Introduction

The second Trump Administration operates with the advantage of an active “information drone swarm defense” that has transformed national political competition. This innovation significantly strengthens President Donald J. Trump’s position relative to his first campaign and term in office, allowing him to both neutralize opponents within the Right and bypass – rather than negotiate with – establishment media and other institutions. The key element of the information drone swarm: 30 “Super Influencers” identified by Baron through the collection and analysis of 23,000 references made by President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, 27 White House officials and staffers, and 18 external influencers. 

Top 10: Trump White House Super Influencers

1. Collin Rugg – Co-owner, Trending Politics 
2. End Wokeness – Anonymous X account (possibly Jack Posobiec) 
3. Eric Daugherty – Assistant News Director, Florida’s Voice 
4. Charlie Kirk – Co-founder, Turning Point USA 
5. Nick Sortor – Independent journalist 
6. Jack Posobiec – Senior Editor, Human Events 
7. Scott Jennings – Political strategist and CNN Contributor 
8. Libs of TikTok – Anti-woke content from Chaya Raichik 
9. Breaking911 – News aggregator on X 
10. George Behizy – X activist with focus on election integrity 

Background and Methodology

Building on the firm’s study last year of the Trump campaign, Baron deployed the firm’s Influencer Analytics research platform to quantify the information environment around the Trump White House during the presidential transition and early weeks of the new Administration. 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 influence on the Trump White House information environment. These key external actors (“Super Influencers”), who occupy positions formally outside of government, evince the instincts, themes, and priorities of the network within which the Trump White House operates. The effort involved: 

• Defining an initial universe of figures in the Trump White House, including President Trump, Vice President Vance, and 27 White House officials and staffers; 
• Assembling a database of more than 10,000 citations made by members of the initial universe from X/Twitter, TRUTH Social, LinkedIn, official messaging, interviews, and other sources; 
• Inspecting and verifying citations to ensure accuracy and quality, and scoring external influencers using an algorithm that controls for frequency, consistency, and reach; 
• Identifying the top-cited individuals – the first-order influencers;  
• Assembling a database of more than 13,000 citations made by the first-order influencers; 
• Inspecting and verifying citations to ensure accuracy and quality, and scoring external influencers using an algorithm that controls for frequency, consistency, and reach; and
• Identifying the top-cited individuals – the 30 Super Influencers.

Insights

Pro-Trump Super Influencers function as an information drone swarm that both defends the President and attacks his critics. Super Influencer commentary frequently converges to focus rapidly on a specific incident or individual. For example, during the President’s feud with Elon Musk, Super Influencers quickly emerged in strong support of the President. Although several expressed hope for a reconciliation, none abandoned President Trump. Matthew Boyle, Washington bureau chief for Breitbart, commented “Pride cometh, before the fall. Elon Musk got too big for his britches.”¹ Turning Point USA Co-Founder Charlie Kirk indicated his support for Trump while avoiding criticizing Musk, commenting “[President Trump]’s supporters are NOT going anywhere. I hope Elon and Trump reconcile and do so privately.”² 

Super Influencers fervently support President Trump for different reasons: some as loyalists to Trump personally, others to his populist policies. This divide can be understood as “MAGA” vs. “Ultra MAGA”: the former camp embraces Trump as he adjusts policy in response to feedback from the electorate, while Ultra MAGA supports Trump as a vehicle for reaching their nationalist and populist vision for America. Although committed to President Trump, Ultra MAGA sometimes bristles at his pragmatism and seeks to constrain the President when they see him straying from populism. Among Trump White House Super Influencers, the MAGA faction counts Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor at The Federalist and author of Rigged, a book criticizing the 2020 presidential election, while Ultra MAGA includes Jack Posobiec.

Trump Super Influencers resent large American corporations as woke, internationalist, elite, and as enemies of the nation’s working class. Super Influencers criticize large corporations for evangelizing DEI and other woke policies, offshoring jobs and abusing immigration loopholes to undercut domestic wages, and generally denigrating the values and tastes of non–college educated Americans. These criticisms of major U.S. companies fuel support for economic nationalism, including tariffs, incentives for domestic manufacturing, pro-union measures, and more rigorous antitrust enforcement. 

Establishment media institutions maintain almost no relevance to the Trump White House information environment. Only one Super Influencer – Scott Jennings, a senior political analyst at CNN – has a strong affiliation with a mainstream media organization. However, this exception proves the rule: Jennings has built his considerable influence as the lone conservative regular on CNN who delights in advocating for President Trump and mocking the network’s liberal pieties. By contrast, President Trump’s first Administration more actively relied on mainstream media. Consistent with the overall trend, established conservative media organizations rank poorly on influence relative to newer, independent media personalities. Even the outlets and projects launched since the end of the George W. Bush era – for example, The Daily Wire and The Federalist – frequently trail independent conservative media personalities with no connection to Washington, D.C. or formal politics. Anonymous social media accounts comprise nearly one-third of Trump White House Super Influencers, reflecting the outsider character of Trump’s movement. 

Many Trump Super Influencers operate as modern news aggregators in the spirit of Drudge Report during the late 1990s and early 2000s. These aggregators – for example Collin Rugg and Eric Daugherty – function as content amplifiers, rather than creators. Such reposting creates an information environment dominated by symbols and memes. This results in a network that features speed and flexibility: messaging can be created, disseminated, and adjusted with almost no barriers, allowing the White House to advance new priorities and arguments as conditions require.

Individual Trump White House Super Influencers often drive consensus on multiple issues, rather than limiting themselves to narrow domains of expertise as often occurs with policy experts and academics. Influence on the “news cycle” has shifted away from issue specialists and toward these political generalists. Jack Posobiec, for example, might one day attack “Big Pharma” and the next day post about U.S. energy independence or CCP infiltration of the United States.³ 

Outlook

Trump White House Super Influencers champion American dominance and sovereignty pursued with the blunt force of Patrick J. Buchanan, rather than the panache of William F. Buckley, Jr. The individuals and organizations affiliated with establishment Washington, D.C. – including the center-Right – have not only lost influence, but in many instances have been defined by MAGA and its allies as enemies. Forging effective alliances with the Right now requires engaging post-Reagan/Bush figures interposed between the Trump electoral coalition and the priorities of the Trump Administration.

Endnotes

1. Ben Jacobs, “MAGA Faithful Shrug Off the Trump-Musk Dust-Up,” Politico, June 6, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/06/trump-musk-breakup-butterworths-00391663.
2. Charlie Kirk, X, June 5, 2025, https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1930792315226120245.
3. See: Jack Posobiec, X, November 16, 2024, https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1857553886350909741; Posobiec, X, October 2, 2024, https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1841286528917451156; and Posobiec, X, November 15, 2024, https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1857489055182700718.