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We got set up, I think, in less than a day.
“With very little effort, we could just focus on the supply chain to the product development.”
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who is meeting who, who has access, who is telling the truth in public and living very differently in private. So, during White House Correspondent's dinner weekend this year, it was shocking to see that the most sought after invite in Washington wasn't hosted by a media company. It was hosted by Grindr.
Yeah, that grinder. It was a line laterally around the block, like making it difficult to get in. A really high level people super well attended. So, the hottest party in Washington is coming at a time. When Trump has aggressively escalated culture wars around gender and identity.
Rolled back LGBTQ protections, erased references to transgender identity from federal policy. And here, in the middle of all that, Grindr is sort of coming out. But here's the truth.
Grindr has always had a strong presence inside conservative political circles.
I mean, there was a usage surge during the Republican National Convention, and the CPAC this year in Texas, some users reported a crash. And yet here, at the hottest party in town, almost no elected Republican politicians were willing to show their face. Which raises the bigger question about how power actually works in Washington.
In this episode, we're going to explore how a West Hollywood-born gay hook-up app has quietly become an unexpected political force in Trump's Washington. And what they hoped to do with that power. In a lot of ways, this story actually started for me 16 years ago. Back in 2010, I was a cub reporter working for the Washington Examiner.
When don't ask, don't tell was being debated.
This policy allowed gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve in the military.
As long as they kept their sexual orientation private and didn't engage in homosexual acts,
“I found the whole concept of government enforcing a secret about a person's identity to”
serving. Clearly, this could open up the servicemen and women to blackmail, to protect their status in the military. Lately, it's starting to feel like that policy is creeping back with the way that Secretary of War, Pete Heigsatt, is bringing back a prayer breakfast and making it known that he
has a bias against DEI policies. But back then, I heard about Grindr in a very different context. I heard that gay politicians were using it at the gym to meet singles. So I wanted to check it out for myself. I walked around Washington.
I walked through the Capitol. I went inside the White House and outside of the Pentagon. And what I saw was users lighting up all around me. Story wasn't about gossip. I wasn't out there to out anyone.
It was about proximity to power. Eventually, the US government started asking a different question.
“What happens when an app knows who's near the Pentagon at 2am?”
So in 2020, the US government forced the company to divest from Chinese ownership because of national security concerns. After all, this kind of data could offer China leverage and even broader Chinese state access to personal data that could be used as a compromise. But at the time, and even now, very few people in Washington openly discussed
Grindr's role in political culture. And it was difficult to get them on the record for this piece, 16 years later. But one long-time democratic operative, Alex later, was willing to describe just how ubiquitous the app has become in Washington behind the scenes. Do you think Grindr is ubiquitous in Washington?
Do you think everyone is using it? Hard, yes, right? I mean, yes, absolutely, including myself. But no doubt, yeah. Everyone knows, yeah, there's the rumors. I don't know if these are true of these rumors.
The Grindr crashes at the, like, a lot of Republican events. Stories about Grindr activity at Republican gatherings sounded almost like Washington folklore. But according to Grindr CEO George Aeroson, the app really did experience a major usage spike during the Republican national convention. We didn't crash, but yes, it is actually true that there was a significant spike in usage in
Milwaukee during the connection. And that brings us to what Grindr is really trying to do in Washington now.
Not just survive politically in these very perilous times, but institutionali...
Under CEO George Aeroson's direction, Grindr has been trying to evolve beyond a dating app
“into a broader lifestyle tech platform that could rival Google and Facebook.”
I'm talking about networking, travel, help AI-driven services, and also policy positions. And notably, the man who is ushering in this new phase of Grindr has, at times, described his politics as conservative. Café in his best form, with Cuba over every café of Knoff-Trock-Zongano's moment.
Then with the new Cuba-Wan-Capsule-Machine from Chibu, in his first special café from special
workshops. Full Monday, thank Innovative Press Brutech-Nlogy and over 17-Sorten Café for each match. Eléba Premium Café is already in the 19th century. In decades, the Cuba-Capsule-Machine is in Diner Chibofiale and in Chibode-E.
“And with the Réba bonus, the advantage of the Réba app is to match winner.”
