The White House has gone nearly a month without a press secretary, an unprecedented stretch for the role, and insiders say part of the reason is that senior aides are quietly working to keep an outside frontrunner from getting the job.
Since Karoline Leavitt departed in August, some staffers have pushed back against handing the role to Scott Jennings, the conservative CNN commentator widely seen as an early favorite, according to a person familiar with the internal deliberations. Instead, reported MS NOW, these aides reportedly want the position filled by someone already inside the building.
Jennings has been one of Trump’s most loyal attack dogs on CNN, and has often landed himself in trouble, including for false claims that leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker called for bringing back lynching.
The vacancy has coincided with a genuinely turbulent period for the administration: Trump’s polling numbers have sunk to new depths, tensions with trading partners keep intensifying, and the conflict with Iran shows no sign of winding down after nearly seven months. Two people familiar with the White House’s internal dynamics told MS NOW the empty press shop directly contributed to Trump’s abrupt decision last week to ban MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the building entirely, a move he himself described as targeting the “free press.”
Both sources said Leavitt likely would have talked Trump out of the ban had she still been in the building.
“The ban is one of those moments where you’ve got to ask who’s around the president right now and how did something like this get sent out, catching some of his own top staffers by surprise,” one person said.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the ban Thursday, restoring the three outlets’ access while litigation continues. Sources describe a White House where Trump has grown even more comfortable making major calls entirely on his own, sometimes skipping the usual internal review process, a habit that occasionally lands him in exactly this kind of controversy.
Trump reportedly valued Leavitt’s combative loyalty toward reporters, and sources say he hasn’t yet spotted a cable news personality he considers a worthy successor. In the meantime, former campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez and longtime adviser Jason Miller have both stepped into senior communications roles, though neither plans to actually hold press briefings. The White House has held just two briefings total in the past two months.
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