The problem(s) with the White House’s new mobile ‘news’ app

By objective measures, Donald Trump’s standing has reached depths unseen since Jan. 6, 2021. The president’s approval rating has reached embarrassing lows; the war he started in Iran isn’t exactly going according to plan; he’s alienated U.S. allies around the globe; and to the extent that he has a legislative agenda, the Congress led by his fellow Republicans isn’t advancing it.

On the other hand, those who rely on the White House’s mobile “news” app, which was launched two weeks ago, have a very different impression about current events.

The app, according to Team Trump, intends to offer Americans “a direct line to the White House — cutting through the noise with unfiltered, real-time updates straight from the source.” As The Washington Post noted, the result is an online service that offers “a glimpse into a world in which only Trump’s triumphs make headlines.”

‘AMERICA IS BACK,’ reads an all-caps headline that dominates the app’s home screen. Top stories trumpet the president’s ‘policy wins,’ track the decline in egg prices, and hail a ‘historic turnaround on immigration,’ with more people leaving the United States than entering it in 2025.

‘Welcome to the golden age!’ declares a pop-up screen inviting users to provide their email address to receive news and updates. Another prompt directs users to enable push notifications so they can receive ‘breaking news alerts.’ A red button invites them to ‘text President Trump’; tapping it pulls up a pre-drafted text message that begins, ‘Greatest President Ever!’

While all of this might sound absurd, and more than a little embarrassing for ostensible adults serving in the executive branch of the world’s preeminent superpower, the launch has apparently had some success: The Post’s report noted that the app was downloaded roughly 700,000 times in its first week, and it “topped Apple and Google’s download charts in the news category.”

We can probably think of many examples of conservative news outlets that have the qualities of state media, but the White House is taking matters one step further, creating a literal online state media app — and there’s apparently a market for such propaganda.

But while part of the problem for those who rely on the app is that they’ll be uninformed about key events — it failed to note Attorney General Pam Bondi’s ouster last week, for example — there are also more serious concerns related to cybersecurity.

“The app has also raised some alarms from digital privacy researchers who delved into its software and reported that they had found mechanisms by which it could log users’ location,” the Post’s report noted. NOTUS published a related report, adding, “Cybersecurity researchers warn that the White House’s new app regularly shares users’ IP addresses, time zones and other data to third-party services. But most of its users wouldn’t know that, because the app doesn’t disclose its data sharing the way most others do.”

The White House denied that the app collects user locations and insisted that the app is “safe and secure.” There appear to be quite a few cybersecurity researchers who’ve come to a very different conclusion.