GOP strategist and Executive Director of Principles First Brittany Martinez joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holding new media press briefings.
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00:00I mean, I think that's really interesting because it is kind of now is a good time to reflect on where exactly you see as a Republican, your party going, because we have these first 100 days of Trump.
00:12And as you said, the major difference between Trump 1.0 versus Trump 2.0 is the people that he's surrounding himself with.
00:20Before it was all Republicans. Now it seems more yes men, more people who are sycophantic to what he wants, more people that aren't going to say what he doesn't want to hear.
00:31Do you think that's a true characterization? And what does this mean for the future of your party?
00:36I think it is. And I don't think it's helpful. I think you and I have talked about it before.
00:40I mean, Trump is a very unique character and he has gotten this fan base essentially of people who really like him.
00:47But Trumpism doesn't necessarily work for other people. We've seen other people try.
00:52Vivek is the first person who comes to mind and people were pretty turned off by him. Right.
00:56And I don't think he's going to be all that successful in Ohio.
01:00And so it can work in this moment and maybe it'll work a little bit longer than that.
01:05But if you're unwilling to bring in people who are going to have that pushback and only doing, you know, press secretary briefings to the special media people who are the influencers,
01:15which is crazy, by the way, a couple of times a week as opposed to the normal press briefings. Right.
01:20Like what it almost feels like state run media. And I hate to think of that because the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and like freedom of the press is so important here.
01:30So I would love to see more of that, even if CNN or AP or whatever is doing a bad story on you, at least let them get it out there and don't bar them.
01:39I think like the way that he might have to the AP or at least there's conversations about it.
01:44I don't recall what the final predict was on that. But I don't think it's helpful because here's the thing.
01:50Right now, it's easy to be surrounded by like minded people. I think Democrats are still in disarray, but they're not going to be in disarray forever.
01:58And they are going to get it back together at some point. I'm not saying it's tomorrow necessarily,
02:03but it's better for us to have lots of options out there rather than be so to pigeonhole ourselves into just one specific arena
02:12and then let Democrats essentially take over everything else that's left over because because what he's focusing in on is such a small percentage compared to the entire population, I think.
02:22And I think something we saw in the last election is that voters will turn on you if they feel that the economy is going down a path.
02:31They don't want it to go down. And based on the numbers, based on the economy shrinking, based on tariff economists saying tariffs will have your prices increase,
02:40your disposable income go down. That seems the way the economy is heading.
02:44So we have a lot of conversations in store, I am sure. And I hope we can talk sometime soon.
02:50Brittany Martinez, thank you for joining me. Anytime. Thanks for having me.
03:01You are my clients.
03:02I hope you're partnering with me.