.jpg?trim=0,50,0,50&width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "‘This timeline is so stupid’: Social media shakes head over Jillian Michaels taking ‘new media’ seat at White House – UK Times")
Jillian Michaels, best known as the fitness trainer on the reality series The Biggest Loser, got the opportunity to ask the first question at Thursday’s White House press briefing as a “new media” member – and the internet did not disappoint with its reaction to the spectacle.
“This timeline is just so stupid,” one Bluesky user noted, seemingly speaking for much of social media.
With the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission – led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – releasing its much-anticipated report on childhood chronic illness, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt invited Michaels to occupy the “new media” seat at Thursday’s press briefing.
Michaels, who once criticized Donald Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence as “the number one anti-gay politician in the country,” has refashioned herself in recent years as a conservative podcaster and pundit. After expressing support for Kennedy’s presidential campaign and MAHA movement, she ended up voting for Trump in what was a reversal of her previous stance on his first administration.
The White House’s “new media” seat, meanwhile, has disproportionally (but not exclusively) been reserved for pro-Trump media outlets and influencers who have generally rewarded Leavitt for the assignment by tossing obsequiously softball questions her way.
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Prior to turning to the former reality star on Thursday, Leavitt promoted Michaels’ podcast Keeping It Real and called her a “media powerhouse” before acknowledging that she was at the White House to attend that afternoon’s MAHA event. Michaels then kicked off the briefing by asking the press secretary about the personal impact of Kennedy’s new study.
“As a MAHA mom yourself, how do you interpret the significance of this report in terms of delivering measurable health improvement for Americans and their kids? And what specific actions does the administration plan to take in response to it?” Michaels wondered.
“When the president took office, he promised to make this country healthy again. And the president signed an executive order directing this commission, now less than 100 days later, the commission is delivering this report,” Leavitt responded. “Another promise kept.”
Of course, it didn’t take long for the spectacle of The Biggest Loser trainer asking questions at a White House briefing to make its way to social media. And the reaction, especially from liberals and progressives, was a combination of mockery, incredulity and dismay.
“Jillian Michaels is in the new media seat at the White House press briefing,” one Twitter user wrote. “This timeline is so wild.”
Laura Bassett, a columnist at The Cut, said she “could write a dissertation about the new media seat.” States Newsroom reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris added that her “2005 self would be so confused by this.”
While some pointed out that she’s now a host of a right-wing version of The View, others explained that they had to do a “double take” when they noticed her while watching the briefing.
Still, in the end, many just felt that Michaels’ appearance showed “spectacular levels of unseriousness” and snarked that the United States was now “the least serious country in the entire benighted history of the solar system.”
