Geoffrey Ingersoll, former editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, strongly criticized White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's "new media" briefings with MAGA influencers. He argued these briefings are unproductive and negatively impact the conservative movement.
Ingersoll highlighted specific examples from the briefings, including softball questions and irrelevant inquiries, which he considered embarrassing and damaging to the White House's image. He described the interactions as "increasingly bile-inducing."
He cited questions like one about balancing parenthood and work, which he felt was inappropriate for such a setting and demonstrated a lack of curiosity from the influencers. Another instance involved a question about investigating past administrations, deemed unproductive by Ingersoll.
The White House defended the briefings, stating they aim to reach audiences where they are and will not be deterred by criticism.
Ingersoll proposed that the White House abandon the current format and instead engage with influencers on their individual platforms rather than hosting them for briefings. He advocated for greater selectivity and a higher standard of engagement.
The former top editor of Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller slammed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s “new media” briefings, labeling them “increasingly bile-inducing.”
Leavitt hosted a series of “new media” briefings last week with MAGA influencers. The meetings, which began in April, are separate from the regular press briefings and largely feature supporters of President Donald Trump asking softball questions or fawning over the administration’s policies.
“Karoline Leavitt, for the love of your movement, stop bringing podcasters and influencers into the White House briefings,” wrote Geoffrey Ingersoll, who served as the Daily Caller’s editor in chief from 2017 until last January, in an essay for The Spectator. “It’s not good for anyone, not the administration, not for conservative nor new media, and it’s certainly not good for all the righteous goals that got Trump elected in the first place.”
“The legacy media is furious that information flow is not exclusive to them anymore,” Kaelan Dorr, a White House deputy communications director, said in a statement. “We will ALWAYS find ways to meet people where they are, no hit piece will dissuade us.”
Former Fox News host Carlson co-founded the Daily Caller in 2010, served as its top editor until 2016, and left the organization’s board in 2022.
Ingersoll cited some of the exchanges from the three “new media” briefings, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acolyte and “MAGA Malfoy” Link Larsen’s question about advice White House officials would give about balancing parenthood with work.
“Good God, man, that took a full minute,” Ingersoll wrote. “To ask for advice? Call your mom. Are you so incurious about the administration you can’t come up with something better than asking the poor woman for life advice?”
The former editor said that, after he posted on X about the exchange, he was inundated with replies from conservatives. He said “all of them saying they found the whole exercise increasingly bile-inducing.”
Another exchange involving MAGA influencer Dom Lucre, who asked whether the White House would consider “Barack Hussein Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton to .. possibly get investigated.”
This also roiled Ingersoll, who questioned why the White House let the exchange move the conversation back “10 years to the era of ‘lock her up?’”
“After the Biden years, in which we all watched the man’s frontal lobes liquifying in real time, the bar could not possibly be lower,” he wrote. “The fact that members of the ‘new media” are failing to clear such a comically low bar should be telling. It reflects poorly on the administration, but it also reflects poorly on us."
Ingersoll suggested the White House get rid of the “new media” briefings entirely and instead just appear on their podcasts or platforms—not host them at the building.
“If you actually care about the state of our media today, some gatekeeping is in order,” he wrote. “No more influencers.”
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