Fox News host Will Cain said popular podcasters like Joe Rogan have “earned” seats in the White House briefing room.
When discussing the potential for a shake-up in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Cain said it is “pretty exciting, there might be a White House press briefing seat for ‘The Will Cain Show.’”
“Truth is though, most of us from ‘The Will Cain Show’ to Joe Rogan to Megyn Kelly, and so forth, we don’t have large, built-out news departments, reporters and journalists set to sit in that room, and I can’t imagine seeing Megyn and Joe moving to D.C. and ready to ask questions directly, but they’ve earned it,” Cain said during his appearance on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.
President-elect Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. said this week he has discussed opening up the briefing room to social media influencers and independent reporters.
“If The New York Times has lied, they’ve been averse to everything, they’re functioning as the marketing arm to the Democrat party,” Trump Jr. said while adding “why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?”
Cain said “that’s the point that I think is being alluded to here or we’re getting to. As long as they want to invest and build out, they have earned it.”
Rogan, one of the most popular podcasters in the world, interviewed Trump and endorsed the Republican candidate shortly after. Vice President Harris’s team was in talks with him to do an interview, but it never came to fruition. At times on the campaign trail, both candidates opted to sit down with prominent podcasters for interviews.
The White House briefing room has 49 seats and the White House Correspondents’ Association decides who can get them. The White House controls the press credentials.
On Wednesday, Cain also dinged Axios CEO Jim VandeHei over his recent criticism of billionaire Elon Musk.
“Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today saying like, ‘We are the media. You are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls‑‑‑,” VandeHei said.
“You’re not the media, you having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter any more than me looking at your head, and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon, right,” he added.
The Fox News host argued that audiences are eager to hear questions in the White House briefing room from people like Rogan than from traditional media outlets.
“That whole group, the one that has the 49 seats now, they have lost everything, every bit of trust through Russiagate to Donald Trump to COVID and every other story,” Cain said Wednesday.
“What credibility do you have that you think entitles you to that seat? And I think most of us at this point don’t care,” he added. “I don’t care what ABC or CBS or NBC or CNN have to say, but I would be interested to hear what a question from Joe Rogan would be.”