MAGA influencers in Trump-friendly Pentagon press corps failing 'first big test': analysis

The Pentagon's newly installed right-wing "influencer" press corps is "failing" its "first big test" with President Donald Trump's Venezuela operation, according a new analysis from WIRED, choosing to focus on showing loyalty to the administration and creating "countless memes" over actual reporting.

As WIRED explained, the Pentagon welcomed a new press corps composed primarily of Trump-friendly influencers and "independent creators" into its press corps after a mass exodus of traditional reporters. The Department of Defense instituted a new policy forbidding reporters from the corps from seeking information from government employees that Pentagon leadership had not authorized. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed this was to mitigate leaks of classified information, but reporters decried it as an attempt to stem the flow of unflattering information. Major outlets like ABC, NBC, CBS and even conservative Fox News refused to sign on to the new policy.

The new influencer press corps has not gotten up to much of significance since they were installed, with WIRED characterizing Trump's attack on Caracas, Venezuela, and the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as its first real test. So far, the outlet argued, "it's failing," with no real reporting of new information being done, and their focus instead being put on Trump-friendly memes and showing support for the operation.

"On Monday, Laura Loomer tried to crowdsource information on Pentagon press officials who may have leaked information to the mainstream media," WIRED explained. "'The White House account better be cooking up a sick edit,' Cam Higby, a right-wing influencer and member of the Pentagon press corps, wrote on X Saturday morning, as news of Maduro’s arrest broke. Monica Paige, a reporter for Turning Point USA, opted to slam the former Biden administration, reposting a 2020 post from Joe Biden about Trump admiring dictators with the now infamous image of a blindfolded Maduro. Joey Mannarino, an influencer with more than 650,000 followers on X, spent Sunday debating whether to support vice president JD Vance or Marco Rubio as president for 2028."

Some of these press corps members have opted to put more focus on the allegations of childcare fraud in Minnesota, a story the MAGA sphere has been accused of putting an outsized spotlight on in order to attack the state's Democratic leaders and entitlement programs. The analysis further compared their handling of the operation to "pro-war bloggers" from the early days of the Iraq War, who "built entire audiences attacking writers in the mainstream press and other independent blogs who criticized the war, pushing narratives that supported the US’s invasion of Iraq."

"So far, it doesn’t appear as if any of these newly credentialed Pentagon press members have reported any real news on the raid or even received a single briefing on the matter," WIRED's analysis continued. "Instead, they’ve created countless memes and posts blindly supporting the operation—which is likely why the Pentagon brought them on in the first place."