Karoline Leavitt Leaves a Slew of Questions in Her Wake as She Exits the White House

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TOP STORY

KAROLINE’S GONE

Karoline Leavitt departs the White House today after nearly two years as Trump 2.0’s press secretary. Leavitt is the youngest person to serve in the role, and her departure has prompted a flurry of analysis and questions.

Leavitt is also facing plenty of criticism for how she operated. To some, she was essentially MAGA’s most vocal supporter and was frequently caught in lies while defending the president, or deflecting attention from his faux pas. But for others in the stack, she is one of the president’s biggest champions, and an inspiration to working mothers.

THREE TAKES

The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Jones offered two takes on Leavitt Friday morning. The first looks at the complicated dance often performed by mothers employed outside the home. Leavitt, who gave birth to her second child in May, has made it clear that wanting more time with her family factored into the decision. As Jones put it, “Having two children under the age of three is hard enough. Imagine doing so while being the top spokesperson for the president of the United States.” The second take is more serious: While Leavitt told White House reporters she’ll miss them, that sentiment isn’t shared by everyone on the other side of the podium. The New Republic’s Edith Olmsted’s wrote of Leavitt, “So long Karoline Leavitt, we hardly knew ye — and what we did know, we didn’t like,” and said that Leavitt “lied all the time” as press secretary.

The Washington Times, Mary McCue Bell — Leavitt’s departure has raised the inevitable question of who will replace her, and McCue Bell reported today that the outgoing press secretary expects to have a degree of input on the topic. As she noted, “names floated include CNN conservative commentator Scott Jennings, White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, and political adviser Katie Miller.” Leavitt said in an interview on Morning in America this week that there are “many capable people” interested, and revealed, “I think I have a say in the qualities that the person should have. I will leave the decision to the president himself, and I’ll keep my private counsel to him private.”

CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — One rumor that followed Leavitt a bit before it was squashed was that she was on deck to join The View as a co-host. That would be an especially remarkable turn of events given Disney’s lawsuit against the FCC (and accusations the latter is cozy with the president). As Stelter reported, “The reality is considerably less dramatic: ABC has indeed invited the now-former White House press secretary to appear on the show — but just as a guest, not as anything more.” Though the rumor was debunked, it “is still intriguing given the Trump administration’s rocky relationship with ABC,” he added.

TAKEAWAY: Leavitt’s departure may not come with the fanfare she might expect. The president’s apparent lack of interest in immediately filling her shoes is something to keep an eye on, if only because he’s been known to leave all sorts of posts open for days, weeks, or even months. It feels likely she will simply fade back into her pre-Press Secretary role as a prominent Trump surrogate, which seems like her real goal anyway.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 The Bulwark, Jake Lahut —MAGA has already begun the party’s “2028 civil war,” Lahut wrote today. Vice President JD Vance’s team is “growing increasingly annoyed by what it sees as a brewing plot to sabotage the vice president’s chances of winning the 2028 GOP presidential nomination,” even though those attempts have “largely been confined to broadsides on X and whisper networks behind the scenes.” But they’ve still managed to inspire “paranoia inside the Vance network,” and people within are speaking out. “Do you think we’re f*cking stupid? Obviously it is [an op]. We’re not a bunch of f*cking r*tards.” a Vance ally told Lahut. It’s all starting to seem like “intense Republican infighting will be in the party’s post-Trump future.”

SCOOP 🍨 CJR’s Laurel and Darts, Susie Banikarim— Two reporters have been doggedly pursuing more after Florida’s Governor Rick DeSantis signed a bill that removed “climate change” from state law in 2024. The Hechinger Report’s Katie Worth and WUSF’s Jessica Meszaros have been attempting to “follow up” on what happened next “for months,” but those efforts have been “ignored.” In July, the pair revealed officials in Florida “had made extraordinary demands to change climate content.” Per Banikarim, that included an instance in which “a reference to climate change ‘killing at least 150,000 people per year’ was changed to ‘human health will also be affected by the increase in CO2,’” and replacing ‘climate change’  with ‘changes in the environment.’”

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook, Megan Messerly, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin— Despite the fact that “conventional wisdom” indicates that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) “is a shoo-in to win Nevada’s Democratic presidential primary in 2028,” some in the state don’t agree, Playbook reported. Supporters believe Ocasio-Cortez has strong chances in the state because “Bernie Sanders crushed the competition in Nevada in 2020.” But as Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, told Playbook, “That’s a mistake to think that somehow there’s a ‘progressive’ angle here.” The reason? “Populism, not progressivism, is the winning message in Nevada in 2028,” Playbook’s authors also wrote.

