WaPo Reporter Details Her 24-Hour Viewing of Trump TV: ‘Like C-SPAN Without the Intellectualism’

(Screengrab via YouTube)

If you are curious about the newly-launched Trump TV, but haven’t had the chance or motivation to tune in, one brave soul at The Washington Post glued themselves to it for 24 hours and reported back.

Trump TV: The Essentials Station is a livestream from the White House that was launched amid President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds, leading to other networks pulling back pool coverage in protest.

The outlets have since gotten their credentials restored following a court order, but the delayed response from the White House led to gaps in media coverage during a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Some of that visit could be seen on Trump TV, along with sometimes months-old or even years-old clips of the president.

“I was hoping for a full day of opening numbers. Razzle-dazzle. Put Marco Rubio into the Octagon with Stephen Miller and six tubes of eyeliner. A girl can dream,” Monica Hesse reported about tuning into the launch of Trump TV.

Following more than 10 minutes of a screen promising things would begin shortly, it cut to Trump at a signing ceremony. After that, things moved to a speech given by Vice President JD Vance on Medicaid fraud. Video on the channel simply plays, without any host or transitional explanations for what you’re watching.

She also caught the arrival of Xi, but the video had no audio.

Hesse said for those fearing Trump’s channel would be similar to state-run television in countries like Xi’s communist China, they should know that the state-run television is much better.

“When I visited the English language website of China Central Television, I was immediately invited to click on a catchy music video featuring footage of fast-speed trains, marching soldiers, green energy projects, victorious athletes and multicultural tourists, all set to lyrics vowing optimistically to ‘connect the world under the same sun,'” Hesse wrote.

Trump TV meanwhile was showing Trump speaking at a past event about how he won the 2024 presidential election.

After 24 hours of “nearly nonstop watching,” Hesse argued Trump TV lacks the “pageantry” and “polish” of state-run television.

“Trump TV felt like C-SPAN without the intellectualism, like a 4-year-old who keeps insisting on performing the same incoherent puppet show,” she wrote.

All Trump proved with the launch of a livestream, she added, is that he needs the very networks he rages against, including CNN.

“After 24 hours of this, what become clear is that, my God, the White House needs CNN. It needs CNN and its brethren to add some structure to this shapeless and fakakta viewing and governing experience. The president’s enemy is not CNN. His real news network enemy has come from within,” Hesse wrote.

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