For the third day in a row Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hosted a special press briefing for pro-Donald Trump influencers, who heaped praise on the president’s policies, cracked anti-immigrant jokes and asked Leavitt for parenting advice as she showered them with compliments in return.
“We are embracing and empowering new media like never before. You are all a testament to that,” she said Wednesday at the third such “influencer briefing,” as she called it.
“The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who traditionally has covered this institution. Tens of millions of Americans are now turning to social media and independent media outlets to consume their news, and we are embracing that change, not ignoring it,” she said at the first influencer briefing Monday.
“A select group of D.C.-based journalists no longer have a monopoly over press access here at the White House,” she continued.
But the sessions have unfolded less like an auxiliary press briefing and more like a gathering of pro-Trump propagandists and conspiracy theorists licking Leavitt’s boots and parroting Trump’s favorite talking points.
The first question at Monday’s briefing went to right-wing influencer Arynne Wexler, who kicked things off with an anti-immigrant joke.
“I can attest to the deportations in Florida. My Uber drivers finally speak English again, so thank you for that,” she said Monday to laughs in the room before asking a question about how Trump’s administration will punish institutions that defy his executive order about “men masquerading as trans women.”
Others, when given the chance to ask questions about issues that impact millions of Americans, used the opportunity to heap praise on Leavitt and quiz her about her parenting style.
“You’re a very high-profile young mother who seems to juggle and balance it all beautifully. What advice do you have to young parents out there who are starting their careers, having kids, building families and trying to find that balance so desperately?” pro-Trump TikTok influencer Link Lauren, branded by the internet as “MAGA Malfoy,” asked at Tuesday’s influencer briefing. Leavitt responded that Trump doesn’t get enough credit for hiring parents.
Lauren wasn’t the only influencer to praise Leavitt for being a mom. Bo Loudon, an 18-year-old influencer with accounts dedicated to Trump, said she was inspiring to his generation because she’s a young press secretary “who is a wife and a mom.” He reminded his followers of this again after the briefing, writing on X: “She’s a wife, a mom, and has become widly [sic] popular.”
The press secretary returned compliments to the influencers, praising alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec on Wednesday after he reiterated Trump’s talking points about the “rise of violence” from “the far left.”
“I absolutely agree with the premise of your question, which I usually don’t when I take questions at a podium,” Leavitt told Posobiec.
She offered similar praise to Dom Lucre, a conspiracy theorist influencer who asked if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be investigated over supposed election integrity violations.
“It’s refreshing to actually hear a question on election integrity, because the legacy media would never ask such a question. They’re so out of touch with where the American people are on this issue,” Leavitt responded at Wednesday’s briefing.
In an apparent disregard for journalistic ethics, another new media personality told Leavitt she uses her platform to promote Trump’s policies.
“We love working with the administration to really tout policies that work for families and work for small businesses in this country,” Patrice Onwuka of conservative talk radio station WMAL said Tuesday.
Leavitt’s special influencer briefings come as the Trump administration ramps up its war with traditional media. In February, Leavitt announced the administration would no longer allow the White House Correspondents Association to manage the rotation of outlets in the press pool, and hours later, the White House informed HuffPost’s White House correspondent that he would not be allowed to trail Trump the next day.