming his war is coming to a close but also declaring victory. The site was created by the anti-Trump nonprofit Home of the Brave and VoteVets, a Democratic veterans organization, but the collection of words all come directly from the 47th president.
Press War Plays In a Different Court
A bizarre sub-plot to the White House’s war with CNN played out this weekend on, of all places, a grass tennis court instead of a federal court. In fact, on D.C.’s only grass tennis court, at the residence of Australia’s ambassador, Greg Moriarty, the annual venue for the Kangaroo Cup, a press vs. administration which was sponsored this year by CNN. Weirdly, it came the day after CNN was banned from Air Force One, and after a week in which the network got a judge to enforce its constitutional right to access the White House. But then on Sunday, as if the Trump administration was not fighting a war against free speech, some of CNN’s biggest names politely faced off on the immaculately tended grass, and chatted over Australian Negronis, with some of the Trump administration. Present were White House press aides Anna Kelly and Olivia Wales, whose boss wants CNN kept from the People’s House; James Bacon from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s office (Bessent whines endlessly about the coverage he gets); Kennedy Center spokeswoman Roma Daravi (who speaks up for putting Trump’s name on the monument to John F. Kennedy); and State Department adviser Grace Newton (Little Marco Rubio, to be fair, loves to kiss up to reporters). The media contingent included The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey, The New York Times’ Erik Wemple, Axios’ Hans Nichols, Gray Television’s Jon Decker, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, ubiquitous D.C. P.R. Tammy Haddad, and CNN’s Manu Raju, Betsy Klein, Phil Rucker and David Chalion.
“It’s always a good thing when a free and independent press can get across from members of the administration and sort out their differences,” Chalion quipped, slightly bizarrely given that his bosses had to get a federal judge to uphold the constitution. The cup, for what it’s worth, was won by White House advancer Colin Gramley alongside JD Vance staffer Michelle Martinkov. Only in D.C. can a generational battle for free speech stop for cocktails and some schmoozing. Isn’t life grand?
