The White House has raged at a new report on Karoline Leavitt’s absence.
The White House press secretary, 29, left her role in August to spend time with her young family and 61-year-old husband, and has not yet been replaced.
MS NOW published an article on Friday exploring President Donald Trump’s search for someone to fill Leavitt’s role, which has now been empty for the longest period in American history.
“No press secretary, almost no briefings and a media ban that surprised Trump’s own aides,” the reporter who wrote the article, Jake Traylor, posted on X.
“Nearly a month after Karoline Leavitt’s exit, the job is still vacant. Some aides say that’s why a surprise ban on three news outlets got out the door.”
The Rapid Response 47 account, which acts as an official communication channel for the administration, picked up on the post six minutes later.
“All these clowns do is lie,” it said.
The article comes after Trump’s shock ban of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House press pool.
MS NOW cited two sources familiar with the White House’s internal workings, who not only said that the ban wouldn’t have happened if Leavitt had still been in her job, but that the move took some senior staffers by surprise.
“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 of them told the outlet.
Officially, the White House doesn’t see it that way.
“Nobody close to the president was surprised at his action to hold the fake news accountable,” a spokesperson told the network and later the Daily Beast. “No president is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds. Access has always been a privilege—and President Trump is applying that rule.”
MS NOW, however, reported that White House messaging is increasingly coming from Trump himself.
Its sources said the prevailing logic in the People’s House is that Trump is the best person at communicating what Trump is thinking.
The 80-year-old, however, tends to paint with a broad brush, which can draw condemnation from both sides of the aisle, a third source said.
The story comes at a bad time.
With less than 39 days to go until the midterms on Nov. 3, Trump’s falling approval ratings and growing signs of a fractured Republican Party are unwelcome developments for the White House.
Trump has been under constant pressure as a result of his own decisions and policies, including sparking a trade war with Canada and failing to end a violent one with Iran.
The midterms are expected to be a referendum on his first two years in power.
Some polls put his overall approval rating below 30 percent, and CNN’s data guru Harry Enten pointed out Friday that “President Trump has the highest strongly disapproved rating going into a midterm election on record.”
He continued: “50 percent of Americans now say that they strongly, strongly disapprove of the job that President Trump is doing. That is, they don’t just dislike him. There’s record hatred for the president of the United States going into a midterm.”
Such a tumultuous period would usually be smoothed over by the press secretary, but instead the executive office has navigated those waters with a revolving cast of officials including communications director Steven Cheung and former campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez. Vice President JD Vance and Attorney General Todd Blanche have even taken to the podium for briefings.
The media ban has already proven to be embarrassing for the president, after a judge on Thursday ordered him to restore access to the trio of outlets. Reporters for all three were back in the White House on Friday.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
