Incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President-elect Donald Trump’s meetings with multiple billionaires stem from the “unifying message” he has spread before and after the election.
Leavitt argued that Trump’s victory against Vice President Kamala Harris is what has given Silicon Valley and Wall Street billionaires “the courage” to declare their support for the president-elect. It comes after billionaires, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, have met with Trump over the past month before the incoming president is inaugurated in January 2025.
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“And as President Trump has said, everybody wants to be his friend right now, and he’s OK with that,” Leavitt said on Fox News’s Hannity, guest-hosted by Kellyanne Conway. “He is building a team of people, from Wall Street to Main Street, who want to make this country great again and help him deliver on the promises that he made to the American people on the campaign trail. Common sense solutions to fix the problems in their lives — cutting taxes, ending inflation, securing the southern border, deporting illegal criminals, rapists and murderers from our American communities, and using peace through strength to end the wars and that chaos that we’ve seen the Harris Biden administration cause abroad.”
The latest official of high standing to meet with Trump is District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, who confirmed her meeting with the incoming president on Monday night and their shared goal to make Washington “the most beautiful city in the world.” Amid Trump’s meetings with billionaires and several Democrats, Leavitt contended that Trump’s plan to improve the lives of U.S. residents will unify the country “through success,” which she said was Trump’s “No. 1 goal.”
Trump nominated Leavitt, 27, for White House press secretary last month, which will make her the youngest person to hold the position. Before standing behind the podium, Leavitt said the Trump administration is working to modernize the White House press room, emphasizing that it needs to reflect the 2020s and not the 1980s.
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The incoming press secretary further explained that the majority of U.S. residents are no longer listening to the “anti-Trump legacy media” and are instead turning to alternative outlets such as social media platforms. It comes after Trump utilized TikTok in the months leading up to the election and also made multiple podcast interviews, including The Joe Rogan Experience.
“And so we will look to effectively communicate his message through all mediums so all Americans are hearing the facts from the White House directly, not through the lens of the ever-biased anti-Trump legacy media,” Leavitt said.
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The Trump administration’s work to modernize the White House press room was first teased in November by Donald Trump Jr., who said there had been talks to “open up the press room” to podcast hosts and independent journalists.
Following the 2024 election, podcast host Joe Rogan said legacy media has eroded its credibility over the years and that it is driving a growing number of people to independent media sources such as podcasts. Rogan also assessed how communicating through cable news television “doesn’t work anymore,” comparing it to “using smoke signals” while everyone else is using cellphones.