GQ

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #43 Jesse Watters

Until recently, he was just Bill O'Reilly's attack dog, ambushing liberals and mocking foreigners. Now he's a fixture on Fox: hosting shows, dishing aggrieved snark, and interviewing the president (despite making a blow-job joke about Trump's eldest daughter). If the media is key to democracy, the ascendant Watters is key to our idiocracy.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #41 Pod Save America

That old adage about the revolution not being televised? Rings true. But it might be podcasted. Helmed by former Obama aides—Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor—Pod Save America has become the voice of the Resistance. Once the hosts had the ear of the POTUS; now they've got the earbuds of 1.5 million liberal listeners. Which is why it seems like every ambitious Democrat wants to be booked as a guest on their show.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #40 Dan Scavino

Dan Scavino, White House Director of Social Media, began as Trump's golf caddie. Today, he tends to Trump's Twitter grudges as the guy firing off many of Trump's tweets (often dictated to him by the POTUS). He also operates his own attack-dog Twitter account and handles messaging on the White House's more official social-media channels. It's a lot of passwords and feuds to juggle. As one former Trump adviser says admiringly (and maybe a little sarcastically), Scavino is “the man who did so much with so little.”

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #36 Carrie Budoff Brown

Once a notorious boys' club, Politico is flexing more muscle than ever under Budoff Brown, who runs the agenda-setting newsroom and the lucrative subscription business that keeps the city's influence industry in the know.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #28 Jake Tapper

Tapper left ABC for CNN and then supplanted the network anchors as the face of gravitas in a political world gone mad. Just don't get him started about Stephen Miller.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #27 Chris Ruddy

To the vexation of the White House staff, Trump spends many evenings gabbing on the phone with a kitchen cabinet of rich-guy pals—fellas like Ruddy, who now enjoy incredible access to a famously impressionable POTUS. What's that like? To find out, we gave Ruddy a ring. Just like Trump does.

GQ: Are you scared that one night on the phone, you might offer some throwaway line about North Korea and wake up to discover you've dictated foreign policy?

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #25 Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon, nationalist revolutionary and former-White House Chief Strategist. True, he was rebuked by President Donald Trump and lost his control of Breitbart News. But in Trump World, exile is rarely permanent, and Bannon continues to work out of Breitbart's Capitol Hill HQ. There, he says, he's plotting a new entity to advance his right-wing populist revolution. The venture, Bannon tells us cryptically, will involve “weaponizing ideas.”

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #24 Ajit Pai

The ambitious 45-year-old led the charge to repeal net neutrality, gutting regulations for Internet providers and giving new powers to big broadband companies. And in true Trumpian fashion, he made his case by releasing a viral Internet video in which he dressed up as Santa Claus, played with a fidget spinner, and generally trolled his critics. The deregulation move earned him the adoration of Internet companies (and reportedly a few death threats).

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #23 Jeff Bezos

His first Washington remains the one out west, but Bezos is growing his presence in D.C. In addition to owning the Post and a thriving business in federal-government cloud computing, he's got a giant real estate project on his hands, having spent $23 million on the city's priciest house: a 27,000-square-foot colossus. Could it be a coincidence that three of the finalist sites for Amazon's new HQ are in the DC area?

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #20 Susan Molinari

Back in the day, being Google's top lobbyist seemed like a pretty plum gig. After all, everybody in town wanted to be aligned with the tech darling. Now that Washington thinks Silicon Valley could use a bit of regulating—on everything from anti-trust issues to sex trafficking—the work has gotten trickier. This has only made Molinari, a former Republican member of Congress, more important in Washington. And not just on the policy points.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #19 Rachel Maddow

In this media age of push alerts and maniac tweets, Maddow's suddenly novel approach—wise, intricate monologues—feels somehow exhilarating. And essential.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #15 Maggie Haberman

President Donald Trump calls her “a third-rate reporter.” [It takes third-rate to know third-rate.] Her colleagues call her the best journalist on the White House beat—something that even President Trump seems to realize, since he grants her more interviews than just about anyone (Sean Hannity not included).

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #7 Marty Baron

Running the resurgent Post, Baron today commands more journalistic firepower than any editor in town. And he uses it: upending Alabama's 2017 Senate race (uncovering Judge Roy Moore's troubling history with young women) and gobbling more than his share of Trump-era scoops.

The Most Powerful People In Trump’s Washington: #1 Hope Hicks

A 29-year-old, just three years removed from a gig with Ivanka Trump's fashion line (doing PR mostly but also a little modeling, too), can become the president's most trusted aide. With a boss who blew into Washington distrustful of the natives, Hicks is among the last of the original campaign staffers to remain by Trump's side. And in a West Wing where power is measured by proximity to the president, her presence there is a constant.