CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter delivered a brutal assessment of the White House’s newly branded “Trump TV,” mocking the livestream as a “pretty ridiculous stunt” with a remarkably small audience.
The administration took an existing White House YouTube livestream, renamed it Trump TV, and heavily promoted it across social media, according to Stelter
“I have been watching it so that the rest of you all don’t have to,” he joked Tuesday.
Stelter said the stream primarily airs old Trump speeches and other repurposed White House content, including the president’s Tuesday address to the United Nations.
The promotional campaign also appeared to borrow from classic television programs and sitcoms, Stelter said, pointing to “what appears to be some examples of copyright infringement.”
But the bigger problem may be that few people appear interested in watching.
“When I checked in last night, fewer than 5000 people were watching with me,” Stelter said. “Earlier this afternoon, only a thousand people were watching with me.”
The CNN analyst added that critics, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have called Trump TV “literally state-run TV,” while others have compared it to government-controlled media in China and Russia.
Stelter noted Tuesday that the White House’s new livestream cannot replace independent reporting.
“If this is propaganda, it's pretty poorly done,” Stelter said. But, he added, there did not appear to be “a big audience for actual literal government-run TV in the United States.”
“This is a very interesting and pretty ridiculous stunt that’s being pulled,” he concluded.
