The White House launched Trump TV. Will it change how the president communicates?

Scott Detrow (0:00)

It's Consider This, where every day, we go deep on one big news story. Today, a fight with the press is changing how President Trump is covered.

For the past 10 years, there has rarely been a day when President Donald Trump has not been on our TV screens, giving remarks or holding court with reporters. But due to Trump's battle with the press, some of his exchanges sound like this.

SPEAKER_2 (0:22)

So it's an honor to be here. I'm surprised that CNN is here covering me. The United Nations allowed us in, sir.

Scott Detrow (0:28)

You should not be here covering me.

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

You said you weren't going to cover me. You shouldn't be covering me.

Scott Detrow (0:32)

That's President Trump interacting with CNN's Kaitlin Collins on Tuesday at the United Nations, just days after he banned that outlet from the White House. Collins addressed the exchange later on air.

SPEAKER_2 (0:43)

Now, I should note, Kate, CNN, of course, never said we were not going to cover the president. It was actually the president who tried to stop us from being able to cover him.

Scott Detrow (0:51)

Major news outlets, including NPR, have suspended their pool coverage or are not broadcasting video or audio of Trump in solidarity with the networks that were banned from the White House. And that means most of Trump's events will not be fed to network TV through the press pool. In response, the White House has created Trump TV, a YouTube channel streaming President Trump's old speeches. Consider this, how will this standoff change how Trump communicates?

From NPR, I'm Scott Detro.

It's Consider This from NPR. The White House has launched an official YouTube channel streaming 24-7 content of quote, the latest and greatest from the administration. It's called Trump TV and comes amid escalating tensions between President Trump and the media that covers him. To discuss, we have Mark McKinnon on the line. He worked as a political consultant for former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain and is a TV producer himself. Welcome.

Mark McKinnon (2:00)

Hi, glad to be with you.

Scott Detrow (2:02)

Mark, you know TV, you know politics. I figured you a good person to talk to about this. And let's start with this. Just politically speaking, in this moment of so many different amateur media outlets, how much does this standoff affect how Trump's message is getting out?

Mark McKinnon (2:15)

Well, first of all, I think you saw from the coverage at the UN that people are going to find lots of different ways to cover him, but it's not going to be the coverage that he wants, and that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to control this. Back up just a little bit. I mean, all that Trump really cares about, people say he ran for the power, he ran for the money. No, no, no. At the end of the day, Donald Trump ran for president because that's the best way to get attention. He thrives on attention. That's the oxygen to his soul is just being the center of attention. He knew running for president would be the hottest spotlight in the world. He didn't even think he was going to win. He thought he was going to run for a while and endorse Chris Christie. Now he's got the spotlight, but he doesn't like the nature of it at times, and he thinks that he can control it.

He started this thing called Trump TV, which is just a YouTube channel, which I think is currently getting fewer views than the Muppets go to Disneyland.

Scott Detrow (3:07)

Let's not insult the Muppets here. Have you watched Trump TV at all? I mean, what do you make of this?

Mark McKinnon (3:12)

Yeah, I just tuned in to check it out. I mean, all it is is, first of all, it's just a rebranding of what was already there. They've just been posting clips to the site, but the reality is the voters on either side of the aisle, they don't go to television or go to TV, any TV, to get propaganda. They want it filtered by somebody.

They don't just want raw propaganda from anybody on either side of the aisle, so it's going to be a failed experiment. I think that ultimately it's just going to drive Donald Trump crazy because you're going to have these situations where, like we saw yesterday, where there's going to be a situation that Trump wants out there and the audience is getting no audio and therefore they're not going to carry it, and that is death for Donald Trump.

Scott Detrow (3:54)

I'm thinking about a counterpoint here, though. Truth Social emerged after Trump is banned from Twitter and Facebook, a ban that was, of course, reversed when he won in 2024, but he creates this alternative landscape. A lot of people criticize it, say it looks junky, say it looks amateurish, and here we are all checking Truth Social day and night for the latest news from the President of the United States. Hasn't he had success creating his own lanes in the past?