Donald Trump is known for communicating with citizens via X, but his YouTube activity received a bump at the start of his second term. On Inauguration Day, videos featuring the 45th and 47th President received millions of views as Trump family members raked in thousands of new subscribers.
The bulk of Trump’s Inauguration Day YouTube viewership came on the channel assigned to his presidential campaign. That’s where the full-length, VOD version of the swearing-in has received more than five million views in just two days.
That type of YouTube content looks a lot like the videos uploaded during the president’s previous term. Trump, a longtime YouTube user, made the platform one of the White House’s distribution channels from 2016 until he was banned on the platform one week after January 6.
Trump was reinstated on YouTube in 2023, the same year as the platform’s about-face on election denialism. His second term begins in a media landscape that’s much different from 2016: Trump appearances now draw millions of viewers on channels led by young male influencers who catalyzed the red wave that swept the U.S. during the 2024 election. A recent analysis performed by Bloomberg found that Trump’s guest spots across nine major influencer channels drew more than 100 million views
in total.“We definitely helped with the young male vote,” Nelk member Kyle Forgeard told Bloomberg. “On the podcast, we just speak our mind, try to be true to ourselves and say what we think.”
But even if Nelk, Logan Paul, and Theo Von assisted Trump’s reascension to power, the creator who got the most shine on Inauguration Day was someone else: The president’s granddaughter. Kai Trump launched her YouTube channel amid the hubbub of election season, and her Inauguration Day vlog has brought more than 1.4 million views so far. Per Gospel Stats, Kai got 28,000 new subscribers the day after posting her viral video.
Vlog-style videos could be an asset for the elder Trump during his second term — if YouTube allows him to maintain his channels. The platform’s actions in Russia show it’s not afraid to stand up to autocrats. Will Trump make it through four years without earning a YouTube suspension or an outright ban along the way?
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