BACK TO THE FUTURE — As the political media landscape reshuffles in the aftermath of the 2024 election, a once-influential conservative outlet that had lost its relevance is making a renewed bid for influence ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House: Breitbart News. The infamous news website, which rose to prominence under Steve Bannon’s leadership during the 2016 election as the self-proclaimed “platform of the alt right,” has fallen on hard times. Over the past eight years, the proliferation of other right-leaning news outlets has chipped away at its audience and led to a decline in digital ad sales, exacerbated by a long-standing advertiser boycott. Compared to its heyday in the opening days of the first Trump administration — when Breitbart’s average monthly viewership hovered approached the 20 million mark — the site’s current audience has severely contracted, with around 700,000 unique viewers visiting the site in October 2024. But despite its diminished readership, the site’s influence in the MAGA universe has been on the upswing in recent months — a vivid illustration of how thoroughly Trump’s return to power has scrambled the Washington media ecosystem. Signs of the site’s quiet resurgence are quickly piling up. In late October, just weeks before the election, the site’s Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle snagged a coveted sit-down with Trump, in which Trump decried the “weaponization” of the justice system against conservatives like him and Bannon. Just this week, the site published a lengthy and exclusive interview with incoming Ohio Republican senator and stalwart Trump ally Bernie Moreno, which was chock full of on-the-record praise for Moreno from senior Trump aides — a tell-tale indication that Mar-a-Lago played ball for the story. The site has flexed its political and editorial muscle in more subtle ways as well. In the first week of December, as conservatives were ratcheting up the pressure on Republican Sen. Joni Ernst to support Trump’s top Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, Breitbart quietly published an op-ed by Iowa’s Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird calling out “D.C. politicians think they can ignore the voices of their constituents.” The op-ed was widely interpreted as a threat that Bird — an outspoken Trump ally — might mount a primary challenge to Ernst in 2026 if she refused to support Hegseth. The gambit seems to have played a significant role in the broader pressure campaign targeting Ernst, with the Iowa Republican softening her opposition to Hegseth shortly thereafter. In one way, Breitbart’s resurgence is a consequence, at least in part, of Trump’s own topsy-turvy media strategy during his campaign, which eschewed traditional legacy media in favor of friendly right-wing outlets and unconventional sources like “bro podcasts” and YouTube comedy shows. As Trump prepares for his return to Washington in January, his allies are promising to bring that same spirit of media disruption into the West Wing, with one senior staffer recently telling POLITICO that a second Trump administration “could very well see a press briefing room where Maggie Haberman sits next to Joe Rogan.” But to hear Boyle, the Washington bureau chief, tell it, Breitbart’s newfound relevance is the culmination of nearly a decade of constant coverage of the president and his inner circle. “We’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Boyle, recalling the early coverage of Trump’s 2016 campaign, when Breitbart was among the first media outlets of any ideological stripe to take the president-to-be seriously as a political force. “I always describe it like [the difference] between 2004 New England Patriots versus the 2017 New England Patriots. At a certain point, they know how to win — and we know how to win.” A look through Breitbart’s traffic numbers might raise the question of what exactly “winning” means in this context. But at a minimum, Trump’s inner circle seems to have a renewed appreciation for Breitbart — and has rewarded them with a steady stream of exclusive and public praise. In his pre-election interview with Joe Rogan, for instance, Vice President-elect JD Vance namechecked Breitbart’s Boyle as one of the most plugged-in reporters in Washington — and suggested that he would make a welcome addition to newsrooms like the Washington Post. A spokesperson for the Trump transition did not respond to a request for comment about its relationship with Breitbart. “We have great relationships with them, and I expect that not only to continue but to intensify,” said Boyle of his ties to Trump world. “We have deep personal relationships with many of them that go back years, and they know that they can trust us — and that’s why they’re going to work with us on stories.” Still, Breitbart faces a steep climb back to the top of the right-wing mediasphere. Boyle acknowledged that the conservative media ecosystem has gotten more competitive in recent years, as mid-sized sites like the Washington Examiner, TheBlaze and The Daily Wire have consolidated their own readerships, and the ascendancy of non-traditional media like independent podcasts and YouTube shows have drawn eyeballs away from digital news. For what it’s worth, Boyle said that he isn’t satisfied with toiling away in the “right-wing [media] ghetto,” and that he sees legacy outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post as Breitbart’s real competitors. “I’m not trying to spin,” he said. “We’re trying to break news that focuses on stuff that our audience cares about.” Seriously challenging the Gray Lady may be a bit of a quixotic quest for a newsroom with just a dozen political reporters and a relatively small online reach. But the past few years have shown that it’s risky to count Breitbart out as a significant player in the MAGA mediasphere. Back in 2019, following the collapse of the site’s early Trump-era readership and the exodus of its advertiser and donor base, most media watchers roundly declared the website all but dead. And yet, five years and two presidential elections later, they’re still plugging away at it — and, to the extent that MAGA is now the beating heart of the Republican Party, they’re no longer the exotic mouthpiece of the party’s fringe. “Our influence has never been stronger,” said Boyle, pointing to Trump’s victory in this year’s popular vote. “We are the mainstream.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at iward@politico.com on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ianwardreports.
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