SCOOP: A D.C. startup to integrate AI into lobbying is covertly run by a pair of well-known conspiracy theorists, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who are using the fake names "Jay Klein" and "Bill Sanders" in their new business, four former employees told me. politico.com/news/2024/09/0… LobbyMatic temporarily signed up at least three brand-name clients: Toyota, consulting firm Boundary Stone Partners and drug company Lantheus, according to two of the former employees. Those companies don't work with LobbyMatic anymore.

SCOOP: Former SNL cast member Rob Schneider delivered a comedy set so off-color and off-putting to a group of prominent Republicans late last year that the host, Senate Working Group, cut the performance short and later apologized to attendees. politico.com/newsletters/pl…


Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) walked out during Schneider’s performance. His set was “gross and vulgar,” her spokesperson told me. “She didn’t have to listen to it and so she got up and left.”

SCOOP: In the weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) not only publicly cast doubt on reports that Israeli women were raped, but also called those accusations “propaganda,” according to a previously unreported post on TikTok. politico.com/live-updates/2…
“There was propaganda used in the beginning of the siege,” Bowman told a Nov. 17 rally of about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters in Westchester. “There’s still no evidence of beheaded babies or raped women. But they still keep using that lie [for] propaganda.”

SCOOP: Kellyanne Conway, the former senior Trump aide, is being paid by the Club for Growth to advocate for TikTok in Congress and has had at least 10 meetings with lawmakers in recent months about the app, three people familiar with the meetings told me. politico.com/news/2024/03/0… Billionaire investor and Club for Growth donor Jeff Yass holds a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which is based in Beijing. Conway is still close to Donald Trump and has brought up TikTok to Trump since she started as a consultant for Club for Growth.

SCOOP: The National Interest, a prominent journal run by a right-leaning foreign policy think tank, is shutting down its print edition after running into severe financial problems, four current and former magazine staffers told me and @alexbward. politico.com/newsletters/na… The bimonthly magazine housed in the Center for the National Interest had a nearly four-decade run as a leading national security product, publishing such seminal works as Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” essay.

NEW: Centrist group No Labels has a cutthroat culture, where staffers are routinely fired or pushed out, have little trust in management and a workplace that can be difficult for minority and female staffers, 14 former employees and 4 other people told me. politico.com/news/2022/12/0… There is lingering discord over the decision to hire and ally with individuals who left prior jobs under allegations they’d sexually harassed women. Staffers were told they could ask Halperin about the accusations on an introductory Zoom call, which became “very weird.”

NEW: Tensions are rising between the LA Times and its billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. The ownership family faces accusations of meddling in coverage and endorsements, and there is intense turmoil within the ranks. (w/ @ccadelago and @maxwelltani) politico.com/news/2022/09/1… Soon-Shiong has personally contacted multiple Times journalists during the pandemic to urge them to write specific stories featuring people he has worked with on vaccines, one source told us. Those interactions left the reporters and editors feeling uncomfortable.

NEW: Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to exit through the rear of Morton's on Wednesday night after DC protestors showed up out front. A Morton's rep told me: "Politics … should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner." politico.com/newsletters/pl… The statement from the Morton’s rep: “Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protestors while eating dinner at our Morton’s restaurant.” …