Margo Martin, an adviser to US President Donald Trump, on May 19 at the White House. Photo / Tom Brenner, for The Washington Post
Over the past two years, a little-known aide to United States President Donald Trump has become one of the GOP’s most influential content creators, filming him dancing on a tarmac in Malaysia, serving French fries at McDonald’s on the campaign trail and greeting small children in the Oval Office.
Margo Martin, a 30-year-old who gets as close to the President as his Secret Service detail, is the quiet engine of a social media operation that has transformed presidential communications.
Armed with an iPhone camera, she gives what feels like a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the President and the most potent element that spurs online engagement: a sense of authenticity.
Martin’s raw material is then processed by a sprawling network of better-known right-wing influencers who use that content for memes, podcast clips and shows that go viral, reinforcing Trump’s bond with his most ardent supporters and maintaining his status as a ubiquitous pop culture figure for everyone else.
During Trump’s trip to Asia last year, vertical videos and photos captured by Martin were viewed nearly 50 million times on her X account and more than 222 million times on the @TeamTrump Instagram and TikTok, not to mention the millions of views on reposts from Trump supporters who cribbed the content and shared it themselves.
It’s curated, of course. You won’t see images of Trump dozing off in a Cabinet meeting or the bruise on his hand that are often promoted by the left. But even Democrats who view Martin’s efforts as propaganda concede their effectiveness.
“The more you see something, the more you think it’s true,” said Sammy Kanter, a Democratic content creator and new media consultant.
“The more volume of content that they put out there that favours the image that they want out there, and the more that’s in people’s feeds, and the more they see it, the more they’re going to think it’s reality or question less what their reality is versus what they’re being told.”
Martin, who declined an interview request, served as a press assistant in the first administration and then moved to Palm Beach, Florida, to continue working with Trump after he left office.
A recording she made of Trump’s book interviews became part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the President’s handling of classified documents. She was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury.
All of that - plus a low-key personality that is rare in Trump’s world of brash advisers - has bonded her to the President, who at a campaign rally called her “the most beautiful photographer in the world”.
“She has the trust of the President,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview, noting the proximity of her desk, just outside the Oval Office, the seat of power.
“So she’s able to really see the inner workings of his every day and share that with the American public.”
Compared with the flashy and controversial memes and edits often shared by other Trump and White House accounts, Martin’s content on X is understated, a collection of mostly vertical photos and videos optimised for audiences scrolling on their phones.
Captions usually include a brief description, a quote and pronouncements like “MUST WATCH!” or “THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT!” She’s a frequent user of the red heart, American flag, fire and laughing emojis.
The basic approach is ideal for creators looking to make their own content, because the clips are free and ready to clip, unlike professional news videos that often require a licensing fee to news services such as Getty or the Associated Press.
“It really is about arming your base with the resources that they need,” said Parker Butler, who directed the team that ran the @KamalaHQ accounts for Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
The stream of material is “so helpful for us to discuss what the Administration is doing”, said Link Lauren, a conservative political influencer who also served as a senior adviser for Robert F. Kennedy jnr’s presidential campaign.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a Republican influencer or politico who hasn’t reposted one of Martin’s videos or photos.
A Washington Post analysis of social media posts found that more than 300 high-profile right-wing influencers and politicians have mentioned Martin since the inauguration, sharing her posts thousands of times.
Her posts have been shared more than 10 times in that time period by Elon Musk, the Republican National Committee, and Fox News.
Leavitt credits Martin with fuelling news cycles and prime-time Fox News packages, making her a key cog in a media operation that has increasingly pushed aside traditional adversarial newsgathering.
Other allies credit Martin with building relationships among online supporters to further boost the White House message, which gives Martin an influence well beyond her 337,000 followers on her official X account.
“She’s undoubtedly one of the most influential creators right now, and she is maybe the first ever White House influencer,” said Alex Bruesewitz, a senior adviser to a Trump-affiliated political action committee and architect of the Trump 2024 campaign’s online strategy.
“Her content reaches the masses in a way that I don’t think anybody in the Administration - in any administration - has done before.”
Not all of Martin’s work appears on her official account. She posts more personal content on Instagram, where she presents as a cross between a travel influencer and a presidential sidekick.
Photo dumps and reels include shots of her sitting across from the President on Air Force One and behind the scenes on foreign trips, but are interspersed with gym content, concert videos and clips of her being an aunt.
That approach reflects the broader social media strategy the Trump campaign and Republican operatives embraced during the 2024 campaign, blending politics with other topics to reach lower-propensity voters.
“She’s kind of combining this lifestyle aesthetic with girl boss energy, and almost like a travel influencer,” said Azza Cohen, who served as Harris’ official White House videographer and director of video.
She pointed to a reel on Martin’s account of Trump’s August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska as an example of “whitewashing and sanitising”.
The video is edited to look “like any other travel influencer”, she said, even as the content features high-level shots of the President on the plane, the military flyover, their handshake and the Russian and American flags.
“Visually, it’s very effective because it’s normalising Putin and it’s normalising the sort of friendship between the President of the United States and the dictator who commits horrific human rights abuses,” she said.
Trump officials disagree, calling Martin’s work an example of transparency at the highest levels.
“I couldn’t think of anything less curated than an unedited filter video on an iPhone that is literally just simply posted and shared with the world in real time,” Leavitt said.
- Clara Ence Morse contributed to this report.
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