The populist nationalist — and Trump-boosting — website Breitbart News is slowly populating the White House. It's also adding to its D.C. reporting team.
Editor-in-chief Alexander Marlow tells us they're planning three new hires. They're part of a broader planned expansion of both domestic and global coverage:
- Sam Chi – Editor. Chi comes from RealClear Politics, where he oversaw the launching of several sites, including World, Science, Religion and History.
- Kristina Wong – Pentagon & Department of Defense Reporter. Wong previously reported for The Hill, covering the Pentagon and defense affairs on Capitol Hill.
- Sean Moran - Policy Reporter Sean Moran previously worked as a policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity and the Chamber of Digital Commerce.
These hires follow Breitbart's recruitment last month of John Carney from the Wall Street Journal to run the website's economics vertical.
In addition to the new hires, Breitbart News is reassigning political reporters Michelle Moons and Adelle Nazarian to cover Capitol Hill.
"We have plans to hire about 20 full time editorial personnel this year as of now and have made at least five such hires thus far," says Marlow.
Marlow tells us that Breitbart is also planning to open bureaus in Paris, Berlin, and possibly Brussels. Germany's the big one. Expect the outlet to campaign aggressively against German leader Angela Merkel. Marlow and co. (and that co. includes Trump) view her as a "globalist" who destroyed her own country by opening the borders to a flood of refugees.
Says Marlow:
"We have about a 100 total people working on editorial, move than 10 in UK, about 5 Jerusalem. I can't put an exact number on Germany/France/Belgium expectations but we'll plan on having reporters stationed there shortly."
Why this matters: Trump's chief strategist is Steve Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart. At the same time he's guiding big picture strategy in the White House, his old news organization is ascending in D.C and trying to stoke populist nationalist movements abroad. They'll have real access in the White House for the first time, and the new Press Secretary Sean Spicer will treat them as a mainstream outlet. (That would've been unimaginable a few months ago. Hillary Clinton dedicated a speech to the 'alt-right' in which she described Breitbart as a race-baiting malevolent force.)