Trump’s White House Adjusts To Life Without Karoline Leavitt

Vice President JD Vance ended a more than 40-day drought in the White House briefing room Thursday, fielding reporters’ questions from a podium that had sat unused for weeks.

And the White House doesn't appear to be rushing to decide who will be the next press secretary. President Donald Trump’s orbit seems fine with that, suggesting that he does the job of communicator-in-chief just fine and pointing to how many reporters just dial him up to chat. But having the president’s cell phone number — and having Trump answer the phone — isn’t the same as the access reporters have via regular press briefings.

“As everyone always says, the president is his best messenger,” said a person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “That's true.”

More than three weeks after Karoline Leavitt announced her departureas White House press secretary, Trump has yet to name her successor — or publicly lay out a timeline for doing so. And behind the scenes, there is still considerable uncertainty about what the White House press operation will ultimately look like without her.

“It's still very up in the air in terms of what they will do regarding a new press secretary,” the person said. “I don't get the sense that there is a huge rush in the immediate future.”

Of course, Trump has never relied on a press secretary in quite the same way as his predecessors.

In January 2019, amid a lengthy briefing drought, Trump said he had instructed then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders “not to bother” holding them, complaining that reporters treated her unfairly. Sanders held her final briefing that March.

Her successor, Stephanie Grisham, took the experiment a step further by never holding a formal briefing. Regular briefings didn't return until Kayleigh McEnany took over in 2020.

Thursday's briefing, in which Vance focused on his anti-fraud initiative, the war with Iran and the recent oil deal with Venezuela, offered one possible glimpse of how the White House can operate in the meantime. It was essentially a return to the way the press briefing operated while Leavitt was on maternity leave, where Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials periodically took her place. The person close to the White House said they expected the administration to continue relying on “special guests” during the vacancy.

Vance also made clear that at least one hallmark of Leavitt’s tenure will continue: the White House’s effort to give more access to “new media,” a centerpiece of her approach to expand access to the briefing room.

“We’re going to build on that legacy, ” the vice president said in response to a question from a Breitbart reporter. “I think you and a lot of other new media types should certainly expect to have a lot of access in the months and years to come, just as the traditional media does.”

But putting someone behind the podium is only one part of replacing Leavitt.

Behind the scenes, she also served as an important conduit between Trump and the press aides charged with explaining and defending his decisions. Because Leavitt was regularly in meetings with the president, the source said, members of her team had “tremendous access” to Trump's thinking even when they weren't themselves in the room.

“She was very open and transparent,” the person said. “There were never any sort of information gaps with the people on the press team,” because Leavitt would communicate the president's thinking to them and “went out of her way” to include other aides.

For now, the person said, White House communications director Steven Cheung is “running point over the whole comms team,” while senior members of Leavitt's former press operation continue to oversee their existing portfolios.

The White House said in a statement that Cheung is overseeing the press team, which he did prior to Leavitt's departure.

Since the beginning of the administration, White House deputy press secretaries Abigail Jackson and Harrison Fields have left their posts. But the majority of the press team has largely remained intact, allowing much of the day-to-day press operation to continue unperturbed.

Beyond regular press briefings, reporters have also lost one of their most reliable opportunities to hear directly from Trump: departures and arrivals to and from Marine One, which he has often treated as impromptu press conferences.

Construction on a new permanent helipad has temporarily shifted Marine One operations from the South Lawn to the Ellipse, where Trump travels by motorcade before boarding the helicopter — largely eliminating the traditional South Lawn exchanges with reporters on those trips.

For now, the White House seems content to let the search unfold.

The person close to the White House said Trump will almost certainly want a “fighter” — someone willing to aggressively defend his agenda and challenge news coverage the administration considers unfair.

“I think it would be a mistake to try and replicate her,” the person said, arguing that anyone trying to step into the role in exactly the same way would be “almost set up for failure.”