LONDON — Keir Starmer’s technocratic top ministers are an unlikely bunch to pop up on the television screens of Newsmax viewers.
The often stolid — and painfully on-message — politicians in the British prime minister’s Cabinet are a far cry from the unpredictable, made-for-cable characters which usually appear on the right-wing U.S. news channel.
The die-hard pro-MAGA station, which saw its viewership substantially grow as it publicized voter fraud conspiracies involving the 2020 election, would just six months ago have been considered beyond the pale for most center-left Labour members of parliament and ministers.
Yet it’s this very channel where U.K. ministers are now trying to pump their own messages into the MAGA media ecosystem — and catch Donald Trump’s eye in the process.
British Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Defense Secretary John Healey have both done interviews on Newsmax in the past six weeks during their respective trips to the U.S. — and there’s more expected to follow from other visiting ministers.
It’s just the latest Rubicon crossed by a center-left government which has prioritized pragmatism over ideological purity — particularly when it comes to dealing with the current president and his volley of tariffs.
One U.K. government official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said Britain’s efforts to increase defense spending and strike an economic agreement with the U.S. are among the key messages ministers want to hammer home to an American audience.
“We understand that in order to get that message across, it’s not just about bilateral meetings. It’s also about talking to people that influence those decisions and going direct where they get their news,” the official said.
“If you want to win an election in Oxford, you’d speak to the Oxford Mail. And if you want to speak to Trump, you go on these kinds of outlets.”
Times they are a-changin’
European leaders have long appeared on Fox News or in the pages of The Wall Street Journal to get the attention of Republican administrations or policymakers.
This inclues Starmer and his U.S. Ambassador Peter Mandelson, who both appeared on Fox News shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January. France’s Emmanuel Macron did the same when he was in Washington back in February.
But spots on alternative right-wing outlets are an emerging trend during Trump’s second stint in the White House.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently turned up on Breitbart — the self-proclaimed “platform of the alt right” which used to be run by Trump ally Steve Bannon — to butter up Trump on trade. Trump himself appeared to take note.
George Simion, the nationalist front-runner for the Romanian presidency, has meanwhile been touring Washington, giving interviews to Bannon’s podcast and far-right activist Jack Posobiec.
Jim McLaughlin, a pollster for the Trump 2024 election campaign, said “the media has become so diverse in this country” and that overseas politicians must adapt.
He said there was “no doubt” recent ministerial appearances on Newsmax would have attracted the attention of people around the president.
“The more you can see the British government, British companies on things like Newsmax, I think the better it is for Great Britain,” McLaughlin argued.
Too boring snoring?
One potential problem for ministers trying to speak to MAGA world is that they may well be seen as just a little … boring.
Centrist government figures like Healey and Reeves of the U.K. have been media trained to the max — and tend to trot out a narrow and uncontroversial script during broadcast news interviews. That puts them starkly at odds with the new media landscape in American politics, where even veteran Democrats are trying to say outrageous things to get attention.
However, a second British government official said even showing a willingness to go on stations like Newsmax could still pay dividends.
“They respect that U.K. ministers are willing to show up and speak on-record on those shows. We’re not going to shy away from that dialogue,” the official said.
“This is about making sure we’re hitting the audiences that the current administration is also prioritizing.”
McLaughlin agrees, advising U.K. ministers that just showing up and acknowledging Trump’s newly created world sends a positive signal for when Britain tries to negotiate on any number of issues.
And as for his advice on who the government should target next?
“If I was them, I’d go on conservative talk radio and I’d go on Joe Rogan,” he said, referring to the wildly popular podcaster who sat down with Trump in the run-up to the November election.
“There’s nobody who understands new media better than Donald Trump does, but you have to try and experiment … and find out what works and what doesn’t work,” McLaughlin added.
Nektaria Stamouli and Josh Berlinger contributed to this report.
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