Trump’s Solution for His Own Media Ban Is an Instant Bust

The president’s ratings are in the gutter.

The White House launched “TrumpTV: The Essentials Station” on Monday. The digital streaming service provides a 24/7 rotation of Trump’s rallies, speeches, and announcements, offering the American public another opportunity to tap their omnipresent president directly into their veins.

Donald Trump’s deputy assistant Kaelan Dorr described the need for such a platform on X shortly after its launch, lamenting that “the press, in some cases, reported inaccurately or not at all on the Administration’s many record breaking accomplishments on behalf of all Americans.”

Trump TV is a constant “livestream of the Administration’s greatest hits, unfiltered,” Dorr noted.

The administration’s push for Trump TV is the direct result of Trump attempting to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. The rest of the presidential press pool has ceased live coverage in solidarity with the three outlets as they sue Trump to restore their access.

But even amid a broadcast media blackout, practically nobody has tuned in to see what Trump is up to.

At the time of publication, just 1,700 viewers were watching the president’s YouTube stream. Trump TV offered a smattering of old news, switching from an ancient Trump rally to a Melania Trump speech about the creative uses for AI that she originally delivered in January.

Fourteen hours earlier, Trump TV had launched with around 8,000 viewers, according to The Daily Beast. That’s when it peaked.

About 90 minutes after that, viewership declined to 4,000. By 9 p.m. on Monday, its audience had sunk to 3,000 viewers—a paltry percentage of the channel’s 3,220,000 subscribers.

Trump announced Friday that he was banning MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House, writing on Truth Social that the prohibition was the result of “FAKE NEWS.”

The president’s unprecedented attack on the free press inspired collective action by America’s largest broadcasters, which considered the ban an assault on the First Amendment and an affront to news institutions across the country. By Monday, all the broadcasters in the White House press pool—including NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News—had joined together to suspend coverage of the president and his actions until he reversed course.

By Monday afternoon, Trump’s plan to silence the media had clearly backfired: The absence of any prominent media organizations left Trump without a microphone and without a camera at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the White House lawn, delivering remarks that nobody could hear.

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that communism is somehow the greatest threat facing the United States. Now GOP members are fuming as the president prepares to embrace Chinese President Xi Jinping, leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

A Republican close to the White House told Politico’s Playbook Tuesday that Jinping’s state visit was coming at a time when Trump’s attention was needed elsewhere. 

“I don’t think people really want to see you toasting the Chinese premier,” this person told Politico. “You’re hosting this glamorous state dinner at a time when people are like, ‘Are you focused on me?’”

Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based GOP strategist. told Playbook that Xi’s state visit was “just another in a string of examples where Trump’s message and Republicans’ don’t jibe.”

“The in-your-face arguments from Republicans this election cycle is that Democrats want to bring socialism or communism to America,” Marson said. “Trump warmly embracing two of the most outspoken leaders of those ideologies makes it that much harder for the message to resonate with voters.”

That second leader Marson mentioned is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Xi’s state visit comes on the heels of Trump’s visit to Gracie Mansion on Monday.  

Mamdani, a democratic socialist and the city’s first Muslim mayor, has been maligned by Republicans as a sort of boogeyman—but it’s clear that Trump just adores him. Some of the president’s sycophantic followers couldn’t cope.

Self-described proud Islamophobe Laura Loomer was particularly annoyed. 

“I’m pissed off,” she wrote on X. “We work so hard to combat the radical left and the anti-American Islamic jihadists who work to destroy our country everyday. And for what? So they can be rewarded? There is never going to be any accountability. I realized that today. We will never see it.”

“Meeting with communists and jihadists doesn’t energize people,” she wrote in a separate post. 

“Anyway, November is going to be a bust,” she wrote in another. “We tried. But there’s only so much you can do.”

Republican Senator John Curtis is demanding an investigation into Donald Trump Jr. after a Russian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Umar Kremlev, bankrolled his wedding party.

