Inside Grindr's Secret Power Network in Trump's Washington

Tara Palmeri investigates how Grindr — the gay hookup app born in West Hollywood — has quietly become an unexpected political force in Trump's Washington. During White House Correspondents' Dinner weekend, the hottest invite in town wasn't hosted by a media company — it was hosted by Grindr. And yet almost no elected Republican politicians were willing to show their face, even as the app experienced a massive usage spike during the Republican National Convention and CPAC. Palmeri traces this story back to her own reporting 16 years ago, when she walked through the Capitol, the White House, and the Pentagon with the app open and watched users light up all around her. She reveals Grindr's growing $1.6 million lobbying operation run by Joe Hack — a longtime Republican operative — their work with the State Department to save PEPFAR funding, their bipartisan fundraising strategy targeting Susan Collins and Tammy Baldwin, and the enormous gap between public political performance and private institutional reality in Washington. Plus: why the app was forced to divest from Chinese ownership over national security concerns, why Melania Trump carries symbolic weight among gay Republicans, and how Grindr's party may have been less a publicity stunt and more a coming-out party for a new kind of influence operation. 0:00 – The hottest party in Washington was hosted by Grindr 4:28 – Grindr's $1.6M lobbying operation and its Republican operative running it 8:30 – The gap between public performance and private reality in Trump's Washington Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices