Until last week, the name Brian Glenn was relatively unknown.
The US reporter went viral on social media after questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his choice of outfit at last week’s heated Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump.
His question seemed to set the meeting, which ended with vice president JD Vance claiming Mr Zelenskyy had been “disrespectful” to the US, off on a bad footing.
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Since then, Glenn has continued to be viewed favourably by the president, with Real America’s Voice, the right-wing streaming channel he works for, being granted access to the White House press pool alongside CNN.
It comes as reporters from Reuters, the Associated Press, HuffPost and German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel were denied access to cover Mr Trump’s first cabinet meeting.
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On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the White House would determine which media outlets would cover the president in smaller spaces such as the Oval Office.
The White House Correspondents’ Association has traditionally coordinated the rotation of the presidential press pool.
But who is Mr Glenn, what has his career looked like so far, and what has the reaction to that question been like?
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A trusted Trump ally
Glenn is currently the chief White House correspondent for Real America’s Voice.
The right-wing streaming channel has supported numerous conspiracy theories in the past and helps distribute former Trump adviser Stephen K Bannon’s War Room podcast, after he was barred from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms.
Before joining Real America’s Voice, Glenn was programme director of the Right Wing Broadcasting Network – a media company founded by Joe Seales in 2015.
It was here that he became one of Mr Trump’s trusted reporters, gaining one-on-one interviews with the president during the election and Christina Bobb, one of Mr Trump’s attorneys, regularly appeared on Glenn’s show during last year’s hush money trial.
The channel became the primary source for MAGA supporters to watch all Trump rallies, with Glenn at the forefront.
“No one gets to interview Trump any more. Brian has done the most Trump interviews of anyone over the last four years,” Ron Filipkowski, a Florida defence attorney and anti-Trump online influencer, told Politico last year.
“He [Mr Trump] always goes to Brian – he’ll find him in any gaggle.”
MAGA America’s favourite couple
Away from reporting, Glenn is in a relationship with Republican US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is often referred to by just her initials, MTG.
Ms Taylor Greene, who was elected to Congress in 2020 and quickly became a powerful – and vocal – player in the Republican Party, confirmed she and Glenn were romantically linked during a CBS interview in 2023, where she said he had been a “great resource” with dealing with the media.
Similarly to Glenn, she is a staunch ally of Mr Trump, whose political style she emulates.
He even referred to himself as the other half of “MAGA America’s favourite couple” during an interview with Politico.
‘Why don’t you wear a suit?’
Before meeting Mr Trump in the Oval Office, Mr Zelenskyy was advised to wear a suit, according to reports, advice that he did not take.
Deciding instead to wear an all black military-style uniform instead, Mr Trump became irritated, according to two sources who spoke to Axios.
Mr Trump even greeted Mr Zelenskyy at the entrance to the West Wing, saying with a handshake: “You’re all dressed up today.”
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But it was Glenn asking the Ukrainian leader why he does not wear a suit and if he even owns one that appeared to cause an initial awkwardness during the meeting.
Responding to criticism over the question, Glenn wrote on X later the same day that he has “extreme empathy for the people of Ukraine” – but that dressing as Mr Zelenskyy did “reflects his inner disrespect for not only our country, the president and the US citizens”.
He wrote: “Moments after my exchange with President Zelenskyy, we began to hear a slightly different tone/mood from him when engaging with President Trump and VP JD Vance as his attire in-fact did begin to reflect his overall attitude towards the negotiations.
“So yes, you can judge a book by its cover. With that said, I pray for an ending to this war and peace in that region.”
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Mr Zelenskyy has said his choice of clothing is a show of solidarity with soldiers fighting on Ukraine’s frontlines.
In a statement on Tuesday, he said the meeting in Washington “did not go the way it was supposed”, adding that it was “time to make things right”.
Glenn’s girlfriend, Ms Taylor Greene also posted a video of the interaction, saying she was “proud” of him.
She added: “Zelenskyy has so much disrespect for America that he can’t even wear a suit in the Oval Office when he comes to beg for money from our President!!”
Death threats and phone calls
After the incident in the Oval Office, Glenn said he received thousands of comments on social media.
“I know by the thousands and tens of thousands of comments I have got on social media, death threats, phone calls. I don’t know how they got my number,” he told BBC’s Newsnight on Monday.
“I think the world took it as a snarky comment, that wasn’t really my intention. My intention was to really see if he understood the level of respect that people have when they go into the Oval Office.”
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Many social media users were quick to point out that Elon Musk did not wear a suit during his recent visit to the Oval Office, but Glenn said Mr Zelenskyy’s wardrobe choices mattered more than those of the tech mogul – now part of the Trump administration – because Ukraine has taken billions of dollars worth of aid to help the war effort.
“The war is not in the West Wing, in the Oval Office or in Washington, the war is back in Ukraine,” Glenn added.
“President Trump wants nothing more than peace in that region.”
