As he was yukking it up with Daily Wire commentator and vehement anti-LGBTQ provocateur Michael Knowles on his podcast, “Triggered With Donald Trump Jr.,” this week, the president-elect’s eldest son made something of an announcement about his and his father’s latest scheme to go after mainstream news sources during Trump II.
“I wonder now, as your father is assembling his team, as maybe Karoline Leavitt is looking at the new press briefing room chart, maybe it’s time to reorder that chart and maybe take away some people’s seats,” Knowles said.
Don Jr. all but confirmed that that’s exactly what will be happening as he openly mused about bringing “independent” media outlets and social media influencers into the White House press briefing room. “Independent” might not quite be the right term for the cohort of YouTube conspiracy theorizing bros that Don Jr. has in mind.
“We’re gonna break some news here,” Don Jr. said. “Because I literally had this conversation with — I was flying back, I was on the plane with my father, I think it was coming back from the SpaceX launch with Elon last week. And we were talking about the podcast world and some of our friends and Rogan and guys like you.”
The president-elect’s son said his dad was considering such a measure “given how the media has behaved.”
“We had the conversation about opening up the press room to a lot of these independent journalists,” he said. “If the New York Times has lied, they’ve been averse to everything, they’re functioning as the marketing arm to the Democrat Party, why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?”
It’s not exactly a secret who those “people who have larger viewerships” might be. Trump, with the help of his adult sons, made a point of openly courting the audiences of right-wing, relatively young, male podcasters during the 2024 campaign cycle, the Joe Rogans, Nelk Boys, Theo Vons of the “bro” podcast sphere. Turning out the vote among those audiences proved crucial for his reelection to the White House.
Trump’s been railing against mainstream media outlets and the “fake news” — whose positive press coverage he simultaneously craves — since his first foray into politics. Just last week, he posted on his bootleg Twitter about going after the New York Times for its coverage of his transition. He recently sued CBS News and has sued CNN and others in the past. Booting mainstream news outlets from White House press briefings is perhaps the mildest form of retribution against journalists that most in the industry are expecting.
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