Tariff-loving adviser was stuck in a tiny office outside the White House – but won over Trump by going on TV

President Donald Trump's sharp turn toward protectionism over the last week has been a victory for advisers such as Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross, who had been pushing the president to slap tariffs on foreign goods.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Navarro in particular had to claw his way to relevance inside the administration, and he did it by infiltrating the president's most trusted source of advice: Cable TV news.

"Although confined to a small office across the street from the White House without even an administrative assistant, he had found a new way to get his message to the president -- through television," the Journal reports. "A month ago, Mr. Trump picked up the phone and called an aide to say he had just seen Mr. Navarro on TV and was impressed."

Trump notoriously consumes hours of cable TV news every day, and he regularly live-tweets about stories he watches on the "Fox & Friends" morning program on Fox News. Because of this, many advisers have found that the best way to get their messages across isn't by talking to him directly, but by appearing on cable news shows.

"He liked the way Peter presented the issues on TV, and he wanted Peter to represent the president on TV," one aide tells the Journal.