What's Next for Karoline Leavitt? 8-13-26

This is an answer today. I am Chris Ryan. I appreciate joining us for the show. Clouds clear in a bit starting to see some sunshine in the mill yard in Manchester here. This morning, thank you so much for being with us. Our top story, Karoline Leavitt, stepping aside as White House press secretary after a little bit over a year and a half on the job. She'll work through the end of this month, but wants to spend more time with her young family. This decision coming after she recently gave birth to her second child. Here is Peter Ducey at the White House with the latest. Karoline Leavitt is saying goodbye with this. I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom. My two young children deserve while devoting. the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House press secretary. And that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life. The president says, Caroline will now be one of my top outside advisors and an influential voice within the Republican Party as we work to defy history and conclusively win the midterm elections. Whoever replaces Levitt will have the job for a max of two years and change. Joining us right now on the HRC, your Nambicredit Union guest on for some analysis. Dean Spilliotis, New Hampshire's political Zen Master. Good morning, Dean. Hi, good morning, Chris. Joining us for the show. Your thoughts on Caroline's decision. Yeah, I mean, not surprising. That job has a high burnout rate. It's not unusual for presidents to have a changeover every two years or so. She's got two young children. And so, from what I understand, she has not really taken a significant amount of maternity leave, as people typically do, that she's, even though she was, I think, with the first child, maybe took a month away that President Trump was still, depending on her regularly for advice, et cetera. So it was probably an element of burnout. And you want to leave before the job becomes, you know, becomes problematic for you and your, you know, with your family and your kids, et cetera. I mean, from that perspective, it's not surprising. What is a little surprising is kind of the lack of a clear succession plan. Typically, with these kinds of personnel changes, there's kind of a predictable bench about who's up next. usually a deputy press secretary. A lot of times the deputy press secretary will become the press secretary and then they'll bring over, say, like the State Department spokesman or the Defense Department spokesman, and they'll become the assistant press secretary. So I think part of this is a function of Donald Trump likes to do his own press in a sense. He's basically his own press secretary in some respects. And he has a very personal relationship with Caroline. You don't, you remember when she was out with, just recently when she had her current baby, they just kind of had a succession of different administration officials come in and do press conferences. So, so the communication shop, as best I can tell, does not function as a typical communication shop. And I think that's a function of Donald Trump's preferences.

I think you'd make a good point where it is a bit surprising. And again, we could have an announcement today, right? And that would indicate that there is a clear succession plan. And maybe yesterday was to just give Caroline the day. But you'd expect, you know, if this was something that had been planned for a period of time, that you would have an announcement today. Okay, this is who the new White House press secretary is. typically have in most administrations, when the press secretary is on vacation or out for maternity, the deputy press secretary does the briefings regularly so you know way in advance who it's going to be, and that's just not the case. They'll find somebody, whether they pull somebody off of TV or somebody else in the wings in the administration. They'll have somebody, I'm sure, very quickly, but it's unusual not to know well in advance. Okay, the deputy is going to step up. I think this is kind of, in a lot of ways, a refreshing decision, too. Considering how intoxicating... power is considering uh you know the wanting to kind of continue to ascend in your in your career for for levitt to make a decision hey i want to be a good mom before i continue and a great mom before i continue on my my journey here um i can't do both of these things at once i need to take a step back and and focus on on that while also keeping a high profile role which i assume she will do via uh helping the white house out and also be making it and so forth, I don't think she's going to disappear. It's been interesting that some of the coverage has been like, you know, this is Karoline Leavitt in Memorium. She's 28 years old. There's a lot more of Karoline Leavitt years to come. She can do whatever she wants moving forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at least in Maga World. I mean, you know, from outside of MAGAROL, she's viewed as kind of very antagonistic and a fierce defender of the president, even if that sometimes requires saying things that are less than truthful from the podium. But that is one of the White House's Secretary has always been. Like, you are always... Well, that's kind of what it's become. That's what it's become. But, yeah, no, I mean, there's always been an element of that. I think she's taking it to a new level. So all I was going to say was that, you know, at least in MAGA world, her style... is quite high, and she'll have plenty of options of whatever she wants to do. I think that it goes kind of beyond Magarold. I think that she could be, if she wants to do podcasting, if she wants to do, if she wants to do TV, whatever of the networks. Yeah, that'll be her audience. Yeah, I, I. Yes, she will speak for that. But she has enough talent. And I've talked about this before. It was pretty clear in 2022 that she is one of the more talented political figures I have seen. And at that point, I think she was 25 years old. She has a significant amount of ambition, but also an incredible amount of talent. And so.

