‘Stone…stuff…White House…California…teleport…I suffer…’ — those were among the fragments President Trump appeared to utter Monday as he stood on the newly built White House helipad.
Holding an oversized pair of gold ribbon-cutting scissors, Trump seemed to address the crowd, though his remarks were nearly impossible to make out.
The regular television pool was absent, meaning the highly sensitive boom microphones normally used to capture presidential comments were nowhere nearby. Their absence followed Trump’s escalating dispute with the news media.
As Marine One’s rotors whipped up powerful gusts around him, the President shouted and waved his arms, leaving viewers to guess at what he was trying to say.
For all anyone knew, he might have been declaring that Iceland would be annexed or unveiling plans for a Great Pyramid on the National Mall. With his words drowned out by the helicopter, the substance of the announcement was lost.
The extraordinary scene unfolded after Trump barred several organizations he labeled “fake news” — including CNN and MS NOW — from the White House grounds on Friday.
The remaining television networks that share pool-reporting responsibilities with CNN and MS NOW then announced that they would boycott the arrangement.
That decision left Trump without the familiar broadcast platform used to amplify his public appearances. His response was to declare that he would create a network of his own: Trump TV.
The White House unveiled Trump TV as the President’s confrontation with the press intensified
Can you hear him? President Trump’s remarks disappeared beneath the noise as he opened the new helipad
The move may have appealed to an idea Trump has long been associated with. In 2016, rumors — ultimately proven false — claimed that his presidential campaign was merely a publicity strategy for a television network he intended to launch.
With his poll numbers falling, a channel devoted almost entirely to his administration may have looked especially attractive: no anchors adding critical context and no skeptical experts offering what he might regard as discouraging analysis.
The White House promoted the Monday-night debut of “TRUMP TV: The Essentials Station” as a major event. Social media teasers showed a vintage television flickering on, followed by footage of a satellite-dish van arriving at the executive residence.
A cinematic, one-minute trailer then presented clips from well-known television and film productions, with characters seemingly preparing to tune in.
Scenes from Seinfeld, Friends, Home Alone, The Simpsons and Family Guy appeared in the promotional video.
In a post on social media, the White House wrote: “Watch the Trump Administration’s biggest moments all in one place. Top videos, major remarks, and must-see highlights streaming 24/7 and updated in real time. Stay informed and stay up to date!”
White House television correspondents prepare to broadcast as the CNN booth sits empty on the White House grounds on September 21, 2026
CNN Senior White House Reporter Betsy Klein delivers a report near the White House complex after her credential was confiscated
The statement continued: “Not every big moment has made it on your TV, now it can. Get real-time updates and live events streamed DIRECTLY to your phone. No noise. Just the news that matters most — straight from the Trump Administration.”
The launch appeared to be an immediate attempt to replace the role traditionally played by the independent press, including CNN, in bringing the President’s events to the public.
However, Our News Outlet can reveal, the project had been planned well before the eruption of Trump’s most recent row with the TV networks.
The White House digital team had been working on the idea for a 24/7 streaming service featuring the president’s ‘greatest hit’ speeches, according to a person familiar with the effort.
It was built as part of testing for a YouTube ‘Station’ feature for content creators.
When the President banned CNN and MS NOW, followed by the other networks boycotting the White House, it was seen internally in the Trump Administration as an ideal opportunity to launch the feature.
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Democrats immediately condemned it as a lurch into despotism.
‘The President of the United States of America blocked access to the free press and launched state-run media,’ said Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California. ‘This is authoritarianism in action.’
Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former press secretary in his first term, said: ‘You know who else does this? Russia, China, and Iran to name a few…’
It turns out Trump TV, like many a Trump project with a hyped launch, is less than that, at least at the moment.
It is not a cable network. Instead, in its current form, it amounts to a stream hosted on the White House YouTube channel which shows a never-ending compilation of his and JD Vance’s old speeches.
A source familiar with the project told Our News Outlet its future is unknown, but there are no immediate plans to bring in news anchors, personalities or interviews.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins in the White House Press Briefing Room before President Trump banned the network from the grounds
It launched on Monday night with a a recording of a speech by Trump at Mount Rushmore more than two months ago. That was followed by Trump’s 2025 Inauguration address.
It seems likely there was an element of trolling in the way the launch was hyped, but there does appear to be a strategy behind the project itself.
Bypassing traditional media the channel can deliver an endless stream of Trump content directly to MAGA voters in an effort to enthuse them and increase turnout in the midterms.
As one White House spokesman put it: ‘The press, in some cases, reported inaccurately or not at all on the Administration’s many record breaking accomplishments on behalf of all Americans. Trump TV is a 24/7 livestream of the Administration’s greatest hits, unfiltered.’
But Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said: ‘This just makes it even clearer that the real goal here is to ensure that the American public is fed a steady diet of government propaganda.’
Whatever the eventual role of the channel is, it is as they say in the TV industry, experiencing ‘growing pains.’
The White House said that, after the digital team added it to the White House app, downloads went to the top of the Apple news apps chart, and the video announcing the launch drew over 300,000 views on YouTube.
But when Trump TV launched it had only around 8,000 viewers, which had halved less than two hours later.
At 2pm on Tuesday, only around 1,600 viewers were watching a Trump dinner with farmers in the Rose Garden, which was recorded in June.
That was followed by a rerun of Vance’s speech on anti-fraud measures in Wisconsin in July, for which viewership fell below 1,400.
By 8.30am on Wednesday, less than 600 people were watching an event from last Christmas.
A speech by JD Vance on Trump TV drew less than 1,400 viewers
Asked about the project on Tuesday, Vance said: ‘I’ll let the President speak to Trump TV and I’m sure there will be further forthcoming announcements on that particular topic.’
The desire to bypass the media and connect directly with their core voters is one that has also been pursued by other world leaders.
One of the most prominent instances was Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez whose weekend television talk show ‘Aló Presidente’ ran for over a decade, with episodes lasting hours.
Trump TV also has some way to go to match the ratings of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose monthly radio show ‘Mann Ki Baat,’ which translates as ‘Conversations From the Heart,’ attracts an audience of tens of millions.
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