Politician Finally Dares to Ask If Missing Mitch Is Dead

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.

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Thank you for being a Swamp subscriber. We’re not late today. We’ve moved to Wednesday mornings to bring you even more of D.C.’s most delicious secrets. Thank you for your support. It’s because of you that we’ve broken story after story here, including finding Ted Cruz vacationing in Athens while Texans died, dark allegations against Max Miller, and Darline Graham’s cash to a pro-choice Republican. We’ve got lots more today… so get your popcorn ready.

Where’s Waldo and the Graves Question About Missing Mitch

The awful scenario that no one had dared say out loud was finally raised in Graves County, Western Kentucky.

Is Mitch McConnell still alive?

The Fancy Farms picnic, Kentucky’s version of a political UFC fight, was a Mitch McConnell staple for years. Some locals have even blamed the former Republican Senate leader for hijacking the one-time Democratic event by bussing in young Republican college students to support him in 1990.

As the Daily Beast reported at the weekend, the boisterous Fancy Farm crowd was chanting, “Where’s Mitch?”

But one speaker, in particular, took it a step further to silence the hecklers.

Former U.S. Army National Guardsman Christopher Campbell, an Eastern Kentucky University graduate and a comparatively unknown Senate candidate for the newly formed Kentucky Party, compared his election rivals, Democrat Charles Booker and Republican Rep. Andy Barr, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and McConnell.

“Although I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” he added, referring to the conspiracy theory that Republicans have been covering up the 84-year-old’s passing to avoid a special election being triggered before the midterms.

Campbell, an independent contractor, did tell Ballotpedia that his primary interest was in the healthcare system, saying: “I have spent a large chunk of my life working in the healthcare field. I’ve learned a great deal about the pain and difficulties of life while working in nursing homes, hospitals, health departments, and rape crisis centers.” So perhaps he knows what he is talking about.

McConnell’s team has released two photographs of the senator with his wife, Elaine Chao, but he hasn’t appeared on video or in public since a fall at his Washington home on June 14.

Booker also voiced what many have been wondering since McConnell vanished. “Ok wait a minute,” he said. “Where in the world is Mitch McConnell? I was the first person to call for transparency, and instead of speaking out for Kentucky, Andy Barr is being quiet as a church mouse.”

Kentucky Secretary of State Mike Adams also made a questionable joke in his speech backing James Comer in the governor’s race, saying: “Before I start, we should acknowledge someone who is not here with us today, but would give anything to be here with us today.

“Can we have a moment of silence for…Amy McGrath,” he added, a reference to the Democrat beaten by McConnell in 2020.

Barr didn’t mention McConnell in his speech at the picnic, and neither did Rand Paul, who has remained studiously silent about the senior senator’s absence.

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Whatever your politics, McConnell, Chao, and their family have been going through a difficult time. But as a public servant, he must also know how important it is to be honest and open with the folks you represent.

Kentucky’s 146th Fancy Farms would have been the perfect place for Mitch to make a comeback. Perhaps he preferred to spend a weekend at Bernie’s.

Pentagon Pete’s Military Ex-Wives Club

Second only to the president, Pete Hegseth loves to suck-up to his producer wife. The couple met when he was an anchor (and still married to someone else) on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, and she was a producer on the show. Since then she has been the almost constant companion of the newly teetotal Defense Secretary. Now Trump has made her the head of the Presidential Military Spouse Commission, a new group to discuss quality-of-life issues for military spouses. Trump even joked they could use the Oval Office to hold her monthly meetings.

“So proud of you @JennyHegseth,” Hegseth, 46, posted on X about his wife, 49. “Thank you for stepping up for our great military families. The best of our country.”

But The Swamp couldn’t help wonder what Hegseth’s two ex-wives make of all this. After all, Pentagon Pete’s had three military wives, but only two of them know about active duty deployments—and Jennifer’s not one of them.

He married his high school sweetheart Meredith Schwarz in 2004 and served tours of duty at Guantanamo Bay between 2004-5 and in Iraq between 2005-6 before they filed for divorce in 2008 over his numerous infidelities. Hegseth met his second wife, Samantha Deering—with whom he had three sons—while working for Vets for Freedom and married in 2010 before serving eight months in Afghanistan between 2011–2012. They divorced after Hegseth had a daughter with then-Jennifer Rauchet in 2017.

