The Guardian reports:

Donald Trump’s previous television career centred on his role on The Apprentice, but the US president’s latest media venture is a rather lower-budget affair: the launch of Trump TV in the wake of his ban on several outlets from covering the White House.

With major US networks agreeing to not cover the president while the dispute continues, on Monday the White House announced the new 24/7 YouTube live stream, which it promised would feature “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place”.

The anchor-less channel dispenses with traditional broadcast norms. With no schedule, no on-screen description of what is being shown, and zero context for where or when a clip was recorded, the effect of having the channel on in the background is less like watching a news network and more like installing Trump wallpaper – a 24-hour fever dream of self-soothing propaganda for the Maga faithful.

On Tuesday, the stream swung wildly between cinematic replays of Trump attending a UK state banquet, emotional footage of Laken Riley’s mother praising Trump as “a man of his word”, an 18-month-old clip of Melania Trump at an awards ceremony, and Trump delivering a long, rambling press conference in February 2025 in which he casually advocated for the US taking over Gaza and absorbing Canada as the 51st state.

Despite the channel boasting more than 3 million subscribers, the initial appetite for this unedited stream of consciousness appeared modest at best: live viewer counts hovered at around 1,500. [Continue reading…]