The influencer administration
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since Trump’s second inauguration, there has been a firehose of news out of the White House – and longtime adviser Steve Bannon says that’s all part of the plan.
“It looks like chaos, but there's certain internal logic to it,” Bannon told Sarah Ellison, media and democracy reporter for The Post. “It's amazingly compelling content.”
Sarah and tech reporter Drew Harwell have been reporting on the White House’s new aggressive approach to messaging. Host Colby Itkowitz talks with Sarah about how that strategy involves sidelining legacy media in favor of newer outlets, and with Drew about how the White House is leveraging social media to attack critics and turn policy into meme-worthy moments.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff. It was edited by Maggie Penman and mixed by Sam Bair, with help from Sean Carter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A couple of weeks after Donald Trump took office for the second time, |
| 0:05.2 | the actress Selena Gomez posted a tearful video on Instagram. |
| 0:09.2 | I just want to say that I'm so sorry. |
| 0:14.2 | Gomez says she's sorry about Trump's new harsher immigration policies, |
| 0:18.5 | in particular that children are getting deported. |
| 0:21.8 | The children. |
| 0:23.6 | Now, you can imagine a version of this story during the first Trump administration. |
| 0:28.3 | Trump may have shot off an angry tweet about the actress, and the whole thing would have |
| 0:32.7 | likely just been bad PR for the White House. |
| 0:35.3 | But this time, the White House fired back with a highly coordinated |
| 0:39.1 | response, its own video. Seeing that video, it's hard to believe that it's actually genuine and |
| 0:46.8 | real because she's an actress. You don't know who you're crying for. Mothers of children killed |
| 0:52.5 | by undocumented immigrants, watch and criticize Gomez, and praise |
| 0:57.2 | Trump. |
| 0:58.2 | They didn't cry for our daughters. |
| 1:00.1 | No one has stood up except for us mothers. |
| 1:03.8 | To cry out about our children. |
| 1:06.7 | I am so happy that Trump won. |
| 1:10.2 | Selena Gomez took her post down. |
| 1:15.1 | The second Trump White House has a new media team and a new, more aggressive communication |
| 1:20.1 | strategy. |
| 1:21.3 | Here's longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon. |
... |
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