WASHINGTON—Vice President JD Vance will hold a White House press briefing on Thursday afternoon, the first such briefing since former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s departure at the end of last month.
Vance is scheduled to take the podium at 1:00 p.m. ET in what is sure to be a jam-packed James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. This will be the first press briefing since July 23 and at least time Vance has briefed the press since the start of the administration.
A replacement for Leavitt has not been named, and speculation mounted starting on Tuesday about who would be behind the podium as reports circulated that a briefing would take place.
FLASHBACK: Karoline Leavitt — Communism Should Never Be Allowed to Lead the United States
Many across the media have speculated who would replace Leavitt in the long term, but the search for a new press secretary under Trump is not as pressing as it may be under previous presidents because Trump engages with reporters regularly.
In 2025, for instance, Trump spoke at almost 500 transcribed events and engaged with reporters at 74 percent of them, as Breitbart News exclusively reported in January.
During Leavitt’s maternity leave, the White House employed the same strategy we will see Thursday, with top officials across the administration—like Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz—holding briefings.
White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly emphasized to Fox News on Wednesday that Trump is his own best spokesman and touched on the strong performances from cabinet officials in Leavitt’s absence.
“When Karoline was on maternity leave, we had a great cast of members of the president’s cabinet, the vice president, all coming through, and of course, the president is his own best spokesperson,” she said when asked about Thursday’s briefing.
“So we will be having that briefing tomorrow. I won’t spoil any… surprises though.”
