Introduction

Baron’s extensive analysis of more than 16,000 references made by former President Donald J. Trump, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), and 40 key advisors and associates suggests that, relative even to the 2016 to 2020 period, a second Trump Administration would operate within a remarkably anti-establishment, loyal, and aggressive information support structure. The emergence in full of this pro-Trump network arguably represents the inevitable competitive response to the left-of-center media “echo chamber” constructed during the Obama Administration, albeit without the scale and elite credentials of conventional media outlets.¹ The pro-establishment faction of the Republican Party and of institutional Washington, DC present in the first Trump Administration currently suffers a much-diminished position. 

Background and Methodology

Baron deployed the firm’s Influencer Analytics research platform to quantify the information environment around the Trump campaign. Baron developed Influencer Analytics to support the firm’s corporate, trade association, and not-for-profit clients in identifying the individual “Super Influencers” and thought-leadership communities who disproportionately drive policy outcomes. Baron has refined this methodology through the collection, verification, and analysis of hundreds of thousands of reference citations, with recent clients including Fortune 50 companies and leading business coalitions. Baron’s Influencer Analytics revealed the top individuals with the strongest measured direct linkages to the Trump campaign. These key external actors (“Trump Influencers”), who occupy positions formally outside the Trump campaign, evince the instincts, themes, and priorities of the network within which Trump decision makers – and a possible future Trump Administration – operate.  The effort involved: 

• Defining an initial universe of individuals associated with the Trump campaign, including President Trump, vice presidential nominee and Senator JD Vance, campaign officials, Trump family members, as well as general advisors; 
•  Assembling a database of more than 16,000 citations made by members of the initial universe from X/Twitter, TRUTH Social, LinkedIn, official campaign messaging, interviews, and other sources; 
•  Inspecting and verifying citations to ensure accuracy and quality; 
•  Scoring external influencers using an algorithm that controls for frequency, consistency, and reach; and 
•  Identifying top Trump Influencers. 

Insights

Establishment media and other elite institutions maintain almost no relevance to the Trump campaign’s information environment. Only one of the top 25 Trump Influencers represents a mainstream media or elite cultural institution: Axios reporter Alex Thompson, whom Trump Influencers frequently cited for his criticisms of Democrats, such as his coverage of Biden after the Biden-Trump debate.² This marks a departure from the first Trump Administration, which actively leveraged elite media as a validator by highlighting interviews with figures such as Jake Tapper of CNN.³ 

As reflected in the Trump campaign’s approach to the 2024 Republican Platform, policy experts and academics have little standing in the public conversation conducted by Trump Influencers. Only one active university professor ranks as a top 25 Trump Influencer, and none of the top 25 maintains a significant association with a think tank. The MAGA movement prioritizes a broad worldview and cultural sensibility, with policy serving a secondary role.

Few Trump Influencers possess government experience. This group of influencers maintains little connection to Washington, DC or formal politics. Only a small handful have served in government or run for office. Ten of the top 25 Influencers are 35 years old or younger. This outsider quality foreshadows that a future Trump Administration’s clash with the federal bureaucracy – and with the broader public-private partnerships that define modern Washington, DC – would be even more intense than expected.

Trump Influencers focus on supporting former President Trump, not advancing specific policy goals. This quality allows President Trump unusual flexibility in establishing priorities and adjusting to the political environment. Compared to previous GOP nominees and presidents, Trump’s dexterity creates a meaningful competitive advantage not easily countered by Democrats.

Trump Influencers operate as entrepreneurs by temperament and necessity. Unlike legacy conservative thought leaders – such as George F. Will, the late Charles Krauthammer, and Brit Hume – who were (or in some cases remain) affiliated with major news organizations or other such institutions, Trump Influencers often maintain their own independent platforms and profiles. This independence insulates Trump Influencers from the social-desirability bias that traditionally incentivized political professionals to move Left as they lived and worked in Washington, DC. In addition, this independence from established institutions in many cases reduces transparency and disclosure regarding sponsored content, although elite media also has loosened such standards following the collapse of the traditional print advertising-based revenue model.

