Cockburn at the Trump inauguration

A very Special Relationship

On Friday night, Cockburn began at the British Embassy for send-off drinks with outgoing ambassador Karen Pierce. Several foreign correspondents were present, along with the Washington Post’s John Hudson, Robert Costa and Fin Gomez of CBS. They all tucked into sparkling wine and beer and fish and chips hors d’oeuvres.

Britain was also on the agenda for Cockburn’s next event, the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack Celebration thrown by the Gunster Group, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore on the roof of the Hay-Adams. Upon hearing an accent, Natalie Winters of the War Room podcast asked of one British guest, “so, groomer or groomée?”

Cockburn watched the esteemed Dr. Sebastian Gorka exiting in a long military-style trenchcoat. He also saw: Steve Bannon, Mercedes Schlapp, Grover Norquist, Raheem Kassam, Erik Prince, Kimberly Guilfoyle and plenty of hacks from the New Yorker, the Sunday Times of Londonand GB News. Punters feasted on Niman beef and, yes, more fish and chips.

Former prime minister Liz Truss, sans the MAGA hat she’d worn earlier in the day, was nattering with Reform leader Nigel Farage by upstairs coat check. Someone asked Farage if he was doing Dry January. “Well, I was!” he boomed. There’s always next year.

Ladies, please…

Socialite of the weekend: Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who spent a decent chunk of Saturday’s America First Policy Institute ball trying to ingratiate herself with Susie Wiles. One small problem: she wasn’t talking to Wiles, just a woman from the Midwest who looks slightly like her. Boebert was also spotted attempting to big-time her way into VIP with her sculpted himbo companion. On Sunday she found herself in a spirited discussion with staff in VIP at the Turning Point USA ball, as well as cutting a rug with Kid Rock.

The Daily Caller Institute cohosted an exclusive Saturday soirée at Georgetown’s Café Milano. Guests included former Democratic governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, legendary GOP strategist Roger Stone — and others who haven’t done time, also. Congresswoman Nancy Mace dazzled in a gold-sequined dress. “Nancy Mace totally just eye-fucked me,” one young male attendee was overheard bragging to his friend.

Coining a phrase

A hallmark of inauguration events is their supposed exclusivity. “This invite is non-transferable, RSVP by the deadline,” et cetera. Let’s hope the blockchain is more secure than the super-exclusive Crypto Ball at the Mellon Auditorium on Friday proved to be: after passing through airport-style scanners, Cockburn… strolled right in. Money isn’t real? Neither is security, apparently.

The VIP section for the event was way up in the rafters, with baller bitcoin bros lording it over the hoi polloi. The Mellon is a classically-inspired building, with pillars everywhere — readers may recall it as the venue for most RNC speeches in 2020 (yes, where Kimberly Guilfoyle promised, “the best… is yet… to cooooommmeeeee”). It made for an apt setting for the crypto bros hellbent on building a new Rome. 

George Santos posed for selfies as Scott Presler floated around. Cockburn caught up with Joy Villa — now also into crypto, of course — who had modified her trademark “Trump gown” by Andre Soriano to make it “a bit more dark MAGA to celebrate his second term.”

Up on stage, Snoop Dogg was DJ’ing — in something of an about-turn for the rapper who was so critical of Trump in 2017 and of Kanye West when he backed the president in his first term. Cockburn filled up on crab cakes before stepping outside. Out front, he saw Vivek Ramaswamy, now no longer of “DoGE,” heading toward a car with a mob of security. “Good luck for governor!” a crypto bro yelled at Vivek, ahead of his soon-to-be announced entry into the Ohio gubernatorial race. Vivek gave a thumbs-up and thanked him as he kept moving.

Fightin’ the Civil Charges Irish

Popping up all over town this weekend was MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who is seemingly seeking to follow Andrew Tate and Russell Brand down the “European accused sexual deviant to darling of the American right”-pipeline. He showed up with the Abbey Gate Gold Star families in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis on Saturday night, in a deft attempt at reputation laundry.

Pod help us

Cockburn began his Sunday with a Bloody Mary in Georgetown at the Spotify brunch organized by Beck and Stone. The music streaming service was marking the role podcasts had played in the outcome of the election — and the guestlist was a mixture of media old and new: Newsmax’s John Gizzi, Kellyanne Conway, Caroline Wren, Dave Weigel and Max Tani of Semafor, Axios’s Alex Thompson, the New York Post’s Jon Levine, Molly Marlow, Tim Pool and Ben Shapiro, Brett Cooper, Michael Knowles, CNN’s David Chalian, Patrick Bet-David, Mark and Mollie Hemingway, Tiffany Marie Brannon, the Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey and Congressman Darrell Issa. There was a cocktail conveyer belt, four different types of caviar and hors d’oeuvres aplenty — as well as a set from country star Riley Green.

