‘we’re The Rising Power’: The Maga Media Stars Taking Over The White House Briefing

As she left the James S. Brady Briefing Room in early April, Natalie Winters, the newly minted White House correspondent for Steve Bannon’s War Room, tried to describe the relationship between the White House press corps’ old guard and the “new conservative media” who’ve entered the briefing room in the early days of the second Trump administration.

“You know when you’re at a party and you see someone who you don’t technically know, but you know them like through a friend from social media, and it’s that awkward question of, like, ‘Do I say hi or do I not?’” Winters told me. “It’s a room full of that, except you know the people because you bash them on TV.”

Not that she particularly minds the confrontation. Since securing credentials to cover White House events in January, Winters has distinguished herself as the enfant terrible of the “new media” set, the collection of non-traditional — and mostly MAGA-aligned — outlets that the Trump administration has welcomed to the White House as part of its campaign shake up the briefing room. “We’re the rising power,” Winters said.

Most of the members of the new media have adopted Trump’s hostile relationship to the mainstream media, but Winters goes further than most in her animosity: She has accused other White House reporters of taking part in “CIA psy-ops,” and she believes the liberal media is actively fomenting a “color revolution” against Trump. “They can criticize what we’re doing [at War Room] as, like, state regime propaganda or whatever,” she said as we walked along the National Mall. “But at the end of the day, I’m like, ‘Who’s running cover for the state?’”

Winters’ ire isn’t reserved just for what she views as the liberal parts of the media. “I think the fact that we’re there is almost more of an offense or an affront to [an outlet] like Fox,” she told me as we walked by Peter Doocy, the network’s White House reporter, “because it sort of shows that, like, the base was not appeased.”

The administration’s embrace of alternative conservative outlets continues a pattern from Trump’s first term, but the divide between the MAGA-friendly media and their more mainstream counterparts has become visible in the briefing room in a way it wasn’t before. Without dedicated seats of their own, a group of about a dozen new media reporters have taken to gathering in the “conservative corner” — as some reporters call it — along the far wall of the briefing room, near the “new media seat” that Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has set aside for a rotating cast of alternative outlets and conservative influencers.

The occupants of the conservative corner cut a sharp contrast to their seated colleagues: Many of the reporters in the gaggle are younger than the average White House correspondent, and a handful of them tote around hand-held cameras or other DIY live-streaming equipment. Their fashion choices — flashy ties and steep high heels — stand out in the sea of grey suits and sensible flats. They chatter like old friends (which many of them are from prior reporting gigs) or even romantic partners (which at least two of them are).

“It’s a little bit of a who’s who of my friends in the conservative ecosystem that have suddenly popped up in the White House,” said Mary Margaret Olohan, the White House correspondent for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire.

Despite their shared sense of opposition to the media mainstream, not all the conservative outlets in the briefing room see eye-to-eye politically: “It’s a broad and diverse group, so not everyone is ideologically aligned,” said Olohan. The competitive nature of the White House beat — and the cramped layout of the briefing room — has also led to some minor kerfuffles among the new media cohort. “There’s a lot of the petty stuff of people being like, ‘When you raised your hand, you blocked my face!’” said Winters.

Their exile to the aisles may soon be over, though. In late March, reports started to trickle out that the White House is formulating plans to take control of the briefing room seating chart from the White House Correspondents Association, a move that many new media members are hoping could land them actual seats. The news had Winters dreaming of more fundamental changes to the briefing room: “Get some Serena and Lily in there, some Restoration Hardware cloud couches, some more pink, some rose gold accents,” she said. “Steve Bannon’s there, front row.”

But any changes to the seating chart will merely be symbolic of the deeper shifts in the media dynamics in Trump’s Washington, where the mainstream press is fighting for viewers and relevance while the alternative conservative media steadily expands its audience — and basks in the warm glow of Trump’s affection. “In some ways, the revulsion to the new media people being there [stems from the] fact that we’re like a mirror,” said Winters, “a reflection of the fact that they’re dying.”

