Over Thanksgiving weekend, I received a surge in unexpected messages — including many death threats. In short order, I learned that I’d be included on President Donald Trump’s list of ‘Media Offenders,’ a taxpayer-funded enemies list on the White House’s website and the president’s latest gambit in rallying the MAGA base against the free press.
My supposed “offense?” A column for The Hill that accused Trump of embracing his autocratic fantasies by misusing the National Guard. In a feat of irony only Trump could pull off, the White House didn’t actually refute any of the accurate claims I made in the piece. Instead, it took issue with an accurately sourced file photo that served as the story’s banner image.
I guess nothing disproves my claim of Trumpian authoritarianism quite like ending up in the official White House burn book. Mean Girls, meet 1984.
Like so many things in Trump’s second term, the Media Offenders list is both troubling and deeply pathetic. A younger, healthier Trump would have taken his anger out on journalists from behind the podium at one of his boisterous, multihour public rallies. Nowadays, the increasingly insulated and sleepy allegedly ailing president outsources the job of voicing his grievances to anonymous web developers. MAGA’s political lion is fading into the winter of his days.
As Trump’s poll numbers have dwindled to historic new lows, so has his patience with the reporters he blames for his staggering unpopularity. Nowhere was that more evident than on Air Force One last month, when Trump casually dismissed a female journalist’s question by calling her “piggy” and demanding she shut her mouth. The overt misogyny was shocking even by Trump’s standards, but it took him only a few days to outdo himself. Less than a week later, he again made headlines by asking CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes, “Are you stupid?”
What the public sees in Trump’s outbursts is just the tip of an iceberg that is reshaping how reporters do their jobs in official Washington. Back in October, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stripped credentials from dozens of Pentagon reporters after their outlets — including Hegseth’s former employer Fox News — refused to sign a loyalty pledge that violated every ethical tenet of independent journalism. In their place came a wave of pro-Trump sycophants including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who last month received her own desk at the Pentagon. Hegseth won’t need to walk far to ensure his propaganda reaches Loomer’s 1.8 million X followers.
Like so many things in Trump’s second term, the Media Offenders list is both troubling and deeply pathetic.
It’s a sign of Trump’s growing laziness that he can’t even be bothered to take mild criticism from Fox News in exchange for hours of glowing coverage. Now the praise must be total, even if that means ransacking the Pentagon press corps and replacing them with activist-influencers more famous for locking themselves to Twitter’s front door than for producing any meaningful journalism. Is it any surprise that even some of Trump’s close allies now worry he’s dangerously out of touch with reality?
The damage isn’t confined to the Pentagon. Trump recently announced that reporters with the White House Press Corps would no longer have access to “Upper Press,” a part of the West Wing where reporters have freely roamed for decades. Likewise, Leavitt’s office was now officially off-limits, raising the question of what, exactly, the press secretary is actually doing all day. Those restrictions are more than just an inconvenience; they’re designed to make it even harder for journalists to question White House officials and confer with sources. Some of the press corps reporters who were recently barred from talking to the press secretary now join me on Trump’s laughable Media Offenders list. Others, such as MS NOW’s Ali Vitali, made the list for correcting Leavitt’s repeated lies about the alleged criminal histories of individuals illegally deported by ICE. As with all government blacklists, a journalist’s inclusion is a sign they are doing something right. They are telling the truth. After years of calling reporters “enemies of the state,” Trump has finally gone ahead and made a list of the reporters he most fears, and who he’d most like to see fired or silenced — or potentially harassed, threatened and otherwise bullied. Any journalist who finds themselves branded a Media Offender should wear it as a badge of honor. I certainly do. Reporting in the digital age can often feel like writing for an invisible audience. It’s easy to feel like your work doesn’t matter. Not only will Trump’s Media Offenders list fail to silence the reporters he’s targeting, but it will also ensure we continue to speak truth to power with a sense of renewed purpose. Thanks for reading, Mr. President.
Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on X, @themaxburns. 
