Chris Cillizza on the Media's - and the Democrats'? - Parasitic Relationship with Trump

For nearly two decades, Chris Cillizza was a star political commentator for legacy media. In 2005 Chris founded The Fix, the seminal, must read Washington Post political blog, before moving on to CNN in 2017, where he was based until 2022. Then, abruptly, he was laid off, and  for a few dark months he thought his career in journalism was over. Instead, he started over in the brave new world of independent online journalism, moving his political coverage to his now hugely popular So What page on Substack and to its companion YouTube channel. 

All of which is to say that Chris has had a front row seat to observe – and to directly experience – the 21st century upheavals of the media business. That’s why it caught our attention when Chris wrote a provocative piece in late July titled, “Donald Trump Was Right about the Media. And It Should Terrify Journalists,” where he argued that Trump was on target when he told the assembled media at the White House Correspondents Dinner that “you people have no idea how lucky you are. When I’m gone, you’re all going to be broke. Your business model is going to be finished.”

So we asked Chris to join us on BCB to explain his take on the plight of the legacy media, which he explains was on a sharp glide path towards collapse before Trump famously came down that escalator in 2015. “Donald Trump almost single-handedly saved legacy media from total and complete collapse,” Chris tells us. He juiced the attention economy, massively boosting public interest in his norm-breaking provocations, which in turn drove big circulation and ratings gains for legacy media outlets. But Chris also argues that the boost was temporary, a sugar high, and that the media’s increasing dependence on cataloging Trump's near daily outrages and shenanigans quickly turned parasitic, masking the industry’s ongoing structural problems. 

We then turn to discussing Chris’ own searing experience of getting blindsided by his own firing from CNN, and the existential identity crisis it precipitated. But after some dark days, he says, he realized there was an opportunity to go his own way, and build his own brand online. The new world of media he joined was one built around the “disaggregation” of the old multi-faceted journalistic product offered by old media battleships like the Washington Post. Though he intriguingly predicts that the future of the online independent media may be in a process of “reaggregation.” 

In the second half of the conversation we turn to politics, dissecting the rise of democratic socialism within the Democratic Party and how it has been upending primary races around the country, including Angie Nixon’s surprise win in the Florida Senate primary. We then discuss the implications of AOC’s “Woke 1 was crazy!” comment, the politically toxic legacy of Democrats’ flirtations with “defund the police” rhetoric, the prospects for Democrat Mary Peltola in the Alaska Senate race, and why Chris thinks, if the Senate is divided 50-50 after November, Lisa Murkowski might defect from the Republican Party to give Dems the majority. 

And we close by connecting the two parts of our conversation, suggesting that both the legacy media and the Democrats have become too dependent on Donald Trump as the organizing principle for their respective business models. As we close the discussion, Cillizza offers some advice for Democrats: “Don't get blinded by Donald Trump, and that to me is, I think, what Democrats should focus on. They're not yet. We'll see if they do after the election.”

OUTSIDE SOURCES: 

Chris Cillizza, “Donald trump Was right about the Media. And It Should Terrify Journalists,” So What, July 27, 2026. 

Chris Cillizza, “Happy anniversary (of being laid off),” So What, Nov. 28, 2023.

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