In the meantime, here are some of the personalities and outlets who have become staples of the conservative corner.

Brian Glenn

Real America’s Voice

Chief White House correspondent Brian Glenn was something of a MAGA celebrity even before he called out Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit to the White House during the question-and-answer portion of a tense Oval Office meeting in March. But his public needling of the Ukrainian leader instantly raised his stock on the right.

“Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover,” Glenn told me of the suit controversy. “The [reaction] I’ve gotten from that question” — which he said included credible death threats — “is something that I would have never imagined.”

The episode was representative of the role that Glenn has played in the MAGA media ecosystem, first as a host for the conservative media company Right Side Broadcasting Network and now as the face of Real America’s Voice, which airs on the right-leaning streaming site Rumble. Glenn, 55, exudes the puckishness of an overgrown frat boy, a reputation that’s been bolstered by his long-term romance with Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. But his real strength is just showing up: He has been present at almost all of Trump’s rallies, speeches, campaign events and court appearances since the president’s first term.

“There’s really no one else in that room [among] the legacy media or the conservative media who has been with President Trump at every single event … so I kind of feel like I know the president better than a lot of people in that room,” said Glenn.

Cara Castronuova

Lindell TV

Yes, the “MyPillow guy” Mike Lindell has his own TV network — and it’s credentialed at Trump’s White House. But its White House correspondent, Cara Castronuova, might have an even more colorful background than Lindell: After studying journalism in college, Castronuova became a championship boxer and boxing announcer, which she parlayed into a career as a celebrity fitness trainer, including on the NBC reality show Biggest Loser. She has also worked as a stuntwoman and stunt coordinator and voiced characters for the popular video game Grand Theft Auto, according to her IMBd page.

Castronuovo, 45, decided to turn to political commentary during the pandemic, and she helped organize the “Justice for J6” rally in September 2021 calling for the release of people arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 riots. In late 2024, she was hired by Lindell TV, which Lindell founded last year to cover “election integrity issues.” (Lindell played a major role in spreading false claims about election fraud in 2020 and was subsequently sued by two voting machine companies. The cases are ongoing.)

At the White House, Castronuova says, Lindell TV is trying to offer a more behind-the-scenes look at the Trump White House by featuring segments with people the mainstream media typically ignore. “We’ll talk to anyone,” she said, noting that she’ll often leave White House grounds to speak to protesters gathered outside. “Like, I’ll go outside the gates and give anyone a microphone and say, ‘Why are you here?’”

Mary Margaret Olohan

The Daily Wire

The Daily Wire has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the conservative media boom, buoyed by the enduring popularity of its founder and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, whose podcast, The Ben Shapiro Show, continues to rake in over 7 million subscribers on YouTube. At the White House, the digital outlet has trained its coverage on the kind of conservative culture-war issues that Shapiro and the Wire’s other big-name hosts have become famous for railing against.

“[Our readers] definitely care a lot about culture issues, as does Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles and Ben Shapiro,” said Olohan, 29, who recently wrote a book about people who reversed their gender transitions. “Those are all things that I focused on for years, so obviously you’ll see that reflected in my reporting.”

Recent reports suggest that the Wire is on the rocks financially after its long-time CEO Jeremy Boreing stepped aside earlier this month. Olohan brushed these reports off. “You definitely can’t believe everything you read on Twitter,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Daniel Baldwin

One America News (OAN)

Trump started praising OAN late in his first term, as his relationship with Fox News began to sour. But the president’s soft spot for the network has seemingly continued into his second term, even as he has mended his relationship with Fox. Its White House correspondent, Daniel Baldwin, operates out of a much-coveted tent on the North Lawn, and its correspondents were recently given a workspace at the Pentagon.

The network’s coverage of the White House predates Trump, dating back to OAN’s founding in 2013, but its unapologetically pro-Trump sensibility is right at home in the “new media” ecosystem. (The network recently added ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz as a podcast host.) In a statement, a spokesperson for OAN objected to the implication that the network was “new media”: “OAN has been providing daily live coverage from the White House for nearly a decade.”

