Questions over Karoline Leavitt’s replacement as she steps down as White House press secretary – US politics live

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Karoline Leavitt steps down as White House press secretary three months before midterms

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s decision to step down from the role comes less than three months before the midterm elections.

President Donald Trump announced yesterday that Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month to spend more ‌time with her young family.

Leavitt, 28 and the youngest person to hold the role, called it a “bittersweet decision” in a social media post Wednesday shortly after President Donald Trump made the announcement.

She is expected to remain involved as an outside Trump adviser and influential Republican voice.

Trump said he supported the move, though some argue it has come at a pivotal time for the president, with midterm elections due to be held on 3 November 2026.

Historically, the president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections, and Trump’s low approval ratings could pose a challenge for Republicans in November.

Donald Trump’s net approval rating has fallen to -27, a new record low, according to The Economist’s tracker of YouGov polling.

Her departure has also raised questions over who will replace her as White House press secretary and take on the crucial task of communicating the administration’s message in the run-up to the midterm elections.

The administration has not yet announced who will replace Leavitt.

Karoline Leavitt wearing a pink blazer standing at the White House podium making an announcement.

In other developments:

The two most senior members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, secretary of state Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, flew out of last month’s Nato summit in Turkey on what was effectively a decoy plane after an Iranian threat, while Trump was secretly moved to a smaller military jet, a senior US official said Wednesday.

Key events

Michael Sainato

The Trump administration has been accused of “bullying and intimidation” after a labor union leader and critic was put under investigation and suspended from his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Stephen Wheeler, a data scientist at the agency since 2022 and chair of the CFPB union organizing committee, was placed on administrative leave effective immediately earlier this month. The union said it was not provided with any specific violations or given any details of the investigation.

The CFPB – conceived by the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis – has long been a target of Republicans.

When Donald Trumpappointed Russell Vought, architect of the rightwing manifesto Project 2025, to oversee the agency last February, Elon Musk posted, “CFPB RIP,” on X

The labor union representing workers at the agency, the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335, noted that Wheeler had been a vocal presence at union pickets, sitting behind Vought during his testimony in Congress in July, and had recently spoken with NPR about the forced relocation of staff at the agency.

Workers have viewed the relocation and return-to-office mandates at the agency as a means to force resignations, after an appeals court blocked attempted mass firings at the agency by the Trump administration in June 2026.

“An investigation with no stated scope or scale is no investigation – it’s a fishing expedition,” Wheeler said. “I have nothing to hide, and when the facts are examined this will be seen for what it is: bullying and intimidation for union activity and protected speech.”

Max Miller’s ex-wife sues him for ‘recklessly’ publishing an image of their daughter as part of custody battle

Emily Moreno, the ex-wife of the embattled congressman Max Miller, has sued her former husband and his lawyer for uploading a picture of their infant daughter to a publicly accessible Dropbox folder as part of their custody battle.

The complaint argues that Miller “recklessly published and disclosed to the world a nude image” of their daughter.

The photos were part of a tranche of evidence that Miller’s team compiled in response to the domestic abuse allegations the lawmaker is facing following his divorce.

The suit says that Miller – who is seeking re-election despite a wave of calls to resign – “so desperately wanted to salvage his political job” that he “recklessly and intentionally” provided his lawyer (Aaron Minc) with “a trove of documents and photos, indifferent about what they contained or how they were used.”

Miller then shared the link to the files online after he went live on social media to refute the allegations against him on 2 August.

Moreno’s lawyers note that “more than 400,000 people saw or interacted with” Miller’s posts containing the Dropbox folder.

The lawsuit – filed in US district court for the Northern district of Ohio – demands the court award $150,000 in damages for “every time someone accessed, transferred, distributed, published, or downloaded the image” of their daughter.

At the time, Minc had accepted sole responsibility for inadvertently releasing the unredacted image of Moreno and Miller’s daughter in the files.

Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll spend most of day in private meetings that will be closed to the press. We’ll keep an eye out for any more information on the president’s replacement pick for White House press secretary, following the news that Karoline Leavitt would step down from her role at the end of August.

A federal judge in Miami will hear arguments on Thursday over whether social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate should remain in custody as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking.

Magistrate Lauren Louis will have a chance to question both sides before determining if the brothers, who have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, should stay in jail or be released during what could be a months long extradition process.

The Tate brothers have remained in a federal detention center in Miami since making a brief court appearance two days after their 18 July arrest. Their attorneys have argued the Tates’ high profile makes it nearly impossible for them to flee and that they regularly post updates about their locations on social media.

According to the US attorney’s office filing, the Tates should be detained pending their extradition hearing because they cannot overcome the strong presumption against bail in international extradition cases.

ICE’s plan to give officers electric shock gloves draws outrage and fears of misuse

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers gloves that deliver painful electric shocks faced criticism Wednesday from Democratic elected officials and civil rights advocates, who called it unnecessary and cruel.

ICE plans to spend between $10m and $20m to outfit officers and agents with “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices,” according to a notice published Monday and revealed first by The Associated Press.

The devices known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, are normal patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate its electrical mode.

They must be applied directly to someone’s skin to produce a voltage that causes pain, which is intended to gain compliance from people who are resisting. Unlike Tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks.

The size of the purchase suggests ICE plans to give the device to most or all of its officers. The gloves have been used by local departments more often in jails than in the streets, where ICE officers have increasingly used force to extract people from cars and faced protests over their actions carrying out President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, says it Is working to ensure officers “have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens.”