Longtime aide to President Trump Hope Hicks will take over the role as interim director of communications while the West Wing looks for someone to fill the position permanently.
News of Hicks’s appointment comes just over two weeks after the firing of Anthony Scaramucci, who spent a mere 10 days as Trump’s communications director.
“Hope Hicks will work with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and all of the communications team and serve as the Interim White House Communications Director. We will make an announcement on a permanent communications director at the appropriate time,” a White House official said, per pool reports.
{mosads}Hicks, the president’s director of strategic communications, worked for the Trump Organization before the president entered the 2016 Republican primary, and she served as a spokesperson during the presidential campaign.
Scaramucci, a former hedge fund manager, was pushed out on July 31, the same day then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly took over as White House chief of staff.
During his short time working in the West Wing, Scaramucci forcefully vowed to go after White House leakers and engaged in a profanity-fueled rant against fellow Trump aides over the phone with a New Yorker reporter.
Hicks came to Trump’s presidential bid as a political outsider and has kept a relatively low-profile, despite being with Trump since he first announced his candidacy. Unlike other White House advisers, Hicks has not appeared on cable news shows to represent the administration.
The Trump White House has struggled in its communications department.
Campaign aide Jason Miller was announced as communications director during the presidential transition, but he backed out of the position a month before Trump was sworn in.
Sean Spicer at one point was serving double-duty as both press secretary and director of communications before eventually stepping down from both roles.