SCOOP 🍨 Page Six Hollywood, Ian Mohr — Hollywood is also paying attention to the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who admitted killing her three young children. Mohr has spoken to sources who have said “numerous studios and streamers are interested in bringing Clancy’s story and trial to the screen” and “the grim case has dominated discussions in the hallways, conference rooms and elevators of studios, agencies, networks and production companies around town.” A source described as a “Hollywood veteran” told Mohr, “Everyone, and I mean everyone, is talking about it.” The case has yet to be decided, and a jury is deliberating today to determine if Clancy should be held criminally responsible for the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.

SCOOP 🍨 TheWrap, Lucas Manfredi — A new petition has been signed by the Block the Merger Coalition, “urging the 12 state attorneys general to reject ‘empty concessions’ from Paramount and ‘hold strong’ in their legal fight against its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery,” Manfredi wrote Friday. The coalition’s missive also “comes as Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a motion with the Supreme Court urging them to block the ‘politicized’ antitrust lawsuit by California’s Rob Bonta and 11 other states.” As for his part, Bonta told TheWrap he’s still open to “good faith” discussions with Paramount. He said, “It’s up to them. They’ve got to figure out where the leaks are and shut them down. And once they figure that out, we’ll be happy to talk with them. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to figure it out and to fix it, but when they do, we’re ready.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Kristol and Egger have been tightly monitoring the president’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting, and they noted that on Thursday, “District Judge Indira Talwani issued her latest ruling in the case, once again blocking the administration from implementing new Postal Service rules that would dramatically expand federal control over mail-in ballots.” Talwani also pointed out iot “would be practically impossible for states to comply” with the change “in time for the midterms.” So now, “The case will shortly head back to the Supreme Court, which explicitly did not touch the question of the constitutionality of Trump’s order in its earlier ruling on standing.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — YouTube is aggressively funding splashy “For Your Consideration” Emmy campaigns for its digital creators. OK… but why? Backing top talent with industry prestige serves a larger corporate ambition: positioning YouTube as the “future of television.” (One Sheet readers will recall this was the messaging the company pushed during upfronts a few months back.) Claiming Emmy-recognized programming strengthens YouTube’s advertiser pitch at a moment when it is adding Peacock to its premium tier, securing Oscar broadcast rights for 2029, and fending off ad-tier competition from Netflix. QUOTE 📣 “YouTube is tired of being relegated to companies’ performance marketing budgets. It wants a bigger share of the more lucrative brand advertising market, and the key to unlocking that money is convincing advertisers to think of YouTube as another form of television. What better way to reinforce that message than by winning television’s most prestigious award?”

CJR’s Laurels and Darts, Susie Banikarim — The Wall Street Journal opinion page is facing severe blowback after publishing a column by billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller rebuking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s bond plans. The thing is, though, readers aren’t too bothered by the content of the submission itself; that’s what an opinion page is for. They’re bothered instead by how unclear it is whose opinion Druckenmiller shared, since the piece with his byline bore a lot of telltale signs of AI use. Druckenmiller readily admitted he writes everything with AI and editor Paul Gigot defended the piece as Druckenmiller’s “genuine opinion,” drawing sharp criticism from media watchdogs for bypassing basic disclosure, originality, and quality standards. (For more on this without leaving the newsletter sphere, check out Dylan Byers’ interesting assessment in Puck’s In the Room.) QUOTE 📣 “I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems.”

Feed Me, Emily Sundberg — The Sports Gossip Show, hosted by Madeline Hill and Charlotte Wilder, is exiting The Athletic Podcast Network after a one-year stint under The New York Times banner. This is one of many, many podcast exits the Times has been dealing with lately. Originating as a Substack newsletter before joining The Athletic, the show covered major cultural intersections across a variety of major American sports leagues. Hill and Wilder stated they are departing to take their next step as independent creators exploring off-the-field culture. QUOTE 📣 “We’re grateful to The Athletic for bringing us on a year ago and believing in our show… We’ll share soon what we’ve got up our sleeve for our next move, we’re really excited about it.”

Digiday Daily, Jim Cooper and Sara Jerde — Marketers and brand agencies are reaching a breaking point over skyrocketing creator talent fees, caused primarily by the lack of industry standards. Without formal rate guidance from orgs like the IAB, agencies are increasingly adopting predictive analytics and third-party tools to vet talent and level contract negotiations. The creator economy itself remains deeply divided on how to establish fair baseline value as marketing plans and retail media converge. QUOTE 📣 “What’s a creator worth? It depends who’s asking.”

