After the recent deadly school shooting in Minneapolis, some far-right influencers raised the idea of banning transgender American consumers from buying firearms. There was some reporting soon after about Donald Trump’s administration taking this seriously, at least to a degree, and the White House unexpectedly confirmed those reports on Tuesday. NBC News reported:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at her briefing … that Justice Department officials had ‘preliminary’ conversations about the possibility of banning transgender people from owning guns.

The president’s chief spokesperson added, “It’s a policy decision, and it’s far too early, or would be premature, inappropriate for me to weigh in on it at this point in time.”

As a substantive matter, it’s difficult to imagine such an idea advancing in a serious way. The effort would almost certainly be unconstitutional, and gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, have already pushed back against the scuttlebutt.

But what struck me as interesting about this was less the merits of the discriminatory idea, and more the direction of the political pipeline: The push to ban transgender Americans from buying guns started with far-right influencers, and was then embraced by officials in the Trump administration.

In normal, modern administrations, the pipeline flows in the opposite direction: One ordinarily expects to see the White House come up with ideas, at which point presidential aides reach out to allies to help get the word out and advance the message. In 2025, however, it’s become increasingly common to see the model reversed: Influencers are helping steer federal agencies, as opposed to the other way around.

Late last week, for example, far-right influencers targeted a Navy commander. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired her soon after.

A few days earlier, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner was supposed to participate in a classified oversight meeting at an intelligence agency, but the meeting was canceled after right-wing activist Laura Loomer launched public attacks against the agency and its director. (How Loomer learned of the scheduled gathering is still unclear.)

“This is the kind of thing that happens in authoritarian regimes,” the Virginia Democrat told reporters soon after.

Recommended

Maddowblog

Despite talk of ‘meritocracy,’ a Team of Amateurs holds sway on Team Trump

Steve Benen

Latest

To cope with Trump and Musk’s feud, MAGA world turns to weird man talk

Ja’han Jones

Two weeks earlier, CBS News reported that online conservatives played a key role in helping oust FBI officials who’d been deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump.

That news coincided with the White House publishing a list of Smithsonian exhibits that Team Trump found objectionable, failing to note that the list appeared to be largely copied from a recent online report from a far-right influencer.

In July, the Army rescinded a job offer to a top cybersecurity expert in response to complaints from a far-right influencer. A few weeks earlier, Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, a F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, was poised to become a vice admiral and take command of the Navy’s 7th Fleet. Then far-right influencers complained. Then Hegseth blocked the Navy admiral’s promotion, which had already been approved by Trump.

And these are just some of the recent examples. Over the last eight months or so, there have been a great many other instances in which prominent conservative activists and media personalities have played a direct role in shaping policy, blocking personnel, orchestrating firings and even forcing resignations.

It’s a problem that there are so many amateurs in the White House and throughout the administration. But it’s just as big a problem that they’re taking direction from other amateurs with conservative media megaphones.