Rogan O’Handley may have made history last Monday. A conservative commentator with massive social-media audiences, O’Handley sat in the “new media” seat in the White House briefing room, a perch that confers the honour of posing the first question of the day — one that clocked in at nearly two minutes and more than 300 words, sort of a pontifi-question:

“In Trump’s first 99 days, we’ve seen a co-ordinated assault on the rule of law by radical judges who are thwarting his agenda with an unprecedented number of national injunctions. These judges are providing more due process to violent MS-13 and Tren de Aragua illegal aliens than they did for American citizens who peacefully protested on January 6. As Stephen Miller has highlighted, it would be utterly ridiculous to have full trials and appeals for the more than 15 million illegal aliens that came across our border under Joe Biden.

“Many are now calling for Trump to circumvent these radical judges and consider suspending the writ of habeas corpus solely for these illegal aliens in accordance with the terms of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution, which explicitly allows for such a measure when there is a rebellion or invasion. There is strong precedent for this action being that it was exercised by three of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Democrats’ favourite president of all time, FDR. All three of which are not only celebrated by historians but are immortalised on our national currency with their faces on there. Furthermore, all three used it against American citizens, where in this instance we would only be using it against illegal aliens.

“I think almost every reasonable American would agree that 15 million illegal aliens coming across our border under Joe Biden counts as an invasion, especially since many, as you highlighted, are now robbing, assaulting, raping and killing American citizens. Historic assaults on our republic require reciprocal action from our government.

“Can you please let us know if and when the Trump Administration is planning to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to circumvent these radical judges, who are infringing on his Article II powers, and to start shipping out illegals en masse?

Had any briefing attendee ever gas-bagged so long? A survey of experts on that question came up inconclusive. “I probably would not have let that go on that long, nor would the other journalists,” said Michael McCurry, who served as press secretary under Bill Clinton.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, appeared pleased with the situation, responding that the administration would take “legal and constitutional remedies” to keep deporting “illegal criminals”. She added: “I also agree with the premise of your question, which doesn’t happen in this room often.”

Oh, but it does, perhaps more than ever. The folks that Leavitt & Co place in the designated seat for new media generally furnish friendly premises, as do others who get the nod from the press secretary. A study by Media Matters covering the 16 briefings through April 22 found that Leavitt called on right-wing outlets 41 per cent of the time, and that four of the five most-called-upon reporters represented such organisations.

On top of that, Leavitt held a series of briefings last week — separate from the traditional briefings — with influencers who support Donald Trump, one of whom asked her, “What direction do you advise me to go into?” That was the same person who had written a post last year asking folks whether they had seen the moon of late. “I’ve been looking for seven days,” she wrote.

Another influencer thanked Leavitt on Monday for the split-second social changes wrought by the new administration: “I can attest to the deportations in Florida. My Uber drivers finally speak English again,” said Arynne Wexler, who describes herself on X as “a nonlib girl in a crazylib world.”

All goofball fun, correct? We’ll see. At a briefing for the new media on Tuesday, Leavitt pointed to legacy media’s trust crisis and riffed, “That’s why we’ve welcomed in openly independent journalists, podcasters, social-media influencers, content creators, and we will continue to do so.” There should be no doubting that pledge, considering the vigour with which Trump officials have launched initiatives to punish their perceived enemies and steamroll democratic guardrails.

Now they are giving a White House platform to a fresh group of folks. Many of them forged their sense of truth and accuracy on social media, believe in any number of internet conspiracies, and have their very own and very particular expectations for the Trump Administration.

No way that could backfire.

Overlapping circumstances make now an ideal time to pour on the messaging: the second Trump White House just passed the 100-day mark, and the President is an increasingly unpopular champion of tariffs that have upended an otherwise healthy economy. So roll out the briefings, the swing-state rally, the interminable hail-to-the-chief Cabinet meeting and, yes, interviews with mainstream media outlets.

There is nothing innovative, at this point, about appealing to niche media stars on the internet. It was a decade ago that Barack Obama did a series of sit-downs with YouTube stars and endured some chiding for the outreach. The 2024 presidential campaign saw candidates scrambling to appear chill with podcasting sensations.

What the Trump White House appears to be doing with influencers, however, has the feel of a long-term investment: The guests get to visit the White House campus, share gossip, take selfies and videos, and otherwise post merchantable content to their social feeds. The White House hosts the influencers in the South Court Auditorium, an official-looking space where Leavitt kicks off the proceedings with a genuine briefing-style monologue. She then takes their questions.

An ethic of teamwork commands the new-media room, a dynamic that veteran White House correspondents have gleaned. “Nothing substantial, nothing important comes out of those briefings,” one such correspondent said. “Once in a while, you hear some fawning-ish questions being posed by some of the people who attend those briefings, and that’s not unusual, quite frankly.” Addressing a group of influencers on Monday, Leavitt said: “We appreciate all that you do on social media to push what the President is saying, but also sometimes question it.” The all-smiles atmosphere means that Leavitt indulges every question, including one presented on Wednesday by Dom Lucre, a self-described “breaker of narratives” on X, where he has 1.5 million followers.

He asked Leavitt: “A lot of people in America are questioning if there’s any possibility that we could see further investigations for anyone that could have violated our election integrity rights, and more importantly so, is there any possibility for names such as Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton to ever just possibly get investigated for any of these, you know, questions from the American people, any wrongdoings they might have done?”

Faced with this baseless question, Leavitt could have taken a page from the late senator John McCain, who famously levelled with a supporter who believed Obama was an “Arab”. She could have pointed out that the first Trump Administration pursued a years-long investigation of the Clinton Foundation that sputtered to an end without charges. She could have noted, too, that congressional Republicans launched full-force investigations of top Democrats.

Such a response, however, would have required too much courage. Leavitt said, instead, “It’s refreshing to actually hear a question on election integrity because the legacy media would never ask such a question.” Her response omitted mention of whether Obama and Hillary Clinton were under investigation, setting the stage for a follow-up question from another influencer. “I still have a ton of my audience that is still asking questions about Hillary Rodham Clinton. … Is there somebody still looking at it? We just want to know that it’s not dead in the water, that Hillary’s not just off scot-free after knowing what her and the DNC did leading up to the 2020 election,” he said.

“It’s a great question,” Leavitt responded. “Absolutely understand and agree with why you’re asking it, but I would want to let the President weigh in on that front. … Certainly, we can ask him and get back to you.”

Can you get back to me, as well, on that matter, Ms Leavitt? I want to know all about Trump’s response to this topic, whether he is interested in investigating Clinton’s activities in the 2020 election, whatever those might be, and whether this thing is “not dead in the water”. The White House, after all, is now on the record as stating that it’s all a “great question”.

On the plus side, providing a forum for new-media personalities probably won’t trigger one of those highly meritorious lawsuits that have been dogging the White House. After it booted the Associated Press from the White House press pool over the wire service’s position on renaming the Gulf of Mexico, a federal judge ruled that the move amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Inviting occasionally kooky voices into the White House for dialogue, on the other hand, is fully consonant with the First Amendment, even though presidential scholars probably won’t hail it as a watershed accountability moment. “As always,” Handley told Leavitt at Monday’s new-media session, “you’re really crushing it.”

• Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s media critic, focuses on the cable-news industry