Influencer Archetypes

Amplifiers: Example – Summer Lane, Editor-in-Chief of Write Revolution News, and Associate Editor at RSBNetwork.  Summer Lane is a prolific novelist turned political commentator. The content of Lane and other “Amplifiers” is dedicated almost solely to supporting Trump and countering his opponents. Summer Lane writes, “Trump is a tried-and-true fighter.  He is the man in the arena.  We need someone tough.  We need someone who will bring despotic dictators to heel and wipe out the bureaucratic corruption that has rotted our three-letter agencies and legal system to the core.”⁴ 

Specialists: Example – Bill Melugin, National Correspondent for Fox News based in Los Angeles. Bill Melugin covers the Southern border almost exclusively. Using drone footage and interviewing migrants in Spanish, Bill Melugin covers immigration policy and its effects on America and on the migrants themselves. His border coverage for Fox News is often accompanied by the title, “Biden’s Border Crisis,” and focuses on concrete examples of the results of border policies, such as his 2021 drone footage of 10,000 migrants camped under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.⁵ The few single-issue commentators that make it into the top 25 Influencers indicate the importance and centrality of their topics to the Trump campaign’s message.

Mavericks: Example – Clay Travis, co-host of the talk radio program The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, founder of the multimedia platform OutKick, which was acquired by Fox News in 2021, and Fox Sports contributor. Clay Travis gained widespread attention in 2015 for his 50-day “pudding strike” during which he only ate pudding in a failed attempt to force DirecTV to extend NFL coverage to the Virgin Islands. Although more recently he has covered a wide range of political topics, he has been a sports commentator since 2009 and has long focused on covering sports and popular culture for a right-of-center audience: as he stated in April 2024, Travis aims to “win this battle of wokeness in sports.”⁶ Like the other “Mavericks,” Travis is a Trump supporter but has his own following and focus outside of politics. 

Outlook

The information environment surrounding former President Trump and his advisers reflects the realities of contemporary political competition. In an era of polarization, negative partisanship, and progressive capture of elite institutions, right-of-center political figures and movements naturally rely on a new generation of loyalists largely independent of the pressures exerted by establishment media, business, and other organizations. The diffuse nature and small scale of these trusted supporters also shifts the balance of power within the conservative movement in favor of former President Trump, equipping him with remarkable flexibility in defining and pursuing a governing agenda. Major companies should account for these changes in political competition by prioritizing engagement of relevant influencers and the organizations they trust, rather than the traditional approach of focusing almost exclusively on policy and process. 

Endnotes

1. David Samuels, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” The New York Times Magazine, May 5, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html.

2. Alex Thompson, “Two Joe Bidens: The night America saw the other one,” Axios, June 29, 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president.

3. “Mick Mulvaney’s full interview with Jake Tapper,” CNN, April 26, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/04/26/mick-mulvaney-government-shutdown-full-interview-lead.cnn.

4. Summer Lane, “I met with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago,” Summer Lane: Write Revolution News, Substack, January 9, 2024, https://summerlane.substack.com/p/i-met-with-president-donald-j-trump.

5. Bill Melugin, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Fox News, September 16, 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6272909749001.

6. Clay Travis, “Wokeness in Sports,” Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Bellevue, Washington, April 17, 2024, https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/programs/national-leadership-seminar-bellevue-washington/wokeness-in-sports.

7. Peter Coy, “The 10 People Most Likely to Influence the Economic Policy of a President Biden,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 29, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-29/the-10-people-most-likely-to-influence-a-president-biden; and Jonathan M. Baron, “A Look at the Top Biden Economic Influencers,” Chief Executive, November 12, 2020, https://chiefexecutive.net/a-look-at-the-top-biden-economic-influencers.

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