53Bloomberg Businessweek August 20, 2018As stories claiming Trump had extramaritalafairs with
formerPlayboymodel Karen McDougal and adultilm actress
Stormy Daniels blew up in the press, TMZ’s role in reporting
on the salacious tale remained conspicuously inconsequen-
tial. “We have this scandal that’s been brewing for more than
a year about the president’s involvement with aPlayboyplay-
mate and a porn star,” says William Bastone, a co-founder of
the Smoking Gun, a gossip website. That should have put it
squarely in TMZ’s wheelhouse, but instead, he says, TMZ was
“totally out to lunch.” Beckerman disputes that TMZ ignored
Trump scandals or discouraged reporters from asking
Trump-related questions. He points to an October2016 TMZ
story that backed up claims by a woman who said Trump
touched her inappropriately. Trump denied the allegation.
TMZ’s coverage has since become more critical. According
to the two former editorial stafers, sometime around the
start of 2018 the restrictions on anti-Trump stories mysteri-
ously loosened. They never got a memo explaining why, but
TMZ’s website is now rife with clips of celebrities criticiz-
ing the president. Recent videos have included actor Mickey
Rourke calling him a “garbage can” and Levin referring to
Trump’s July closed-door meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin as “a disaster.” In early August, Trump pub-
licly criticized basketball star LeBron James. Afterward, an
article on the TMZ site defended James and referred to Trump
as “the most vile President ever to hold oice.” Levin then
hopped on Twitter and wrote of Trump, “He’s got to go!!”
What changed? According to a person with knowledge
of the relationship, not long ago Levin and Trump talked
on the phone regularly. But they had a falling-out over the
president’s repeated eforts to ban transgender troops from
serving in the U.S. military—a policy Levin inds repugnant.
(Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner and Kris’s ex-husband,
recently toldVarietythat her support for Trump had cur-
dled over the same issue.) According to the source, Levin and
Trump haven’t spoken for months.Levin might be done with Trump, but having tasted the
fruits of presidential back-scratching, it’s unlikely he’ll move
on from politics. Last September, during an interview for
Objectiied, he asked Terry Bollea, better known as the wrestler
Hulk Hogan, about his political aspirations. TMZ later posted
an interview with Roger Stone, the Republican operative and
former Trump adviser, touting the Hulkster’s political viability.
“He’s an entertainer, like Ronald Reagan, who became presi-
dent—like Donald Trump, who became president,” Stone told
TMZ. “Why not Terry Bollea for U.S. Senate?”
As TMZ’s ield producers make their rounds, they frequently
question celebrities about the 2020 presidential prospects of their
peers, including Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Kanye West, and
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. Not long ago, TMZ on TV ran a seg-
ment on the Rock’s political aspirations. “He’d make a great can-
didate,” said former wrestler Mick Foley. “He’s a guy who cuts
across party lines.” Later on the show, its stafers predicted that2020’s slate of candidates would be brimming with celebrity
hopefuls. Beckerman says TMZ is changing with the times. As
social media have given celebrities more power, “the natural
response from us is to consider whether those celebrities would
be interested in politics,” he says.
TMZ’s biggest moment of 2018 was in April, when West, an
outspoken Trump supporter who’s said he plans to run for
president in 2024, hopped on Twitter to complain about being
slighted by the site. “Harvey Levin of TMZ your hearing from
your future president,” he wrote. “Let’s be friends.”
Several days later, West appeared on TMZ Live. The inter-
view went of like a hot-take inferno. Among other things, he
revealed that he’d become addicted to opioids after getting
liposuction and said that the 400-year history of American
slavery amounted to a choice made by the enslaved.
For now, the Kardashian-Jenners appear to be the front-runner
in TMZ’s celebrity president horse race. In July the site published
an “exclusive” story reporting that Kim Kardashian had just
met with inmates at a women’s prison in California. The item
explained that it was part of her advocacy for prison reform,
which had already resulted in a high-proile presidential pardon
of a 63-year-old incarcerated great-grandmother—not to mention
a widely circulated photo of Kardashian posing with a grinning
Trump inside the White House.
The following night, one of TMZ’s reporters spotted Jayceon
Taylor, better known as The Game, standing outside a chic
West Hollywood seafood restaurant. The reporter asked about
Kardashian’s advocacy for prison reform. “Kim K. is running for
president,” the rapper replied. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he argued,
the Kardashians know how to motivate millennials. He pointed
out that Kim’s half-sister Kylie Jenner runs a successful cosmet-
ics startup. The silent lip-gloss-buying majority could emerge as
a reliable voting bloc. “You know how many of them will go vote
if Kylie tweets ‘Vote for my sister’?” The Game asked.
A presidential candidate whose fame can be traced to a
sex tape might strain all credulity, but support from celeb-
rity media has political value. Publishers such as TMZ and
the National Enquirer are uniquely positioned to detonate—
or disarm—future unlattering tapes. “That’s the best kind of
opposition research,” says Frank Luntz, a political consultant
and pollster. “There is a currency for that in Washington.”
This currency could, however, prove a bit too volatile for
the world’s largest telecom company. If AT&T ultimately puts
TMZ up for sale, there should be plenty of interest. Murdoch,
executive chairman of 21st Century Fox Inc., would be an apt
buyer. TMZ on TV, TMZ Live, and TMZ Sports all air on Fox out-
lets, and TMZ on TV is signed through 2020. Levin and his team
“have been woven into our fabric,” says Frank Cicha, senior
vice president for programming at Fox Television Stations. “I
fully expect we’ll want to renew. It’s one of the key building
blocks of our strategy. It’s a great business for us, and I know
we’ll want to stay in.” And ultimately, it’s hard to envision a
better way for Levin to realize his political ambitions than by
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Why not Terry Bollea for U.S. Senate?”