Cockburn caught up with Cooper — who seemed unfazed to be surrounded by so many former Daily Wire colleagues, despite their contentious parting of ways last month. She offered him farming tips and teased what’s to come on her newly launched YouTube channel (watch this space).

Snow joke

He then braved the falling snow to head across town for the Alaska delegation event at Monocle on Capitol Hill — naturally the look helped with the dress code. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan were present, and attendees were treated to wonderful renditions of the National Anthem and the state song. A number of guests were apprehensive about how expeditiously the incoming president would help out on the state’s energy industry. They needn’t have worried: one of Trump’s many day-one executive orders was focused on the state.

Pardon my French

At Sunday’s Passage Press Ball, Cockburn watched Dasha from Red Scare needling Curtis Yarvin about not believing in God. Jack Posobiec pledged that he would fight to free Derek Chauvin. John R. MacArthur of Harper’s met the Raw Egg Nationalist. Hopefully your brain functions properly and those sentences mean absolutely nothing to you. As James Pogue remarked to Cockburn, “I thought I was going mad when we came in here tonight, then I saw Rick MacArthur among this crowd and decided: ‘yeah, I’m now insane.’” The night was marked by a few too many speeches — everyone loves a crowd don’t they? — and was the weekend’s primary gathering of the terminally online.

An equally brain-rotted cast of characters populated the joint event between the Free Press, X and Uber that night: Conor McGregor, again; Lex Fridman; Senator Ted Cruz; RFK’s children; Bret Baier; Jillian Michaels; Dr. Oz. The sexagenarian essayist and politician Éric Zemmour worked the room in a typically Gallic fashion, making eyes at young ladies left, right and center (but mostly right). The ladies from the Girls Gone Bible podcast sang along with the room to John Denver’s “Country Roads,” changing the lyrics of the chorus to “West Virginia, MAGA mama.”

To the max and TikTok on the clock

Cockburn had some help tying his bow tie from Newsmax’s John Bachman at the start of the network’s big bash at the Mellon Auditorium on Sunday evening. He then watched the dying seconds of the Eagles-Rams game on his phone with a bartender — in exchange for a night of speedy service, of course — before moseying around to see who he could spot. In attendance: Senator Ted Cruz, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his son Andrew, John Tabacco and his brother Derek, Larry and Meredith O’Connor, Alex DeGrasse and Katherine Doyle, Eric and Susanne Metaxas and a DHS sniffer dog.

Then it was out into the cold again for a journey on foot to Sax, for the TikTok “China might not have to sell us after all” party. The venue was heaving as the crowd awaited a DJ set from Waka Flocka Flame. A double-masked Taylor Lorenz put Cockburn’s VIP wristband on for him (she is now covering the influencersphere on her Substack, Power User) and he headed upstairs into the throng. He clocked a healthy contingent from the Daily Mail, Trump campaign social media supremo Greg Price, Alex Bruesewitz and Lil Pump. You know, the usual crowd.

The new American Golden Age

As the president signed executive orders before a feverish crowd at the Capitol One Arena and waved a sword around to “YMCA” on Monday night, Cockburn was at Butterworth’s, the chic European-inspired café on Pennsylvania Avenue, for a party hosted by Raheem Kassam’s the National Pulse, the Logan Circle Group and Rob Wasinger celebrating “the new American Golden Age.” Guests to the wristbanded black-tie optional event snacked on beef tartare and jumbo shrimp — and sipped cocktails including the “Covfefe Espresso Martini” and one called “Raheem’s My Daddy”: doubtless a throwback for longstanding readers of this correspondent.

In attendance: Steve Bannon, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, Saurabh Sharma, Gavin Wax, Roger Kimball, Jeremy Karl, Alana Goodman, Morgan Housley, Amber and Jonathan Duke, Billy and Teresa McMorris, Will Upton, John Wilson, DC Draino, Harlan Hill, Scott Presler, Ed Roman, Freddie Hayward, Will Lloyd and Poppy Coburn, Michael Murphy and Kassam.