Every few months or so, the White House hosts something called a “media row.” They invite podcasters, TV outlets, radio stations, and multimedia publications to come and interview cabinet secretaries and other top Trump officials.
I attended my first media row Wednesday with Brian, a cameraman on our video team. In the span of an hour, I interviewed two cabinet secretaries and two top Trump officials.
We dove into the America First rationale for potential strikes on Iran, the administration’s strategy to dominate the 2026 midterms, and I even got an exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpse at how President Trump prepped for his major State of the Union address.
On camera, the exchanges feel polished and assured. They revealed real insight into the administration’s priorities and mindset. But off camera? Pure adrenaline. Minutes before our first sit-down, we still didn’t know exactly who we’d be talking to. It was all quick thinking and rolling with whatever came next.
Media row is hosted in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It is the big gray building that sits next to the White House, and it is where most of the president’s staff works.
It is very much first come, first serve for the White House media row. Upon arrival, you are led to a big room within the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The room is essentially a conference room, with long tables and chairs taking up most of the space. Reporters and outlets were dispersed around the room, arranging chairs and tables for their set-up.
We ended up pushing many of the tables to the side and found a corner of the room with decent light and a good background to film. But as I mentioned earlier, just 15 minutes ahead of my first interview, I had no idea who I would be interviewing.
Eventually, a White House official came through the room and passed us all a sheet of paper with our schedule. At 10:15 a.m., I had Department of War press secretary Kingsley Wilson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner at 10:45 am, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair at 11:15 a.m. and Energy Secretary Chris Wright at 11:30 a.m.
With 15 minutes until my first interview, I scribbled some questions down in my reporter’s notebook. I had some idea going into the media row that it would be a bit scrambled. Other journalists who had attended the media row before alerted me that we would have little time to prepare for our interviews.
In the days leading up to the event, I created a large list of questions that could be asked to almost any official. Many of them touched on the 2026 midterms, but other topics included the situation in Mexico, the administration’s immigration strategy and the plan for the SAVE Act.
Plus, on Wednesday morning we were coming off the State of the Union. Both President Trump and the Democrats gave plenty of material to work off.
One secret I have is that I will occasionally ask my interviewees if they have anything to break news on. Sometimes they say yes! And suddenly I have a big interview.
When I asked Kingsley this question on Wednesday, she told me she wanted to give her first on the record comments about the Department of War’s controversy with the AI company Anthropic. Perfect. Something like that is always newsworthy.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to State of the Day to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.