In a post on X, Curtis posted a three-page letter he sent to the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, and the committee’s ranking member, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, calling for Trump Jr. to be subpoenaed as part of a larger investigation into his business dealings and relationships with foreign individuals. Curtis also called for the same scrutiny of Hunter Biden.

In the letter, Curtis cited the lavish party Kremlev threw on a private island for Trump Jr., as well as the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures, comparing the president’s son to Biden and the myriad Republican-led investigations into Biden’s international business dealings.

“A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now. ‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it is not enough now,” Curtis said in the post.

The move is significant in that Republicans have so far avoided addressing the Trump family’s business deals since the 2024 election. President Trump made a whopping $2.2 billion in 2025, most of it from cryptocurrency, and the family is poised to make hundreds of millions more. The Trumps also have stakes in prediction markets and defense companies, willfully committing ethical violations without any action from Congress.

Freedom Fest in Kentucky—headlined by MAGA artist Kid Rock—has been canceled after barely selling any VIP tickets.

The host blamed the cancellation on a lack of enthusiasm from his wealthiest friends, noting that he was only able to sell six VIP tickets (at $1,000 each).

“I am never ever, ever, ever, ever doing this event again,” former Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate and event host Eric Deters, who throws the event on his farm, said on Facebook Monday. “When I put together Patriot State Freedom Fest, I put it together with the game plan and the idea that I could pay for it with the VIP sales of $1,000 from these hundred people that I interact with on a regular basis that have money.”

The Freedom Fest began in 2022 and has drawn large crowds in the past, while featuring speakers like Donald Trump Jr., Candace Owens, and Eric Trump. But this year saw a massive drop in VIP ticket sales and general interest, possibly due to Trump’s horrendous approval rating, rising costs tied to the Iran war, or an oversaturation of MAGA events (like that barely watched Republican midterm convention). Either way, Deters is pissed, lashing out at people whom he apparently expected to attend.

“Out of all these people that have money that I interact with, who I do favors for all day long. They ask me for something, I never say no. I never said no to these people,” he said. “None of these people will ever, ever, ever get a favor from me again, ever. Not only will they never get a favor from me again, they do not have Bulldog immunity.” He also lashed out at the media for not adequately covering the event.

This was the last straw for Deters, who has said he’s done throwing the Freedom Fest from now on.

“I’m never gonna do this event. Somebody else can do such an event,” he said. “I’m sorry for all the people that were gonna attend. But I can tell you right now, I feel great relief that I ain’t gonna put this burden all by myself.”

President Donald Trump lashed out Monday against a federal judge, as more mainstream media outlets joined efforts to mount a press blackout on the White House.

In a lengthy tirade on Truth Social, Trump raged against District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who was assigned the lawsuit brought by CNN, MS NOW, and Politico challenging the president’s decision to ban their reporters from the White House.

It appears Trump wasn’t thrilled with Kelly’s selection—even though he was the one who appointed the judge to the bench. Kelly previously ruled in favor of CNN’s Jim Acosta after the Trump administration tried to ban him from the White House.

Trump said he expected to appeal the decision. “With such a Crooked and Corrupt Press, how did I win in such a LANDSLIDE? It is because the Media has NO credibility, and that is a very bad thing for our Nation! Why should I have to give ‘access’ to such people? Perhaps Judge Kelly could explain that!” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the media protests only continued to grow. After major TV networks announced Monday morning they would boycott the White House (you may have seen some hilarious videos of Trump talking to himself with no audio recorded), The New York Times and Washington Post both released statements saying that they would not publish or distribute any images from the day’s events.

Despite Trump’s previous commitments to free speech, he is now pretending that freedom of the press is a privilege—not a right. And he appears to be promoting his own form of state-run media that will only print the lies he tells them. So much for capitalism, I guess.

All the while, Republican lawmakers, clearly terrified of getting on Trump’s bad side, remained eerily silent.