Winner of his half-meter-duel with Bo, the strongest Révertor was at the time. And the game is certainly worth a fan coupon, so as the chance of attractive surprise. So, now, the Réba bonus is now in the Réba app, only at 18th and 7th. Your grinder has spent roughly $1.6 million lobbying Congress and federal officials on health policy, like HIV funding, data privacy, and digital safety, like requiring that the
app store verify age of user not the app itself. They've already been involved in policy that they believe represents the interests of their users. They specifically have worked with the State Department to try to reverse President Trump's
attempt to slash funding to pet far, which is a program that has long been critical to
countering the AIDS pandemic in Africa. That effort to get into the nuts and bolts of Washington has been driven by Joe Hack. Grinder's new head of government affairs, who's also a long time Republican operative. He told me in an interview that Grinder isn't trying to wage some sort of public war against Republicans. Instead, it's trying to quietly build influence from within.
But money talks in Washington, so they have been looking to powerful members of Congress, who can be their allies on HIV prevention advocacy, for example. So far, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine has been willing to work with them and accept the donations. In September 2025, hacked hosted a fundraiser for her that brought in about $25,000. He said he's planning to host a fundraiser for Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin in June.
She is one of the few openly gay members of Congress. And while many members are willing to meet with hack, very few are willing to accept money or attend the party. Unsurprisingly, a handful of Democratic members of Congress attended the party like Congressman Gabe Amo, Congressman Jerry Mosquitz, and Congresswoman in a net bearer again. Along with DNC chair Ken Martin, one administration official who's been repeatedly mentioned
to me as someone who attended was Charles Moran, a senior energy department official who is involved in nuclear nonproliferation. Only one elected Republican politician showed up. Senator Deb Fisher hack worked for her as a legislative aid for about a decade, including as her chief of staff. So clearly loyalty matters. She notably though voted against the respect for marriage act in November 2022, the bill designed to protect same-sex and interracial marriages nationwide.
The Republicans are always going to play anti-K. And that contrast makes plain the party's
significance. Democrats could publicly attend while Republicans mostly operate through behind the scenes operatives like Staffers, AIDS, and lobbyists.
“But maybe that's kind of where they need to be operating right now, grind it, right?”
Not putting too much public pressure on the Republicans who are going to get slapped down by the top of the administration if they put their heads out too much, but actually creating real influence with staffers. Because these elected elected officials in the Trump administration going away. And that's exactly what this party exposed. Not hypocrisy, exactly, but the enormous gap
Between public political performance and private institutional reality.
they don't want to pay a penalty for a story that says they attended a grinder party, and maybe
yes. Yeah, that's my guess. For sure. Washington's real power structure doesn't just run through elected officials. It runs through staffers, policy advisors, and the permanent infrastructure underneath politics, the civil-serving class, and perhaps no company understands that gap better than grinder, and why their White House correspondent center became the top of Washington. I mean, it was oversold. And people that were asking me whether I could get tickets to grinder,
I was like, you know, I guess, but ever they ran out of liquor, actually. They had to close
a bar early. Yeah. That was not super popular. So privately, the administration appears, filled with gay staffers and operatives, navigating that contradiction every day.
“But as far as gay people go, or less being people go honestly, I don't think they give a shit.”
Like, their, I mean, the administration is packed up and down with very reasonable gay people. One figure, Slater says carries enormous symbolic weight among some gay Republicans,
Malania Trump. For them, Malania is the hero. It's like this, sort of like, you know,
the queen bee and they come out on her fashion and follow her and they want to be at parties with her. And, you know, so she's really respected or worshiped at least. So in Washington, social proximity and status still matter enormously, especially among younger staffers trying to build careers inside conservative politics. And grinder appears to understand that. Instead of publicly pressure on Republicans on cultural issues, the company appears focused on finding policy areas
whereby partisan cooperation is still possible. If grinder can find issues that both sides
“can get behind, and love beyond those, and it's pretty strategic and smart, you know?”
But if grinder succeeds in becoming not just a dating app, but a lifestyle platform, a lobbying force, a health intermediary, and a political connector for millions of gay Americans, and this party may have been less than a publicity stunt and more of a coming out party for a very different kind of influence operation in Washington. And if there's one thing we know from Trump's Washington, influence often matters more than ideology. Thanks so much for tuning
into the Tara Palmyri show. I hope you enjoyed this. It was a little different than our typical interviews format. If you liked this show, please hit that subscribe button, like, comment,
“share this with all your friends. That's how you keep us going. If there's something you want me”
to look into, leave a comment. Love to hear more from you. This is a community. I want to thank Dan Schiffmocker, my producer, Abby Baker, who handled the booking and social media, Dan Rosen, my manager, and Adam Stewart who does the graphics. See you again soon. Hi, I'm Tampson Fidel, journalist and author of How To Manipause and host of The Tampson Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We covered all from dating to divorce,
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