It’s beloved by liberal America and one of the biggest platforms for progressives to bash the president.
But ABC’s The View wants outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to join the panel show, two sources tell the Daily Mail.
Leavitt is said to be considering the idea, which has been met with enthusiastic support from President Donald Trump and other White House officials.
Leavitt, 29, made the shock announcement earlier this month that she would be leaving her plum job at the end of August to spend more time with her newborn daughter Viviana and son Nicholas, 2.
Thursday is Leavitt’s last day as press secretary.
The View wants to host Leavitt as a guest soon after she leaves the White House as a bit of a test run, one source said, but producers are serious about adding her to the all-female daytime lineup as a permanent fixture.
A second source told the Daily Mail that official talks have not yet begun, but that ABC representatives have made it very clear to people close to Leavitt that they want her.
Leavitt declined to comment when asked by the Daily Mail. ABC did not comment either, but a source familiar with the program confirmed The View has extended an invitation to Leavitt to appear as a guest. The show’s 30th season will begin this fall.
Karoline Leavitt announced in August that she would step down as press secretary. She is pictured Thursday on her last day
The View co-hosts have long been hostile to President Donald Trump and his agenda
Discussions about future media positions while still in the White House are delicate. Legally, government officials cannot negotiate private sector job opportunities while still in office.
Under President Joe Biden, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was criticized for lining up a job with MSNBC before announcing her exit from the White House.
The addition of Leavitt, widely considered by MAGA supporters to be the best communicator President Trump has ever had, would be a sharp turnaround for The View.
The show has long struggled to bring on an authentic conservative personality to challenge the largely liberal panel – which currently consists of Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Though there were hopes former White House communications director Griffin would bring some controversy when she joined the show after Trump’s first term, she declared the president ‘unfit for office’ after the January 6 protests.
Trump’s contempt for The View is longstanding and personal. At an October 2024 rally he singled out Hostin as ‘dumber than Kamala,’ adding: ‘That is one dumb woman. She’s a fool.’
He has turned on Goldberg, too, branding her ‘demented,’ ‘vulgar and repulsive’ and a ‘loser.’
As for the show itself, Trump has dismissed The View as ‘stupid,’ with a panel of ‘really dumb people.’
But sending his own press secretary into the midst would surely give him an ardent cheerleader on a television program that still manages to drive political narratives. So it is perhaps unsurprising that Trump is said to welcome the idea of Leavitt joining the show.
ABC and its parent company, The Walt Disney Company, filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 18.
The lawsuit claims the FCC ordered an early review of eight of their station broadcast licenses because of their political content criticizing the president and his administration, which amounted to censorship. It comes after Trump assailed ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for a joke about First Lady Melania Trump.
The View’s current panel of hosts have personally criticized Leavitt’s performance as press secretary.
Goldberg memorably raged that Leavitt’s comments condemning ‘wokeness’ in the media ‘really p***ed me off.’
Behar once argued that Leavitt only got her job because of her looks.
‘I think that she’s probably been put in there because according to Donald Trump, she’s a 10,’ Behar said.
And after Leavitt said that Gen Z and younger Americans had been raised with ‘silver spoons in their mouths,’ Hostin fired back calling the comments ‘rich’ coming from a woman married to a real estate multimillionaire decades her senior. Leavitt’s husband Nicholas Riccio is 60.
Whoopi Goldberg (left) and Joy Behar famously criticized Leavitt at the beginning of the current administration for her comments criticizing ‘wokeness’
Leavitt has also come under fire from Sunny Hostin (pictured)
Hostin criticized Leavitt’s age-gap marriage. Her husband Nicholas Riccio (right) is 60.
But those are just the kind of fiery interactions that have fueled the show’s longevity.
Trump, who has said that he ‘totally understands and respects’ Leavitt’s decision to leave her role as press secretary, joked at a White House event on Monday that ‘she decided she loved her children more than she loved Donald Trump, I’m very upset about this.’
Leavitt is expected to remain as an ongoing advisor to the president, telling reporters last week she would join Trump’s SuperPAC MAGA Inc.
Trump and his chief of staff Susie Wiles have not settled on a replacement for Leavitt, with plans in place rely on a rotating list of cabinet members to conduct briefings for the press in the meantime.