Although he remained a member of the Army National Guard, until 2021, Hegseth didn’t get sent anywhere. In fact, he was prevented from deploying to the Capitol after January 6, 2021, because of his suspicious Crusader tattoos. Jennifer has said she’s traveled the world asking military spouses how they cope with life while their partners are away serving their country. Perhaps she should look closer to home? On second thought, maybe not. Being Pete’s military wives didn’t work out so well for the first two.

The Astroturf Army Fighting the Swipe Fee War

Donald Trump doesn’t agree with Dick Durbin very often. But on one issue, they’ve found rare common ground: sticking it to Visa and Mastercard. Trump has quietly thrown his weight behind the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act that Durbin and other lawmakers have been pushing, calling America’s eye-watering credit card swipe fees a “ripoff.” With the average household paying nearly $1200 a year in swipe fees, the bill would crack open the Visa-Mastercard duopoly by forcing the biggest banks to give merchants a choice of at least two payment networks to process credit card transactions. But here’s where it gets interesting. One of the bill’s loudest opponents is the innocuous sounding Small Business Payments Alliance, which presents itself as a grassroots coalition of mom-and-pop businesses. In reality it’s a textbook case of Washington astroturfing: corporate lobbying dressed up as grassroots rage. The small businesses appear in ads, op-eds and Congressional hearings, all the while getting benefits from the financial heavyweights secretly behind the lobby group. Among the examples reviewed by The Swamp: a dog treat company that won $50,000 from Capitol One; a chocolatier promoted by Mastercard; and a fitness studio that received a Mastercard grant. Carter Dougherty, an antimonopoly senior fellow at left-wing group Demand Progress, told The Swamp that the astroturfing shows there’s almost nothing the big banks won’t do to defend their profits. Whether the bill passes is anyone’s guess – but if you receive a heartfelt plea from a group claiming to be a grassroots small business coalition, it might be worth checking who paid.

MAGA’s Latest Patriotic Spectacle

Washington has already endured the empty crowds of Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair. Now the same aesthetic has made its way into an art exhibition a few blocks from the White House. Days after accusing the Smithsonian Museum of being too ideological, the Trump administration has unveiled Passport to Patriotism: 250 Years of Diplomacy, with enough stars and stripes to outfit an entire Fourth of July parade. Art in Embassies director Erin Scavino (a former The Apprentice contestant now married to longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino) is overseeing the show, while Freedom 250, the MAGA outfit behind the Great American State Fair, helped bring it to life. The Swamp took a peek this week and discovered almost 70 versions of the American flag; giant AI generated images of the founding fathers; and a silk “America250 Gown” by fashion designer Kate Wasserbach Moore, who Scavino met while shopping for her own wedding dress. There’s even a red sequined jacket from a fashion boutique called Make America Sparkle Again, whose customers include US Attorney Jeanine “Folded Like An Umbrella” Pirro and MAGA lawyer and wannabe US Attorney Alina Habba.

The show is at the Art Museum of the Americas, next door to the once independent Department of Interior, which now features a giant North Korea-style banner of Trump. Asked how the show was being funded, a State Department official told The Swamp: “This exhibition is intended to build bridges, bring joy and celebrate America’s Semiquincentennial. All of the pieces in this beautiful exhibition are loaned or commissioned by the artists.” Still, critics say the irony is hard to miss. An administration bent on purging America’s cultural institutions has now produced an exhibition that doubles as a Trumpworld family affair.

Jake Tapper Takes A Hit in the Miller Blast Zone

A weird coda to the sickening abuse allegations leveled at Max Miller, the MAGA rep, courtesy of CNN’s Jake Tapper. Tapper did the first national interview with Miller on CNN on Tuesday afternoon and in between Miller’s denials, questioned him on his illegal drug use. What nobody would have expected was this surprise confession from the anchor. “I smoked marijanua when it was illegal!” he said. Do tell more Jake!

Mitch’s Movie Revival:

Washington has found an unexpected way to cope with the mystery of missing Mitch McConnell: Weekend at Bernie’s watch parties. The cult 1989 comedy—about two office workers dragging around the corpse of their dead boss while pretending he’s still alive—is suddenly enjoying an unlikely renaissance at bars across the nation’s capital. The popular Logan Circle haunt Kingfisher, known for its “Whiskey Wednesday” nights and generous Happy Hour pours, was the latest to join the trend, with other bars planning their own movie nights as McConnell’s unexplained disappearance continues.

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