Kimberly Guilfoyle To Replace Sean Spicer As White House Press Secretary Reportedly Under Consideration
President Trump is reportedly considering hiring Kimberly Guilfoyle as White House press secretary to replace Sean Spicer as part of a shakeup of his communications team.
After the November 2016 election, Guilfoyle reportedly met with Trump transition officials at Trump Tower on several occasions about the press secretary job before it went to Spicer, the communications director of the Republican National Committee in Washington for the previous five years. There was some chatter that Spicer and Guilfoyle could share the job, but that apparently never came to fruition.
As a member of the GOP establishment, Spicer may or may not be a complete fit with Trump’s freewheeling and sometimes contradictory style, particularly when it’s necessary to stay on offense rather than allow the media to put him on the defensive so often. There was buzz last week that Sarah Huckabee Saunders came across as a more effective advocate for the Trump administration than Spicer during the press gaggle.
Working in the West Wing is a grueling proposition, especially last week with all the furor over the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and given the turnover that occurs among the White House staff, the door is presumably not completely shut for any qualified person interested in a role, press secretary or otherwise, in the Trump administration.
In December, Kimberly Guilfoyle acknowledged that she was flattered and honored to have been considered for a position in the Trump administration.
As White House press secretary if that ever comes to fruition, Guilfoyle would have to take a pay cut and move with her young son from New York City to D.C. On the other hand, anyone who worked on a president’s communications team can generally write his or her own ticket in media or public relations after leaving government service, and Fox (or a competitor) would probably re-hire Guilfoyle in a New York minute, if it ever came to that.
A vocal Trump supporter, “KG” is the co-host of The Five that airs on the Fox News Channel Monday through Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern which features five panelists in a roundtable discussion format, and she also regularly appears on other Fox News and Fox Business shows as a political and legal commentator. The Five moved from its original 5 p.m. time slot after the reconfiguration of the FNC prime time lineup following Bill O’Reilly’s departure.
Dana Perino, one of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s colleagues on The Five, was the White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. A Bush family loyalist and generally part of the #NeverTrump GOP cohort, Perino has more or less admitted that the Bush administration failed to push back effectively on negative coverage.
The former high-profile California prosecutor and later first lady of San Francisco when she was married to then-Mayor Gavin Newsom (a Democrat who is now his state’s lieutenant governor), Guilfoyle, 48, worked for Court TV and CNN before signing on with Fox News in January 2006.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kimberly Guilfoyle is the daughter of an Irish cop and a Puerto Rican schoolteacher and was born in San Francisco. She is a graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law and modeling for the Victoria’s Secret catalog is included on her resume.
According to the New York Times, which President Trump has criticized for being part of what he considers the fake news cabal, the president might tell some staffers they’re fired and possible hire Kimberly Guilfoyle.
“Mr. Trump is growing increasingly dissatisfied with the performance of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; the communications director, Michael Dubke; and Mr. Spicer, a Priebus ally, according to a half-dozen West Wing officials who said the president was considering the most far-reaching shake-up of his already tumultuous term…He has been especially critical of Mr. Spicer, they said, openly musing about replacing him and telling people in his circle that he kept his own press secretary out of the loop in dismissing Mr. Comey until the last possible moment because he feared that the communications staff would leak the news… And while Mr. Trump has raised the Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle to allies as a possible press secretary, he has spent several hours with Mr. Spicer this week, praising his television ‘ratings’ during the briefings.”
In highlighting the challenges working for the incumbent, Trump loyalist Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House Speaker, suggested to the Times that Trump is like a football quarterback who doesn’t reveal the play to his offensive line and then expects them to defend him effectively.
In a tweet, Trump seemed to acknowledged the challenges faced by his spokespersons and has floated the idea of cancelling or cutting back on the often contentious White House press briefings.
As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
…Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
On Wednesday, Trump trolled Democrats who now claim they are outraged over the Comey firing with a video clip of many of them previously bashing the ex-FBI director.
The Democrats should be ashamed. This is a disgrace!#DrainTheSwamp pic.twitter.com/UfbKEECm2V
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2017
In another similar compilation embedded below, the Washington Free Beacon details how Democrats radically changed their tune about Comey.
According to social media engagement on Facebook, the American public is paying minimal attention to the James Comey controversy, despite the wall-to-wall media coverage, Axios reported.
Do you think that Kimberley Guilfoyle would be an upgrade over Sean Spicer as President Trump’s White House press secretary?
[Featured Image by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Images]
