If you watched or read any legacy media outlets last week, President Trump’s firings at the National Security Council and National Security Agency after an Oval Office meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer were hard to miss.
- If you only paid attention to MAGA media, the news was hard to find.
Why it matters: There was plenty of big news last week, chiefly Trump’s tariff plan. But taking staffing advice on national security from a 9/11 truther also qualifies as news. Coverage around it was one of the starkest examples of the different media universes that exist for different parts of the country.
Zoom in: The New York Times called the Loomer-fueled firings “a remarkable spectacle.” Reuters reported that “Loomer, who has a history of peddling Islamophobic conspiracy theories, did provide Trump with a list of national security staff perceived by her to be disloyal to Trump.”
- Trump told reporters on Air Force One that Loomer didn’t influence the firings. Loomer has declined to say what she and Trump discussed, but said in a statement she “will continue reiterating the importance of strong vetting, for the sake of protecting the President and our national security.”
MAGA media barely tiptoed near the story.
- Top MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk posted on X: “Any person who helps expose and expel the warmongering cabal from power does this country a service.”
MAGA online outlets and social media accounts focused heavily on tariffs, but also highlighted transgender teachers, local politicians and the live-action “Snow White” film’s poor box office performance.
- The NSC story is a “silly distraction,” said Mike Davis, the president of The Article III Project and a frequent MAGA media guest.
The bottom line: Where people get their news is an increasingly powerful indicator of how they formulate their politics and helps explain how divided the country has become. And few stories like the NSC and NSA firings so succinctly capture just how wide the country’s media gap is.
