May 2, 2025.

Yesterday, I identified incorrectly the messaging app, newly fired National Security Advisor Michael

Walz was using at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday as the unsecure signal app.

Joseph Cox of 404 Media identified the app as an obscure and unofficial version of signal

from a company called TeleMessage, which makes clones of popular messaging apps but adds

an archiving capability to each of them. As Josh Marshall of

Talking Points memo notes, this third-party app introduces even more insecurity into those White

House communications. Today I spent time organizing the many tabs I had opened over the past six

weeks. When they were grouped by topics,

what emerged was the story of an administration that decided from the start to portray President

Donald Trump as a king, creating an alternative social media ecosystem designed, as Drew Harwell

and Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post noted in early March,

to sell the country on Trump's expansionist approach to presidential power.

The team set out not just to confront critics,

but to drown them out with a constant barrage of soundbites,

interviews with loyalists,

memes slamming Democrats, and attack lines.

We're here, we're in your face, said Kalyn Dore, a deputy assistant to the president who

runs the digital team. It's irreverent. It's unapologetic. Trump spokesperson Stephen

Chung said their goal was full spectrum dominance.

They are engaged in a marketing campaign to establish Trump's false version of reality as truth.

The White House has also brought into the press pool right-wing influencers who are asking questions that tee up opportunities for White House Press Secretary

...