On September 30, President Donald Trump announced TrumpRx, a government-run platform scheduled to launch in 2026 that would funnel consumers to drug companies' direct-sale websites — precisely the service BlinkRx announced it could help facilitate in August. Donald Trump Jr. joined the company's board in February of this year, and also serves as a partner of the investment firm 1789 Capital, a “lead investor” in BlinkRx. According to the Wall Street Journal report, before the President's TrumpRx reveal, a BlinkRx representative “told one drug company that BlinkRx could be involved with running the site on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.” 

According to the Journal, BlinkRx has also organized a summit in December which will facilitate meetings between the country's top drugmakers, feature "'small group meetings' with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary", and “conclude with a dinner at the Executive Branch, an exclusive new club founded by Trump Jr. and his close friends.”

Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, explained of the announcement:

After derailing serious initiatives in place to finally let Medicare negotiate cheaper drug prices on some of the most expensive life-saving medicines, the President wants praise for pushing a mail-order scheme that experts say won’t significantly lower costs for patients — but will put more money in his son’s pocket. This is presidential self-dealing at its most craven. 

This story fits a familiar pattern: The Trump family appearing to leverage the power of the presidency for self-dealing. But the story failed to garner much coverage in the national media. From October 7 — when The Wall Street Journal broke the story — through October 13, national TV news media seem to have ignored the apparent self-dealing. The cable networks CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and Newsmax each seemingly failed to cover the story. All original broadcast episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press also seemingly ignored the story during the study period.

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post also seem to have ignored the revelation during the study period.

National news media's muted response to this story suggests outlets view self-dealing involving the president's family as background noise. This kind of potential arrangement is likely problematic and certainly newsworthy — it ought to be covered that way.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and Newsmax as well as all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press (including weekend editions for all programs) for any of the terms “Donald,” “Trump,” “Don Jr,” “Don Junior,” “Trump Jr,” or “Trump Junior” within close proximity to any of the terms “Rx,” “prescription,” “Blink,” or “BlinkRx,” or any variation of the terms “pharmacy,” “drugs,” or “medications” from October 7, 2025, when reporting broke that Donald Trump Jr. was poised to benefit financially from a deal between BlinkRx and the government-run TrumpRx, through October 13, 2025.

We also searched articles in the Factiva database from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for the same terms from October 7, 2025, through October 13, 2025.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the potential involvement of BlinkRx in the government-run TrumpRx website was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the story. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the story with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the story without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the story scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

Finally, we included articles about the story, which we defined as instances when the story was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraphs of the text, and articles mentioning the story, which we defined as instances when the story was only mentioned in the text after the headline and lead paragraphs. We included editorial and op-eds but not letters to the editor.