WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Wednesday that press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave the White House at the end of the month to focus on her young family, setting off an immediate scramble inside and around the administration to fill the role fewer than three months before the midterm elections.
White House communications director Steven Cheung shut down any idea that a like-for-like replacement exists. "She is one of one. Nobody will ever be able to do what she did," Cheung said in a text message Thursday. Leavitt will remain an outside adviser to Trump, and sources familiar with the situation say she will likely have some influence over who ultimately gets the job.
In the short term, the White House may return to the arrangement used during Leavitt's maternity leave: deploying Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with other senior officials, to handle podium duties and field reporter questions. Those officials managed the job with varying degrees of comfort, sources familiar with the period said.
At least one Republican operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, argued the vacancy needs to be filled quickly and for tactical reasons. "It's another deployable asset for the midterms," the operative said. One source close to the White House said Trump might not name a successor until after the midterms, and some in the building predicted the position might go unfilled for the remainder of his term—roughly two and a half years.
About a dozen names have surfaced from conversations with communicators and advisers in Trump's orbit, though the White House characterized any shortlists as speculation. The leading name from prediction markets is Anna Kelly, Leavitt's principal deputy press secretary, who is already authorized to speak on behalf of the administration on outlets including Fox News. The betting platform Kalshi put Kelly's odds at between 19 and 23 percent.
Scott Jennings, a former George W. Bush White House staffer who built a national profile as a CNN contributor defending Trump on air, is another name in circulation. During the 2024 presidential transition, Donald Trump Jr. backed Jennings for the press secretary position, a source with knowledge of those conversations said. This time around, Jennings has pulled back. "I don't know but I'll tell you this: Karoline Leavitt has been maybe the greatest White House press secretary in the last 30 years at least. She's been nothing short of brilliant," Jennings said Wednesday on CNN's "NewsNight with Abby Phillip."
Alina Habba, who served as Trump's personal attorney and briefly held the post of acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, has also been floated. Her standing with Trump personally is considered an asset among those discussing the succession. Habba has no previous press secretary experience, but neither did Leavitt before she took the job.
Tricia McLaughlin earned attention during her tenure as Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, where she became a recurring presence on cable television defending the administration's border enforcement push. That visibility—and the trust she built defending a signature Trump priority—puts her in the conversation.
Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser who has been discussed for the press secretary role in previous transition periods, is again a name that has come up. One figure without any prior Trump employment is also in the mix: a journalist described in sourcing as having interviewed Trump in the Oval Office as recently as June, and whom sources close to the White House characterize as a frontrunner alongside Habba.
The compressed timeline makes the decision more complicated than a standard vacancy. The midterm elections are less than three months away, and the press secretary serves as the administration's primary daily communicator at a moment when House and Senate races will turn partly on how effectively the White House can drive its message. The Republican operative's framing—press secretary as a deployable political asset—reflects the dual function the role carries: part communications director, part campaign surrogate.
Leavitt's departure ends a run in which she became one of the most visible faces of the administration, taking a proactive approach to media appearances while also operating as a trusted internal adviser to Trump. That combination of public profile and internal standing is what makes the role difficult to fill on short notice, according to people who have worked in White House communications.
Trump himself has not publicly weighed in on a successor. The White House has not confirmed that any formal vetting process is underway.
