Welcome to the latest installment of Washington Secrets, your user guide to the capital’s politics. Today, we have the juice on who will stand in for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt when she goes on maternity leave, an exclusive look at one of the likely big winners of Donald Trump’s Russian oil sanctions (TLDR: He will be hopping mad).
President Donald Trump will lose his “machine gun lips” in May when Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, goes on maternity leave, vacating the lectern while she has her second baby.
The result is rampant speculation about who might replace one of Trump’s most effective officials.
Tricia McLaughlin, the glamorous and punchy spokeswoman at the Department of Homeland Security, has frequently been cited by administration officials as the best equipped to stand in. Her Fox News appearances have won rave reviews, and she has, after all, been well and truly tested in recent weeks amid a series of crises.
But Secrets can reveal that Leavitt will not have a stand-in. Instead, her role will be covered by a rolling cast of big hitters.
“Marco [Rubio] will get up,” she told Secrets in the comfort of her White House office, where a log fire burned against the winter cold. “So too will the Vice President. There will be special guests.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are two of the biggest names in an administration built of cabinet secretaries picked in part for their prowess on television. Any appearances they make will trigger comparisons and more intrigue about which will emerge as the strongest contender for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
Secrets will leave headlines about 2028 auditions to others. But that it will take such important figures to fill in is a reminder of how the youngest press secretary in history — Leavitt is still only 28 — has been one of the breakout stars of the Trump administration.
“She is so impressive,” cooed one first-time visitor to the Briefing Room on Tuesday. “And you could see her face toughen when she got a question she didn’t like.”
Minutes earlier, Leavitt had ended the briefing by rolling through a list of the administration’s achievements after being asked one time too many about ties between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein.
Her take-no-prisoners approach made her an indispensable figure during the last months of the election campaign.
She famously managed only four days of maternity leave when she had her first baby, named Niko, in July 2024, hurrying back on to the airwaves after the attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Lara Trump, the President’s daughter-in-law, shut down any suggestions that Leavitt could be replaced during a recent interview, citing how she handled her first pregnancy.
“Karoline Leavitt is a machine. She’s incredible. And she’s going nowhere,” Lara, Eric Trump’s wife, told Fox News. “We’re all going to be watching as Karoline Leavitt absolutely schools the fake news media while she’s probably eight and nine months pregnant.”
She also played down any idea that there would be a permanent replacement.
“I’ve seen some stories out there … who’s next in line? Nobody’s next in line. It’s Karoline,” Leavitt said.
Other names in the mix were NewsNation host Katie Pavlich, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, and Monica Crowley, Trump’s protocol chief and former Fox News contributor.
Trump foe in line to profit from Russia sanctions
Trump’s sanctions on Russian oil will claim their biggest scalp when Lukoil, one of the world’s biggest energy companies, sells its overseas assets.
Just one problem: Does the President know that the $22 billion deal will be something of a coup for David Rubenstein, champion of the liberal elite? His Carlyle Group is now on course to secure billions of dollars in Lukoil assets, turning it into a major player in the energy sector.
Trump and Rubenstein once regarded each other as friends, but the private equity billionaire has emerged in recent years as a key backer of the sort of “woke” initiatives that infuriate MAGAworld.
Last year, Trump unceremoniously dumped Rubenstein as chairman of the Kennedy Center, along with the rest of the board who “do not share our vision for a golden age in arts and culture.”
“He hates Rubenstein,” said a former White House official. “That guy led the anti-Trump faction of the D.C. elite. The president has spent the past year undoing the mess he left at the Kennedy Center. I wouldn’t want to be the one telling him about this deal.”
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil companies in October to choke the flow of cash to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian war effort. Lukoil quickly announced it would sell its foreign assets.
Secrets understands that Lukoil and Carlyle Group executives are due to meet today, after announcing a preliminary deal last month.
It puts Rubenstein on a collision course with the Trump administration. The U.S. Treasury will have to sign off on any final agreement, which means he may have awkward questions to answer about his past political comments.
For example, Rubenstein dedicated his 2020 book, “How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers,” to people who resisted Trump’s first presidency.
“In the end, I dedicate the book to the public servants who made it possible for us to preserve our democracy [under attack from Trump],” he told The Guardian. “I do think that, for example, had all the judges gone the wrong way, we’d be in a different situation today.”
Allies of the president accuse Rubenstein’s companies of promoting DEI initiatives. They also point to his work on historic monuments.
For example, Rubenstein bankrolled work at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate designed to “finish the restoration of the landscape of slavery.” Signage added the word “enslaved” to job descriptions for valets and cooks, among others.
And he was particularly close to President Joe Biden, who stays on his Nantucket estate each Thanksgiving. Biden repaid the favor by awarding Rubenstein the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, for his support of cultural institutions and monuments.
The Carlyle Group and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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Lunchtime reading
Compass Coffee had Starbucks-size ambitions. Here’s how it unraveled: Compass has long been the preferred purveyor of caffeinated drinks for Secrets. And its empty coffeeshops are a cause for sadness. Its downfall was not just the pandemic and a hollowed-out city center.
Why Netanyahu raced to Washington over Iran: This was a preview of Wednesday’s meeting, but still well worth reading: “Netanyahu appears to believe this moment is unique — that Iran is weaker than it has been in years: economically strained, internally divided, and strategically exposed after recent regional confrontations. In his assessment, a limited agreement would squander a rare opportunity to alter the regime’s trajectory, particularly at a time of unprecedented U.S. military presence in the region.”