The Questions Alex Bruesewitz Never Answers
For several days I asked Trump's top social media advisor to name one foreign influence operation, besides Israel's, that he actually opposes. He still hasn't.
I wouldn’t normally think a Twitter argument deserves its own article. This one does — not just because I won it, but because of the questions that never got answered.
Over the past several days, I’ve been having a public exchange on X with Alex Bruesewitz, a senior Trump advisor and the CEO of X Strategies LLC. Bruesewitz has been deeply embedded in the Trump world for years. He helped run key elements of the 2024 campaign’s social media and podcast strategy, arranged high-profile celebrity endorsements and White House events, and continues to run Trump-aligned messaging operations through his firm.
He was reportedly offered the role of White House new-media director after the election but chose to stay in his private-sector position, where he retains substantial influence over messaging and access. With a track record of shaping narratives inside the MAGA ecosystem, his voice carries weight in administration-adjacent circles (especially as he jockeys for influence in a potential JD Vance administration come 2028). For those who might not remember Alex, the Wall Street Journal is here to reminder you:
Our spat didn’t revolve around marijuana, but the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) — a 1938 law that requires anyone doing paid political work for a foreign principal to disclose it publicly. Specifically, we were discussing a massive contract, which has been valued at $45 million, between a firm called Clock Tower and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which Clock Tower was retained to help produce content that would improve Americans’ perception of Israel.
He’s framed his criticism of that contract as part of a broader, principled stand against all foreign influence operations on social media, not just Israel’s. He’s said, in various forms, that he opposes such efforts “from any country,” whether Russia, China, India, Qatar, or elsewhere. Israel’s, he argues, is simply the largest and most visible example so far, and therefore the one drawing his focus.
When pressed — repeatedly, directly, and with specific examples — to name even one other foreign-funded social media operation he’s currently pushing back against, he’s offered no substantive answer. He’s deflected, ignored the question, or turned it back on me. Across multiple days and direct challenges, that’s hard to square with the principle he claims to hold.
The Initial Exchange and the Transparency Question
It began in earnest on July 15, when Bruesewitz amplified reporting on the Clock Tower/Parscale contract and questioned its transparency. He highlighted contract language about “integrat[ing] narrative messaging into Salem Media properties” and a promised minimum of 5,000 pieces of content per month with guaranteed view counts, asking whether those deliverables still stood.
I responded by asking why he excessively focuses on Israel, to which he responded by questioning whether I myself was part of the campaign and paid by Clock Tower.
We went back and forth several times. I directly asked Bruesewitz which other foreign-funded social media operations he was currently targeting besides the Israeli one. He had already stated publicly that “every country” engages in these activities and that he opposes them all.
His reply focused on his personal expertise in social media and expressed a general desire to see foreign money removed from U.S. politics. He did not name a single other example.
I followed up by noting the contrast with Qatar’s AJ+ network — an outlet based in Washington, D.C., with dozens of employees, that has racked up tens of billions of social media views while openly promoting content hostile to American institutions. The Department of Justice ordered AJ+ to register under FARA in 2020; it has refused to do so for more than six years.
Bruesewitz has not responded to the AJ+ point in any of our exchanges.
I tried explaining, with detailed evidence from the actual FARA filings, that Clock Tower has submitted 193 filings since registering roughly ten months ago. One supplemental filing from May 18, 2026, alone contains a 28-page itemized breakdown of spending, including specific advertising payments to Salem Media Representatives totaling over $250,000, along with dated links to the actual content produced. This level of granular disclosure is exceptionally rare among FARA registrants. Most foreign agents file far less — or nothing at all for extended periods.
Bruesewitz did not engage substantively with those filings. Instead, he continued to assert a lack of transparency without addressing the documented records.
On July 18, the pattern continued. I posted a direct question asking for an example of another foreign-funded social media operation he was working against.
His response was to ask me to “point him in the direction of some contracts from other countries that specifically focus on social media services with the goal of shaping American public opinion.”
Later that same day, I asked again which specific countries he was referring to when he claimed that “many countries” spend more than Israel on social media influence efforts. Hehas not answered.
A Pattern of Deflection
Across several days of public questioning, Bruesewitz has:
Claimed broad opposition to foreign influence operations from any country.
Focused his public criticism almost exclusively on one Israel-linked contract.
Received specific, documented examples of other high-impact operations, most notably AJ+.
Been asked repeatedly to name even one other social media-focused foreign influence effort he is currently challenging.
Responded either by ignoring the question, deflecting, or asking the questioner to do the work of identifying examples.
This isn’t the behavior of someone applying a consistent standard. Bruesewitz named Russia, China, India, and Qatar himself as countries he’d also oppose — then, given several days and every opening to name one of them for real, he named none. A principle that never survives contact with an actual example isn’t a principle. It’s essentially just cover for the one target he picked from the start.
As a side note, this also matters because for the past week, Bruesewitz has been going after anyone critical of VP Vance or the administration’s foreign policy. He wrote directly to the employer of commentator Jaimee Michell after she criticized Vance, in what was clearly an attempt to get her fired. Separately, he suggested that critics of President Trump’s potential sale of F-35 fighter jet parts to Turkey — or really any criticism of President Trump or VP Vance — as being part of a “coordinated effort.”
Vance retailed this very talking point Joe Rogan’s podcast.
But anyways, back to the matter at hand. I’m not defending the Clock Tower contract, and I’m not arguing Israel should be exempt from scrutiny. I’m asking that the scrutiny be applied evenly. Bruesewitz had every chance to show that it is, and hasn’t taken one of them.
The record is public and linked throughout, so none of this requires taking my word for it. What it shows isn’t a man applying a consistent standard. It’s a man who found one acceptable target and stopped looking.
Eitan, you absolutely cornered this guy, and watching him choke was pure comedy.
Bruesewitz struts around the digital landscape like some nineteenth-century snake-oil salesman, trying to lecture everyone else on purity while he’s stuck in the middle of a modern political hustle. He wraps himself in the "America First" banner and screams about foreign interference like he’s fighting some grand, principled war. But the second you shined a spotlight on Qatar—a state pumping billions into American universities and running Al Jazeera as a state-sponsored gaslighting operation—his keyboard turned into a brick.
It hurts because the truth is so glaringly obvious: his outrage is completely rented. He’s perfectly fine with foreign influence as long as it comes with Gulf oil money. You handed him a shovel, and instead of answering a basic follow-up, he dug a tunnel straight to Doha. Excellent work exposing the whole charade for the cheap, fraudulent hustle it really is.
You certainly bring the receipts and details to your report!