President Donald Trump is in “no rush” to name a successor to former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, even as several high-profile allies jockey for the job more than three weeks after she left.
Leavitt announced Aug. 12 that she would step down to spend more time with her children, Nico, 2, and Viviana, then 4 months old. She left Aug. 27. The White House has not named a replacement.
Names circulating in the West Wing include CNN commentator Scott Jennings, Alina Habba — Trump’s former personal attorney and former acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey — and former Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. Other possible contenders include Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly, senior Trump campaign adviser Danielle Alvarez, and former first-term aides Roma Daravi and Caroline Sunshine.
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| Karoline Leavitt |
A Trump adviser said many people are pitching themselves for the job, including Jennings and Habba.
Jennings’s prospects dimmed after his 2021 comments on Jan. 6 resurfaced. In a CNN op-ed published the day of the Capitol riot, he wrote that “President Donald Trump caused this insurrection with his lies and conspiracy theories about the election process being rigged against him.” Former Rep. Matt Gaetz shared the headline and wrote, “Scott Jennings for press secretary is a bad idea.” A Trump-world insider said there is “no bad blood” but that Jennings’s past comments would make the appointment unworkable.
Jennings later apologized, writing in a 2024 Los Angeles Times op-ed: “I was wrong.”