Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Today we look at some of the new names being considered as the next face of the White House, we have details of an American media venture headed to London, and why is Debbie Dingell obsessed with Diet Coke?
What do you think of when you picture Donald Trump’s press secretary? Blonde, maybe. Telegenic, certainly. Female, definitely. (With apologies to Sean Spicer.)
Think again.
Sources tell Secrets that a new name is in the frame to take over the vacant White House role.
Hogan Gidley, who was deputy press secretary in the first Trump administration, is apparently being talked up by advisers to the president.
“He has some powerful backers in the White House and among many Trump 45 alumni,” said a former administration official.
They added that Trump was considering choosing a man to do the job this time, following a run of five consecutive women. (Although the source quickly added that the president could very well plump for a blonde woman in the end anyway.)
Gidley is battle-tested. He was on deck through the first impeachment, the Mueller investigation, and four years of a hostile press — very different from the calmer first 18 months of the second Trump term.
He knows what is coming when Democrats take over the House and Senate in January, and has been talked up by some of the president’s most trusted aides.
The fresh maneuvering comes amid a frenzy of personnel changes at the White House as Stephen Miller makes his mark as chief of staff, following the departure of Susie Wiles last week.
Secrets telephoned Gidley to ask if he fancied the job of press secretary on Monday evening.
“Oh boy,” he said before promising to call back after an imminent TV appearance.
He did not call back.
But during his hit on Newsmax, he got the full-throated endorsement of co-panelist Ben Ferguson, the conservative commentator and national radio host.
“Hogan is a good friend of mine,” he said. “If he got this job, I’d be like, ‘Let’s go, buddy! Like, go to war.’”
Gidley smiled.
Ferguson himself is another name in the frame, according to Secrets sources. He has endured barbs as a political commentator for CNN and even spent time as an American commentator on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“If the president calls and offers me the job, I would be honored to serve the president,” he told Sean Hannity on Tuesday night when asked about the role.
Here’s our latest not very scientific review of the names in the frame:
Hogan Gidley
Gidley, 50, is well-known to reporters who covered the first Trump term. In 2020, he moved over to the reelection campaign. Since then, he has worked as a consultant and pro-Trump television voice. He has spent the past two years as an adviser to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Ben Ferguson
A conservative commentator who is best known as host of the nationally syndicated radio program, The Ben Ferguson Show. Ferguson, 45, is also co-host of Verdict with Ted Cruz, which might give him a 2028 option.
Scott Jennings
Frequently named as a frontrunner, but Secrets has always been skeptical that he would give up his media empire for such a modestly paid gig. The role tends to suit someone who is building their media profile, not a 49-year-old who already bestrides the TV world. Plus, his main ally was Wiles. With her gone, he has dropped down the rankings.
Bill Pulte
A 38-year-old businessman who is now the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He was one of the voices pushing to restore the briefing room to its former use as a swimming pool, and he lobbied for the press secretary job earlier this year. He has become one of the most powerful figures in the Trump orbit but has recently thrown his weight behind another candidate, Caroline Sunshine.
Caroline Sunshine
The 31-year-old got her big break on the Disney Channel as a character in Shake It Up. Joined the first Trump administration as an intern, before getting hired as a press assistant. Since then, she has worked on several Republican campaigns and hit the headlines last week calling for Wiles to be fired after the midterm losses.
UK media Reform
You may know Raheem Kassam as the co-owner of Butterworth’s, the Capitol Hill MAGA hang-out, where he can be found most evenings doling out bonhomie and caviar bumps.
But he is also close to Nigel Farage, the British Brexiteer and head of Reform U.K.. And Kassam has journalist chops. He was once the editor-in-chief of Breitbart London and now sees an opportunity to take his American news site, the National Pulse, back home.
He has been crossing the Atlantic frequently in recent months, in part to help steer Reform through recent political upheaval in the United Kingdom, but also in part to set up a new British news operation.
The National Pulse’s U.K. site is staffing up with as many as a dozen writers and influencers to dispense news and comment to Farage’s supporters who feel they have been left high and dry by The Telegraph and Axel Springer, its new German owners. They have signaled they are ending the right-wing newspaper’s flirtation with Reform and moving it back towards the Conservative Party.
Kassam smells an opportunity.
“The Telegraph has decided it just wants to be The Guardian in a Barbour jacket,” he told Secrets. “Britain deserves better.”
You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly. You can reach him at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.
Putting the DC in DC
What’s going on with Rep. Debbie Dingell’s (D-MI) social media feeds? There are images of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presenting her with a Diet Coke-themed cake, a photo of her getting “back to work” while she clutches a bottle of what she sometimes calls “DCs”, and Election Day photos of her “fueling up” or being on her “30th Diet Coke of the day.” Who does she think she is? Donald Trump?
Well, Dingell has history with Diet Coke, if you remember. In 2021, she had to have emergency surgery for a perforated ulcer. Afterward, she joked with reporters that her heavy consumption might finally force her to give up “Diet Coke and junk food.”
But that couldn’t quell her excitement as Election Day, and a Republican drubbing, loomed last week.
“There’s not enough Diet Coke in the world to make this Monday go by any faster,” she posted on X on election eve.
Cue horror from her doctor and subsequent posts about sucking down orange juice.
Lunchtime reading
Putin’s plan for Europe is already written in black and white: Why the latest round of peace talks is doomed to fail: Trump’s envoy may have swallowed the Kremlin line on “security architecture,” but no one else will.
The “let them eat ballrooms” election: “As families grappled with unaffordable housing, rising health insurance premiums, and the cumulative burden of years of inflation, the woman chosen to speak for President Donald Trump was advertising the labels, prices, and exclusivity of her designer wardrobe.”