A right-wing influencer who received large sums of money from Russia to spread its propaganda during the 2024 election is now part of the White House press pool.
Starting Friday, someone from Tim Pool’s “Timcast” YouTube channel will cover President Donald Trump as part of the press team, according to Will Sommer, a journalist with The Bulwark, in a post on social media.
This change comes after the White House took away the Washington, D.C. press corps’ power to choose which reporters would be in the daily rotation to follow the president. This gave the White House the chance to bring in influencers and podcasters who are sympathetic to Trump, even as it banned the Associated Press from traveling with the president or covering him on Air Force One.
As noted by The Daily Beast, Tim Pool, a popular podcaster, was one of six pro-Trump influencers who worked with a company called Tenet Media, which was secretly funded by Russian state media. This came to light after a criminal indictment was filed in September. The indictment accused two Russian media executives of sending $10 million to Tenet, which paid the influencers to spread Russian talking points on issues like immigration, inflation, and foreign policy. The goal was to deepen divisions in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Pool was paid $100,000 per episode for a weekly show he hosted, according to the Washington Post. He also bought real estate in West Virginia around the same time Tenet started its operations.
Though the indictment didn’t name Tenet directly, media outlets were able to connect the dots. The founders of Tenet allegedly knew the company was funded by Russia, but officials say Pool and the other influencers, like Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin, didn’t know about the Russian backing. Tenet shut down shortly after the indictment was made public.
If the allegations are true, Pool said he and the other influencers were tricked and are victims. “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” he said in a now-deleted social media post. “The show is produced in its entirety by our local team without input from anyone external to the company.”
He also said, “Putin is a scumbag” in another post.
Even though Pool didn’t knowingly participate in the Russian scheme, his podcast “The Culture War” ended up helping spread disinformation. He has promoted false claims about the 2020 election being stolen and interviewed people involved in the January 6th Capitol attack.
Russia, which had used bots and trolls to influence elections in 2016 and 2020, chose to work with right-wing media stars for 2024, according to The New York Times. Since Pool and the others didn’t know about the Russian funding, they were allowed to keep the money they earned.
Pool has 2.3 million followers on YouTube, where he hosts the Timcast daily news show and podcast. “The Culture War” also streams on Spotify. In May 2024, Pool interviewed Trump and publicly endorsed his re-election campaign.
While Pool is now part of the press pool, the Associated Press, one of the most trusted news organizations in the world, has been shut out from covering the president. The AP was excluded after it refused to follow Trump’s order to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
As a result, the AP has had to rely on less-experienced reporters and photographers, and now, it seems, right-wing influencers will also be allowed in. The AP’s journalists have said the White House’s process for selecting the press pool makes no sense. “There’s no rhyme or reason,” said the AP’s top photographer in Washington, D.C. “I don’t think anyone knows.”
