Reports have surfaced for the past few weeks that the incoming Trump administration is planning a radical change about the composition of the White House briefing room.
According to his allies and advisers, this move would benefit Donald Trump and his administration as it would allow his most loyal allies and personalities close to him such as influencers, youtubers, and podcasters into the briefing room.
For years, in its interactions with the press, the White House has followed practices that favor traditional media outlets, including major television and cable networks, national newspapers, and news services.
During his first administration, Trump attempted to exclude outlets deemed unfavorable from off-camera press briefings, including the New York Times, Politico, CNN, and the BBC.
This change would seem to have been confirmed by Trump’s own son, Don Jr. who, during his “Triggered” podcast, discussed the topic with the “Daily Wire” host Michael Knowles.
Knowles then launched a provocation by saying, “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, maybe take away some people’s seats.”
Trump mentioned that he had “literally” just discussed this with his father and Elon Musk following last week’s SpaceX launch. He told Knowles that the president-elect suggested replacing traditional media outlets in the White House Briefing Room with “Rogan and guys like you.”
“I’d love to see Rogan in the White House press briefing, or even rotate guys out,” Trump said.
“We had the conversation about opening up the press room to a lot of these independent journalists,” Trump continued on. “If the New York Times has lied, they’ve been adverse to everything, they’re functioning as the marketing arm of the Democrat Party, why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?”
Knowles endorsed the idea but anticipated pushback from Democrats over the inclusion of more diverse voices in the press room.
“The Left is gonna answer you, and they’re going to say well, the reason you need to keep the New York Times and the Washington Post in there is because they influence people, and the whole point of the White House briefing room is to convey the message of the White House to the American people.” he said. “But this is different, you have the New York Times and Washington Post admitting that podcasters and streamers are eating their lunch.”
Still, Knowles agreed that it was overdue to shake up the White House press pool.
“If they’re dishonest, if they’re not asking questions that are in the interest of the American people, and the American people aren’t even paying attention,” Knowles concluded.
