CNN senior correspondent Donie O’Sullivan met with the MAGA influencers who have joined the White House press corps under President Donald Trump, asking them about their fawning and favorable coverage.
O’Sullivan interviewed several members of the so-called “new media,” including former boxing announcer Cara Castronuova, right-wing podcast co-host Natalie Winters and Brian Glenn — who is notably dating pro-Trump Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
“We’re all biased, right?” Winters, who co-hosts the “War Room” podcast with Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, told CNN in the segment released Wednesday. “We just wear our bias, which I think is a pejorative term to begin with, on our sleeves.”
The segment was filmed April 2, the same day Trump announced steep international tariffs that upended global markets. O’Sullivan noted that while legacy outlets at the White House covered the resulting fallout, Trump’s “new media” celebrated the news for their viewers.
“This is the first day where a sitting president put America’s working class first,” Winters told her “War Room” viewers at the time, as shown in the CNN footage. “And it’s a glorious day to be standing here at the White House and to be able to say that and bring that to you.”
Trump spent his first administration and much of his current term decrying legacy media outlets as “fake news” for merely reporting on his own missteps. His team has since squeezed out The Associated Press from certain press spaces over its refusal to adhere to new White House guidance to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and temporarily kicked HuffPost out of the White House press pool.
Winters told O’Sullivan she sees her role as “reporting on, not so much the White House, but really the media.” Trump described journalists during his first term “as the enemy of the people,” rhetoric that led to violent attacks on members of the media as recently as December.
“I mean, there’s no doubt about it, I’m pro-Trump,” Glenn, chief White House correspondent for right-wing channel Real America’s Voice, told CNN. “The questions I ask, in my opinion, are going to help highlight the good things that he’s doing for America.”
Glenn was present when Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office earlier this year and, like many MAGA fans who appeared personally affronted by his fatigues-like attire, asked Zelenskyy in front of Trump why he doesn’t wear a suit.
Glenn’s previous outlet, Right Side Broadcasting News, received at least $92,000 from Trump’s political committees while he worked there as program director.
The right-wing pundit assured O’Sullivan that he’s “not a troll” and felt that his Zelenskyy dig was “a legitimate” question. He also said he “didn’t mean to get everyone fired up like they did.”
Castronuova, whom MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell made White House correspondent for his pro-Trump outlet, recently used her access to inquire at a briefing about “the president’s fitness plan” — and said in a room full of reporters that he “looks healthier than ever.”
“I’m actually really good at yelling because I used to be a ring announcer,” she told CNN.
“Do you consider yourself a journalist?” he asked Winters, prompting an affirmative reply.
The CNN host appeared genuinely taken aback — and struggled to formulate a follow-up.