The waitress poured tap water. But Natalie Winters was quick to ask in bottle.
“No fluoride for our dear guest dinner!” She said, giving me a gesture. “Only water without water and pesticides.”
We were sitting on the rear corner of ButterworthA Bistro Capitol Hill which has become a destination for friends and supporters of President Trump. Stephen K. BannonThe current boss of Ms. Winters, organized private events there. His former boss, Raheem Kassam, editor -in -chief of the National Pulse, is an investor. The menu that night included lamb tartare, burned oysters and pork cheeks.
Ms. Winters and I had met for dinner, at least I thought. “Honestly,” she said, “I’m probably not going to eat because it’s my brand. I don’t eat in restaurants because I don’t like seed oils they use.”
At 24, Ms. Winters has been a White House correspondent since January 28. It reports for the Podcast “War Room” by Mr. Bannon, whose public includes large expanses from the Republican base, senior officials and the president himself.
It belongs to a group of conservative points of sale journalists who have taken a New national prominence In recent months, while they are jostling for positions in the postponement room of James S. Brady by James S. Brady. The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has described long -standing information organizations and more and more out of words while accusing them of spreading “lies”.
The association of White House correspondents, which includes journalists from dozens of outlets, criticized the management of the press by the new administration, claiming that it discourages independent reports and gives priority to those who promote the agenda of President Trump. But the rise in non -traditional outlets was a good thing for Ms. Winters and others journalists from the west wingIncluding those who represent Breitbart News and Lindell TV, the platform founded by the Mypillow Salesman conspirator Mike Lindell.
When Ms. Winters is not seated next to Mr. Bannon in the studio in the subsoil of her townhouse near the Capitol, she often comes from the faithful public of “War Salle” from the outside of the White House, offering out-of-the-day democrats and sometimes her reporters.
“It’s very gonzo, what I like,” she said. “I think that as an IQ test every day.”
Ms. Winters describes herself as a “populist nationalist”, like Mr. Bannon. She says she “hates” more Republicans than she admires her. She frequently attacks party leaders like President Mike Johnson and usually supports Trump.
“Even if I agree with most of what Trump does,” said Ms. Winters, “it’s because I ideologically agree with him. Not because I am a cultist.
She counts Mr. Bannon Not only as a co-host and boss, but also like his mentor. When he went to the federal prison last year for arguing an assignment of a Congress Committee investigating on the riot on January 6, he entrusted him to host a “war room” in his absence.
Since Mr. Trump’s comfort, her profile has skyrocketed to the point where she says that she is recognized in restaurants and airports. She says that her parents were surprised by her often combative character on the screen.
“It’s a version so different from myself that I am not in my daily life,” she said, adding: “I don’t even recognize myself.”
Ms. Winters grew up in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of a doctor father and a housewife. She frequented Harvard-Westlake, an elite preparatory school in Los Angeles, and was relatively apolitical until the 2016 campaign is underway.
Various school activities struck her as a liberal and performative coded. It was first of all a sale of pastries intended to raise awareness among the sexes. “Just a false law,” said Ms. Winters. Then came the students to protest against armed violence after mass shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas secondary school in Parkland, Florida. “A snack sanctioned by the school,” she said. “What are you doing?”
His only article published in the Lycée Journal was a letter to the publisher in which she pleaded for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court. It was not well received on the mainly liberal campus. Due to her conservative opinions in general and his support for Mr. Trump in particular, she was ostracized by his peers, she said.
“Maybe the trope that everything comes back to the trauma of the school is true,” she added.
During her last year, after learning that she had entered the University of Chicago, she has more or less ceased to go to class. She jumped her day of graduation of the school because she was flying to Washington to start working as an intern for Kassam, who was then co-host of the “War Hall”. She also missed the ball. “It was the best thing I have ever done,” she said.
During her first year of college, Ms. Winters became an editor of “War Show”. She frequently went to Washington instead of taking lessons. “My best friend of the university is, like Steve,” she said, referring to Mr. Bannon. While Covid spread around the world, she made her first appearance on the camera.
“The pandemic is really where she had her marine legs,” said Bannon in a telephone interview. He used a baseball jargon to describe Ms. Winters, calling “a five tool player”.
She raised her visibility with her appearances on “Piers Morgan Unnsored”, a YouTube talk show animated by the old CNN personality. “She is always a lively and provocative contributor, even if I do not agree with many of her opinions,” said Morgan by SMS. But Ms. Winters insists that she would be happy to spend her days spending the federal databases.
“It is essentially a nerd in the soul,” said Bannon.
One of The biggest quarrels on the right was between the boss of Mrs. Winters and Elon Muskwhich, with the blessing of the president, has integrated into the federal government. At the height of the Rift, Mr. Bannon described Mr. Musk “Truly bad. “In response, Mr. Musk wrote on X:” Bannon is a big speaker but not a big doing. “
The spat put Ms. Winters in a unique position. Mr. Musk is one of his 630,000 subscribers on X, and he frequently republishes it. She has rented He and his Directorate of the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government.
“I think I am the only person who could bring them together and get peace,” she said, laughing.
Ms. Winters is perhaps a correspondent for the White House, but his work is not so much to cover the avalanche of the executive actions of Mr. Trump as to report and comment on what she labels the “opposition forces”, whether they are democratic politicians, liberal organizations or the main media.
Hugo Lowell, White House correspondent for The Guardian, said that Ms. Winters differs from other journalists on the pace because she “sees her own political opinions and clearly imposes them in her coverage”.
“But she is good on television,” added Lowell, “and she built an audience with the base of Trump which results in a certain degree of influence in a fragmented media ecosystem.”
Ms. Winters compared the Information room from the White House to high school. “This is my first time in a professional setting where my influence by Royalé Maga does not mean anything,” she said.
His foreigner status was confirmed when the National Press Club rejected his attempt to become a member. Asked about the refusal of the request of Ms. Winters, a spokesperson for the organization, who was founded in 1908 and has around 2,500 members, said: “Decisions are made according to the standards of journalism that we confirm. We do not publicly start individual requests without respect for all those involved. ”
Many Journalists from the White House affiliated with large press organizations do not speak to her, said Ms. Winters, and several of them contacted this article refused to comment. But, in the end, someone who exploded a large part of the media as “zero land of the left opposition to Trump” was always going to be in a cold reception.
At Butterworth, faithful to her word, Ms. Winters had only a bottle of water during our three -hour speech.
She said that she had drunk two glasses in her life and that she had never taken a drug. She also has a brand of budding lifestyle. The items for sale include a tank top with “more unsure than the border” plastered on the front and a tote that reads “a little conspirator”.
Her wired information network is MSNBC, which she partially looks at to generate equipment. She said that in another world, she could have been a teacher of poetry. “I’m still kidding-in my daily life, I’m really a Lib in the soul,” she said.
She also loved “Barbie” and agreed with the monologue delivered by America Ferrera, in which her character says: “It is literally impossible to be a woman.” But, Mrs. Winters warns, “it’s also very difficult to be a man.” She added that dozens of younger women than she had asked her not only for career advice, but also for advice on how to be Like her.
Like a Crescent Gen-Z contingent, it is “anti-App”, which means dating applications. One day, she would like to settle with a man to whom she can be “submissive,” she said. She added that she had been injured in previous relationships, which only rekindled her ambitions.
“I said to myself,” I’m going to take revenge, “she said. “You can watch me on television being the next big problem.” “”