I think that she can move beyond the MAGA role if necessary in years to come. And I expect her to run for office as well, whether it's Governor New Hampshire, Senator, run for Congress again. I think that she'll make some money. And I think that she will run for public office once again. But the MAGA role part will be, that'll be the bigger part if she runs for public office. I don't think that being Donald Trump's press secretary is going to hold her back. from making significant amounts of money and basically picking the job that she she wants if she wants to go into media. Well, no, what I mean by, I mean, you're using a more limited notion of what I mean by Maxwell. I mean, typically when you leave these kinds of jobs, other press secretaries as well, you have three options. The primary option used to be you join a public relations firm as like a vice president or something like that, and you do communications and crisis messaging for corporations, or maybe you become a chief of media officer for one of the tech companies. There's a private sector pipeline for this kind of stuff. You could also run for office again, and maybe she wants to do that. The increasing option now is going on either podcasting or and or television. And absolutely, I can see her with a show on Fox News. Absolutely, if that's what she wants to do. I'm sure she could do that or Newsmax or one of those outlets. But, you know, for every person who is in Maga World and in the Trump orbit who's a fan of hers, plenty of people who were, you know, We're not big fans of how she conducted her press, her press briefing. She was very effective for what the job has become. But she's part of kind of the sort of greater sort of conflict between the parties and ideology. And she could be part of that as a candidate again, or she's kind of working kind of the media industrial complex. What I'm saying is I think that that is potentially problematic for her in gaining public office. But I think the fact that she is a lightning rod and there are folks that don't like her what she has to say, I think that that is a asset. in media. I think that that is something that helps you. I don't think that it closes any doors for her. I think it opens doors for her. But in running for public office, yes, there are definite deterrence to her success based upon her close association with President Trump and the role that she has held within this administration. Let's move on here quickly. As Dean Spilliotr-Stamp, Political Zen Master joins us here on the show. We're talking about this earlier with Stiney polling. deeply problematic in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. And in Wisconsin and also in Michigan, there was a significant to appear oversampling or overestimation of how the Democratic Socialist Progressive-Aligned candidates were going to do there in Francesca Hong and Abdul El-Sayed. Meanwhile, with Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, it was the opposite where she did much better than expected in her race against...

Angie Craig. So the notion that we got from Michigan and from Wisconsin that, okay, maybe there's an oversampling going on when it comes to the progressive voter, it was kind of counterbalanced by what took place in Minnesota. So is it just polling as a whole right now? It's problematic because we're not talking about, you know, being like five or ten points. We're talking about like 20 points off, which is massive. Yeah, I think it's a combination of factors. I've said all along, I think there's way too much polling by way too many outfits. And you get all kinds of variation in sampling as a result of that, different firms using different turnout models of who's actually going to show up and vote in the primary or in the general election. So that's part of the problem. I also think what was unusual about these particular cases, certainly Abdul El-Sayed, but particularly with Tong is... The national media picked up these stories in the last few weeks. and really ran with them, particularly the Hong story, the last week or two. And I think, I think, I think just think a lot of Democrats started paying attention in a way that maybe they weren't. And that moved some voters. So I think the combination of bad, bad polling. But in this particular case, I also think late, late breaking, late breaking. I totally agree. That, that was got the Hong Wisconsin race with, you know, you got the governor. pulling somebody off the sidelines and saying let's go around the state and campaign that's going to change things up a little bit I totally agree. And I think, you know, there was also some concern about Abdul El-Sayed and how electable he was. And that's the gap, yeah. Yes, I think that polling was an issue, but I think in those races where there was not any real discussion about Peggy Flanagan running for U.S. Senate in Minnesota or concerns about her. And she just was able to kind of do her own thing. With Abdul El-Sayed and Francesca Hong, it was. Are these people electable? Can they actually win in the general election? And they became these national stories. And that concern, I think, started to drift into those races and changed the dynamic significantly. That's a very good point. Dean is always appreciate your time. We'll talk soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Chris. That is Dean Spilliotis, New Hampshire's Political Zen Master, joining us on the HRC, your neighbored credit union guest line. I am Chris Ryan. This is New Hampshire today. Open AI has agreed to a $3.2 million settlement with the Department of Justice over allegations the company discriminated against U.S. workers in its hiring practices. Matt Matanson has the story.

The DOJ says the investigation involved fewer than 10 positions but found issues including how some jobs were advertised and how applications were accepted. Under the agreement, OpenAI will pay 1.2 million in civil penalties and 2 million to compensate workers affected by the alleged practices. The company denies the findings but says it reached the agreement to resolve the matter and move forward with its immigration-related hiring program. Anthropic, inking a $10 billion deal with AI cloud startup Volta. An AI systems from Anthropic and OpenAI created fake identities in an effort to break into the site GitHub. The UK's AI Security Institute says Anthropics mythos and open AI's Saul used autonomy and deception to mask the hacks. This comes as more AI models are being caught starting their own hacks. Check report. I'm Mark Mayfield. This hour of New Hampshire Day is brought to...