By Eliza Collins | Photography by Morgan Lieberman for WSJ

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. -- Jessica Reed Kraus needed to clear her head.

The U.S. had recently struck Iran, a coterie of Make America Healthy Again moms were fuming over new protections for companies making a pesticide ingredient and some of the Epstein files about President Trump were missing. On top of that, Kraus's husband had decided that this weekend was the time to refinish their kitchen island.

It was early March and Mercury was in retrograde, so the conservative writer and influencer to the MAHA crowd said she decided to calm herself by organizing photos.

Sitting on the couch wearing sunglasses as the California sun streamed in, Kraus shuffled through her Polaroid photos taken while socializing with the most powerful people in the world: billionaire Elon Musk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Her favorites -- a pair of pictures of President Trump -- were still at the frame shop, she said. She decided to put them in her entryway so they'd be the first things anyone coming into her house would see.

Kraus's access to the Trump administration isn't feigned. The former Democrat is in a group chat that includes former attorney general Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard -- Kraus describes it as a women's support group. She has sat down with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during visits to D.C. and has stayed at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. She sat alongside a nuclear reactor during a flight with Energy Secretary Chris Wright; she still isn't quite sure she understands what a nuclear reactor is.

She parties with the MAGA jet-set inside their homes in Washington, D.C., and at Mar-a-Lago. While she personally prefers organic tequila, she says she knows lots of people are stepping away from these parties to take drugs.

Along the way, she chronicles it all like a gossip columnist for her 1.2 million Instagram followers and nearly half a million Substack subscribers under the name House Inhabit. She makes at least seven figures for these political musings mixed with astrology ("Trump is the most Gemini to ever exist") and aliens. She also does her own investigations of criminal cases, advocating for freedom for some of the most controversial felons in American history, including longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder convicted of running a yearslong fraud scheme against investors.

Kraus, who seems to be everywhere all at once, has found her role in the Trump era: Politics is a party, and I'm your invite to the VIP section.

(In the accompanying video below, see Kraus hosting a mocktail night with a group of her MAHA friends.)

"People want to know about healthy food and recipes and ways to improve their diet. And they also care about fashion. They want to know about parties at Mar-a-Lago and weddings and what these women act like behind the scenes," Kraus said in one of several conversations with The Wall Street Journal over two days.

Her critics -- including a pointed social-media account focused on her -- argue her advocacy for people like Maxwell hurts victims and say she pushes unverified conspiracy theories. They say her alignment with the MAHA movement and questioning vaccines is dangerous. Some former fans are horrified by the rightward turn.

Eliza Orlins, a former public defender and Democratic influencer, said Kraus is dangerous because she shares information to such a large following.

"She is hugely influential," Orlins said. "She is being unbelievably reckless."

Kraus said her audience spans the entire ideological spectrum. "I know I get labeled as this radical right wing voice, but I have moderates, a lot of moderates within my audience."

Washington used to be a stodgier place where power followed clearer-cut roles: politicians, lobbyists, consultants, business executives and journalists all kept in their lanes. But since Trump's return to office, jobs have shape-shifted. Kraus is simultaneously an influencer and writer who is paid for her content, which includes coverage of the administration from a mostly favorable lens. Many of the same people she writes about she also considers her friends.

Mark Halperin, a longtime political journalist who has become popular with the MAGA crowd, said Kraus thinks about storytelling in terms of personalities rather than ideology. Kraus, with her stream-of-consciousness writing and carefully curated visual layouts, has been able to give Republicans a glamour shot of the last year under Trump, he said.

"Part of her popularity is for her audience of all ages, and obviously skews more female than male, it gives them their yearbook," he said about his friend. "It gives them their version of Vogue to see the beautiful faces and the clothes and the parties."

After losing some Democratic followers of her 'mommy blog' during Covid for skepticism over the vaccine, Kraus became a star with the medical freedom crowd. Then in 2022, she started covering the defamation trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, sharing salacious stories from her sources, including a call from Depp, and taking Depp's side. Her following exploded.

During the 2024 campaign, she was connected with Kennedy who was running a long-shot bid for the presidency. She started giving him favorable coverage and was given unrivaled access. Her coverage of him was also thrilling to her audience, many of whom are tapped into his MAHA mission after spending decades being ostracized.

At the same time she was personally befriending people in Trump's orbit, she was also covering his campaign. After Kennedy decided to endorse Trump, she suggested Donald Trump Jr. and Kennedy go falcon hunting, which they did for a campaign event. Kraus and her son joined.

Her transformation has been as rapid as it was unlikely. Half a decade ago, she was renting out her guesthouse to make ends meet.

Kraus, who used to blog about vacations on a budget and home renovations, has become so busy that her husband quit his job as a construction worker to be a stay-at-home dad. It's now Mike who is making meals and ferrying the kids to school and the beach. On this particular Sunday, he was underneath the kitchen sink as Kraus spoke to the Journal nearby.

The Epstein files have been one of Kraus' most complicated story lines. She has, at times, been critical of the administration's handling of the files. "It's just been one fumbling after another," she told the Journal. "They built it up, they built up this conspiracy, they did that, and then they couldn't deliver."

The Justice Department has released millions of files related to Epstein, the financier convicted of sex-trafficking charges before his death in prison, but has withheld many others. Trump's name appears in the Epstein files -- the two socialized for years, though Trump said he cut ties with Epstein before his 2008 conviction. Being named in the files is not a sign of wrongdoing.

Kraus was also one of the influencers who was given a binder of information from the Justice Department related to the Epstein files early last year. She was photographed leaving the White House in a hat that said "TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING." She said Trump offered a table full of merchandise during the visit and she picked the hat because it was most "iconic." White House aides privately refer to the binder event with the influencers as the "original sin," The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

In November, she hosted a party in Washington, D.C. where she did a question-and-answer session with George Santos, the former congressman who was convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and later had his sentence commuted by Trump.

During the conversation, Kraus said to Santos that he was "relatable" because he was either loved or hated. She asked him about everything from his experience in prison to who the sexiest members of Congress were. Asked by the Journal what she thought of Santos's case after the party, she responded, "I hardly know anything about Santos's case," adding she had no problem promoting him without all the details.

Between all the travel back and forth from D.C. to Florida, the interviews and parties, Kraus strains to find enough time to keep up. She recently started staying up all night at least once a week to write in a Laguna Beach office, tucked into an alley just steps from the beach.

Her office, like her home, is exactingly styled by her and built by Mike. A pair of Trump bedazzled cowboy boots sit on a chair. A swing dangles lazily in the middle of the room. On the side wall, jars of healthy MAHA favorites such as dried fruit and nuts sit between a fridge of water and sodas and a collection of alcohol.

Kraus, whose alignment with Kennedy and her MAHA mom friend group, certainly dabbles in their world, including attending a recent conspiracy theory party where they made tinfoil hats and drank crystal-infused wine. At the same time, she said she has her vices -- Diet Coke, alcohol and Bluetooth headphones (a no-no for some in the movement given the exposure to electromagnetic radiation).

"I think there are fanatics in every circle here involved in politics, but yes, there's fanatics where they let the discussion of health just rule their every thought and concern," she said. "I think extremists and the radicals are always a little too much for me to handle."

Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 10, 2026 22:00 ET (02:00 GMT)

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