CNN’s Reliable Sources, Liam Reilly — Today in “Well, that didn’t take long”: The three Stars and Stripes journalists fired by the Pentagon last week have launched a federal First Amendment lawsuit against the Department of Defense. Former editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer, and reporter Lara Korte allege they were unlawfully terminated in retaliation for publicly defending the newsroom’s editorial independence and publishing critical reporting on deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The suit seeks to overturn the firings and reinstate statutory protections that shield the paper from military censorship. QUOTE 📣 “The lawsuit also names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and Principal Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Andrew Brey. It seeks a temporary restraining order and permanent relief ahead of the termination of their contracts.”

Status, Oliver Darcy — Following Meta’s landmark multi-state agreement addressing child safety and platform harm allegations, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is leveraging the pact to force structural changes on its competitors: Meta says if rivals TikTok, YouTube, and Snap commit to paying $5 billion for similar reforms, Meta will match it with an additional $5 billion, raising the total settlement to $17 billion. QUOTE 📣 “And California Attorney General Rob Bonta indicated that the other platforms are now in the states’ crosshairs. They ‘should be thinking very closely’ about their next move, he said at a press conference. ‘We expect similar outcomes from them as well, and there’s a lot of ways we can do it.’”

CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — Infamous television investigator Chris Hansen is the subject of A24’s upcoming movie, Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson. However, he’s also the head honcho at indie streaming platform TruBlu — and he wants cinema audiences to know it. He bought pre-show advertising in the theaters showing the biographical film, all with the intention of directing moviegoers back to his own streamer, where they’ll find plenty of investigative content similar to the kind that made him famous enough to get a movie made about it. QUOTE 📣 “Low-key brilliant, right?”

Awful Announcing’s The A Block, Drew Lerner — The CW is aggressively expanding its live sports portfolio by acquiring broadcast rights for two more college football bowl games: the Holiday Bowl, which previously aired on Fox, and the now-revived Poinsettia Bowl. Both San Diego-based matchups will join the Arizona Bowl on the network’s schedule, giving The CW three bowl broadcasts as networks continue to lean into live sports programming to anchor linear viewership.

OTHER COOL STUFF

Feed Me — Cult-favorite Brooklyn comfort food spot Pies ‘n’ Thighs is celebrating its 20th anniversary by rolling back to 2006 pricing. Until Sunday, diners can get a chicken biscuit for $5. Five dollars! Five American dollars!

Morning Brew — The original cast of the beloved 1993 baseball film The Sandlot is officially getting the team back together, reuniting for a new comedy series on YouTube called Dugout Dads.

POLITICO Playbook — In a clash of generations, Gen Z Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost is set to appear as the featured guest on Jubilee Media’s viral YouTube series Surrounded, where he will sit in the center of a circle to debate 20 Baby Boomers. If you’re not familiar with the show by name, you’ve certainly seen clips. It’s what it sounds like: The featured guest is surrounded and gets into debates, which produce soundbites that go viral on social media. We can expect that, more or less, when this premieres on Sunday.

Awful Announcing — The popular Barstool Sports podcast Pardon My Take has scored a major mainstream publishing hit: Dan “Big Cat” Katz announced that Pardon My Book debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list under the “Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous” category.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

The Free Press, Nellie Bowles — Bowles tends to cook up something pretty unique for Fridays, and today she threw in a tidbit for conspiracy theorists: “The tech people are controlling the weather, which I’m guessing scares you as much as it exhilarates me,” she wrote, citing reporting that Rainmaker, which was founded by Peter Thiel Fellow Augustus Doricko, is using cloud seeding to make rain. “And remember how what may become the strongest El Niño in living memory is developing now? You put two and two together, beep boop, that’s a very good year of viral conspiracy content,” Bowles added.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — In addition to their persistent coverage on mail-in voting, Kristol and Egger put together a banger of a newsletter this morning. It begins with a deep and lengthy reflection on two groups of people — military veterans arriving in D.C. as part of the Honor Flight Network and the more than 200,000 activists, union organizers, and citizens landing in the city at the same time ahead of the upcoming anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

The pair cited the late Martin Luther King, Jr., who so memorably delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at that first march. “We made progress towards King’s dream — toward the American dream — over the subsequent half century. But we’ve regressed in the last decade. And our current president and administration are trying very hard to accelerate that regression … But the moment at the airport yesterday, when the veterans of the fight for democracy against fascism and communism united with the veterans of the fight for freedom against racist oppression, somehow reassured me about our nation.”

Elsewhere, Kristol and Egger looked at corporations attempting to woo back Democratic voters and politicians after years of compromising with and pandering to the Trump administration, as well as Tucker Calson’s interview with Greg Bovino.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.