WASHINGTON — In recent months, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has hosted private virtual briefings with social media influencers, equipping them with information on key policy issues and Democratic messaging to disseminate on their large global platforms.
On these calls, dubbed “creator briefings,” the senator and her staff answer questions from content creators on how to craft strategic messages that reach people outside of the political sphere.
“You are the ones who can best carry this message,” Warren told a group of medical, health and wellness creators in a health care policy briefing on Wednesday, which NBC News joined exclusively. Attendees had a total combined audience of over 60 million followers across platforms, her office said.
Warren urged the creators to apply pressure on Republican lawmakers to reverse health care funding cuts included in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” as part of any deal to avert a government shutdown, which will occur on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to pass a spending bill before then.
“For all of you who have been talking closely to a lot of folks who follow you, this is the time to tell them just a little bit in advance about what’s about to happen, while you and they still have a chance to affect the outcome,” the 76-year-old senator told influencers.
Since July 2024, Warren has hosted six creator briefings as part of a long-term initiative to reach audiences who don’t regularly consume political news or follow elected Democrats, like Warren, on social media. Her “creator push” comes at a time when Democrats are struggling to compete with the MAGA social media apparatus, including conservative influencers, podcasters and the president’s highly active Truth Social page.
Arielle Fodor, known as “Miss Frazzled” to her 1.4 million followers on TikTok, told NBC News after attending Wednesday’s briefing that more Democrats should incorporate influencers in their messaging strategy and equip them with the necessary information to explain what’s happening in Washington to viewers.
“I think that a lot of these offices don’t really know what to do with us, but the good news is, we know what to do with our platform. So if you just clue us in, if you just let us have a seat at the table … we will figure out what to do with it,” Fodor said.
Meredith Lynch, who creates content focused primarily on the wealth gap in America and has over 300,000 followers on TikTok, has attended multiple briefings with Warren. She said that the looming government funding deadline was not fully on her radar until Wednesday’s call with Warren.
“Everything is moving at this pace that we’ve never seen before, and so it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s happening in Washington,” Lynch said in an interview. “What these calls do is they help us think about ways to distill it to our audiences.”
This summer, as congressional Republicans worked to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful” megabill, Warren held a briefing on the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid, where she encouraged attendees to repost an infographic from her Instagram. According to data her office shared with NBC News, over 90% of the 1.9 million views on Warren’s original post were from nonfollowers. Warren’s social media campaign around Medicaid cuts boosted her pages significantly, earning her over 85 million views on megabill-related content across platforms, her office said.
Influencers “can put it most directly about who’s going to be affected and how they’re going to be affected,” Warren said during Wednesday’s session.
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Fodor said that Democrats in Congress should look to Warren as an example of partnering with influencers by providing access to information and messaging tools that are usually “only reserved for politicians.”