The Trump administration announced the launch of the White House app on Friday, promising news “straight from the source, no filter.”
The administration announcement followed a series of social media teases in recent days, causing frenzied speculation about what was coming.
Upon opening the app, users were greeted with a short video featuring snippets of Trump at work. From there, technical difficulties took over.
“Connection issue; Unable to load content right now; Try again,” read a message on screen.
However, soon the app worked through its bugs and was loaded with content.
The app includes sections labeled “news,” “live,” “social,” and “gallery” — all of which were empty at launch on Friday morning.
The news section features press releases from the Trump administration and links to articles from outside news sources. The gallery contains photos from recent events, including first lady Melania Trump’s summit with world spouses and the president’s meeting with the Japanese prime minister.
“You’ll find some Easter Eggs sprinkled throughout!”, communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X, encouraging users to download it.
Trump, a habitual social media user, has increased the White House’s social media presence, adding an official TikTok account.
He and his officials are frequent posters online. The administration often uses its social media channels to push back on news reports it disagrees with and bypass traditional news outlets to get its unfiltered message out.
