How Margaret Brennan Became MAGA’s Favorite Media Punching Bag

CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan has built a reputation as a sharp, unflinching interviewer who holds powerful figures accountable. But since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, she has also become a target of many MAGA supporters who see her as emblematic of everything they believe is wrong with the media landscape.

Over the first month of the Trump presidency, Brennan, who currently serves the moderator of the venerated Sunday program “Face the Nation,” has found herself in a place few journalists wish to be: at the center of the conversation—criticized, dismissed, and, in some cases, outright mocked by the president’s loyalists.

Why It Matters

Brennan’s most recent confrontation with a member of the Trump administration came during a heated exchange with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday. She pressed Rubio about Vice President JD Vance’s appearance at the Munich Security Conference, in which Vance denounced censorship and met with the leader of a far-right German political party with, as Brennan put it, “some historic ties to extreme groups.”

When Brennan suggested that free speech had been “weaponized” by Nazi Germany “to conduct a genocide,” Rubio quickly pushed back, calling it a misrepresentation of history and countering that the Holocaust was the work of an authoritarian regime that hated Jews and other minorities.

“There was no free speech in Nazi Germany,” Rubio said.

The back-and-forth quickly went viral, placing Brennan in the spotlight and raising questions about her knowledge of history as well as what her critics said was an anti-Trump bias reflected across the mainstream media, which is now among the least-trusted institutions in the country.

Vice President Vance himself even joined the fray, blasting Brennan on social media.

“This is a crazy exchange,” he wrote. “Does the media really think the Holocaust was caused by free speech?”

The fiery moment became a rallying cry on conservative media, with outlets praising Rubio and Vance for “calling out” Brennan. It played directly into an ongoing narrative on the right — that mainstream journalists like Brennan aren’t just biased but are actively pushing an agenda.

Frank Sesno, a former CNN correspondent and director of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, saw Brennan’s treatment as part of a broader trend where the media itself has become a battleground.

“That’s a play straight out of the modern political handbook: discredit the journalist, shift the focus, and make the media the story rather than the issue being discussed,” Sesno told Newsweek.

Newsweek reached out to CBS News for comment on the exchange but did not immediately receive a response.

A History of Clashes

The exchange with Rubio was not the first time Brennan has earned the ire of Trump’s MAGA movement. Her tense dynamic with Vance goes back to the 2024 campaign season when, as the co-moderator of the vice presidential debate, she engaged in a particularly contentious exchange with the candidate over real-time fact-checking.

At the time, Vance aggressively pushed back against Brennan’s attempts to challenge his statements, marking an early flashpoint between the CBS journalist and supporters of the president’s agenda.

That dynamic carried into January 2025, when Vance, fresh off the inauguration, chose “Face the Nation” for his first broadcast interview as vice president. The interview with Brennan quickly turned confrontational, particularly when she pressed him on refugee vetting policies, specifically the resettlement of Afghan citizens in the U.S.

Vance’s response was blunt, dismissive and has since been memorialized as one of the early memes of the new Trump era.

“I don’t really care, Margaret,” he said, shrugging off concerns about refugee security procedures.

The phrase was immediately embraced by MAGA supporters as a symbol of defiance against what they see as a media obsession with taking down President Trump.

‘There’s Fatigue’

Brennan’s clashes with Vance and Rubio have made her a frequent target in MAGA circles, something Sesno, the CNN veteran, called problematic but unsurprising.

“This isn’t just about Brennan or CBS. It’s part of a broader trend where politicians treat the press not as a watchdog but as an adversary to be humiliated. And when that happens, the public loses,” Sesno said.

Amid its own business challenges, one question looms over the media landscape: will Trump’s return reignite the “Trump bump” that once drove record ratings and traffic, or has the country moved on from the hair-on-fire coverage of his first term?

“There’s a fatigue factor,” said media analyst Brad Adgate. “People know Trump’s story, and they’re not as captivated as they were in 2016.”

The skepticism was shared by Sesno, who emphasized the need for a recalibrated approach. “There needs to be less fulmination and more emphasis on methodical coverage of what Trump is actually doing and the consequences,” he told Newsweek.

What People Are Saying

Vice President JD Vance on Face the Nation (January 2025): “Donald J. Trump is the person who determines who his cabinet is, not these publications that I think, frankly, have lost relevance.”

Frank Sesno, former CNN Washington Bureau Chief, on media coverage: “Instead of just saying, ‘Oh my goodness, they’re doing this or that, they’re breaking the law,’ which is the dominant narrative in much of today’s reporting, I would take a deeper look. There’s almost no coverage like that anymore, certainly not on cable news.”

Greg Gutfeld, Fox News personality, speaking on “The Five” Monday about Brennan: “She has weaponized stupidity but the media is currently on a ventilator.”

Margaret Brennan’s Rise

Brennan, 44, has moderated “Face the Nation,” CBS’s flagship Sunday morning public affairs show, since 2018. She is also the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent.

Before becoming the second woman to take over the Sunday program, she covered the White House and the State Department for CBS. She joined the network in 2012 after a career as a financial journalist at CNBC and Bloomberg. Her reporting has covered major international events, including American diplomacy in the Middle East and negotiations with North Korea.

Brennan graduated from University of Virginia in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies, and a minor in Arabic.