WASHINGTON — CNN pundit Scott Jennings has become Washington’s most talked-about contender to replace Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary, but some of President Trump’s fiercest allies are trying to derail Jennings over his longstanding ties to Sen. Mitch McConnell, The Post has learned.
“It’s not going to be him,” one person close to the administration insisted.
Weeks before Leavitt announced her departure effective at the end of this month, Jennings, 48, boasted of his decades-long bond with McConnell (R-Ky.), who opposes many of Trump’s second-term legislative priorities and whom the president has mocked as an “Old Crow.”
Trump’s would-be chief spokesman gushed on live TV last month that McConnell was “my mentor” and “changed the trajectory of my life.”
The Kentucky-raised Jennings studied at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville and managed the future Senate GOP leader’s successful 2002 re-election campaign.
MAGA sources noted that Jennings’ commentary about Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot aligned with McConnell’s assessment that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the violence.
Jennings penned a CNN op-ed declaring that “Trump caused this insurrection with his lies and conspiracy theories about the election process being rigged against him.”
“These are domestic terrorists,” he opined about the participants, whom Trump mass-pardoned upon retaking office last year, “and they ought to be treated like any other terrorist uprising with the full force and fury of the US government.”
When contacted by The Post Thursday for comment, Jennings responded by texting a gif of Patrick Swayze’s character James Dalton in the 1989 film “Road House,” with the caption: “Opinions vary.”
Although Trump values loyalty, he’s forgiven past criticisms by many of his appointees — most notably selecting JD Vance as his running mate in 2024 despite Vance musing in 2016 that the future president could become “America’s Hitler.”
Meanwhile, the process of hiring the next press secretary is slow-moving and there’s no clear favorite for the job, a senior administration official told The Post.
“It’s an open book,” this person said. “There are no favorites or preconceived ideas.”
However, some fret Trump hasn’t yet accepted that Leavitt, of whom the president is very fond, is leaving the White House and is dragging his feet on choosing her replacement as he tries to figure out what traits he values in the job.
The role of press secretary is one of the most prominent, public jobs in any administration. Comfort in front of the cameras and a quick comeback to negative questions about the president are basic requirements.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles met with Jennings this past weekend but has also spoken to “several other people,” an administration official told The Post.
Alternatives to Jennings pushed by MAGA loyalists include deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley, and Breitbart Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle.
Former Counselor to the President Alina Habba sparked frenzied online speculation when she was spotted at Trump’s Bedminster, NJ, golf club over the weekend, but a source insisted Habba was just taking advantage of her privileges as a member and there was no “secret meeting” about the press secretary job.
On Wednesday evening, Habba seemed to both take herself out of the running and add to the speculation when she posted on X: “I’m not in the running for any job. However, if I’m getting a new one, I’d love for one of these anonymous sources to let me know first. Fake news remains the undefeated champ…well…until I come at them.”
Trump has had five press secretaries across his two terms as president — Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, Kayleigh McEnany and Leavitt — and sources say he is open to picking a man for the job after a run of four straight females.
In recent days, Jennings has used his social media platform and his CNN perch to defend both Trump and his longtime aide Natalie Harp, whose working relationship has been the subject of suggestive comments by Democrats like Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).
Until a new press secretary is named, sources say they expect the White House to use a rotating cast of fill-in briefers, continuing the practice established during Leavitt’s maternity leave.
Meanwhile, Trump himself will continue to take questions from the press on a regular — and impromptu — basis.