Monica Paige Luisi

Turning Point USA

Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA made headlines during the last election cycle for its sprawling get-out-the-vote effort in key swing states, and the organization’s media arm has been rewarded with a coveted spot in the briefing room to cover Trump. The group’s White House correspondent, Monica Paige Luisi, is an alum of OAN and Newsmax who said she’s especially focused on covering the economic issues that matter to TPUSA’s college-aged audience: “College-age students who are looking ahead to their futures and really want to know, Will I be able to afford a home when I graduate college?” she told me. In response to Trump’s recent tariff announcement, for instance, she posted a meme on X with the caption, “yay ❤️.”

Inside the briefing room, Luisi, 29, has become a reliable source of friendly questions for Leavitt: At a recent briefing, she asked if the White House could confirm Elon Musk’s latest claims about wide-spread Social Security fraud under the Biden administration. (The White House did not confirm the specific figures cited by Musk.) Outside the briefing room, Luisi — who is engaged to OAN’s Daniel Baldwin — is a frequent guest on Real America’s Voice and Fox News, and has made a habit of attending anti-Trump rallies to needle the protesters on camera: “Older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser,” she captioned a recent video interview with a gray-haired protester.

Matt Boyle

Breitbart

Breitbart isn’t exactly new, having been on the White House beat since its erstwhile leader, Steve Bannon, became the chief ideologue behind Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. But after falling on hard times following Bannon’s ouster from the White House in 2017, Breitbart is back in a big way under the second Trump administration. The website’s White House correspondent, Nick Gilbertson, is a staple of the briefing room, and its Washington bureau chief, Matt Boyle, is the administration’s go-to reporter for chummy on-the-record interviews with Cabinet-level officials — which Breitbart often publishes as straight write-ups with minimal editorializing.

“We’re the elder statesman of the new media,” said Boyle, who is 37-years old, of Breitbart’s role in the briefing room. “We have the experience and the wherewithal to see around corners and where stories are going.”

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell

The Daily Signal

Founded in 2014 as the in-house publication of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, The Daily Signal spun off as an independent publication in 2024. Still, the outlet’s coverage reflects the ideological sensibility of the Heritage Foundation under its current president, Kevin Roberts, who has moved away from Heritage’s traditional commitment to small-government, free-market conservatism in favor of a kind of MAGA-lite populism.

The outlet’s White House correspondent, Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, is a former Fox News intern and graduate of the conservative liberal arts mecca Hillsdale College. (Mitchell declined to comment for this piece.) On the White House beat, Troutman has produced a significant amount of friendly coverage of Vice President JD Vance, a close ally of Heritage and a friend of Roberts’. A representative headline from a recent Daily Signal piece about a speech by Vance at a Heritage Foundation event: “Trump Has the Quality Essential for Reclaiming Western Civilization, Vance Says.”

Natalie Winters

War Room

 
Steve Bannon’s internet show has extended its reach from Rumble into the briefing room, led by the 24-year-old Winters. She started co-hosting War Room while Bannon was in prison in 2024 for defying a Congressional subpoena, and has since become the polarizing face of the new conservative media set, thanks in large part to her edgy online persona and flashy wardrobe: In January, Winters kicked off a transparently sexist tabloid fury after she showed up to a White House briefing wearing a somewhat coquettish shirt-and-sweater combo.

“I don’t like this idea that to be serious you have to show up in an ill-fitting pants suit and, like, be a bitch,” said Winters when I asked her about the dust-up. “If I want to wear a pink feminine dress, whatever — my stories would speak for themselves.”

War Room’s primary objective remains spreading the gospel of Bannon’s “populist nationalism,” and Winters said her primary journalistic interest is investigations into Chinese Communist Party influence operations in the U.S. — a topic she frequently posts about on X. But she says she enjoys going to the White House briefing room because it offers her “a front-row seat to ground zero of the resistance, which is the media.”

“That’s the distinction between me and the other new media,” she said. “I’m not there to cover the White House. I’m there to cover the resistance forces.”