Long known as a favorite forum for liberal viewers, ABC’s The View has also become one of daytime television’s most visible stages for progressive criticism of the president.
Now, in a surprising twist, the network’s flagship talk show is interested in bringing outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to the table, two sources told Our News Outlet.
Leavitt is understood to be weighing the possibility, and the idea has reportedly drawn strong encouragement from President Donald Trump as well as other senior figures inside the White House.
The 29-year-old stunned Washington earlier this month when she announced she would step away from the high-profile press secretary role at the end of August, saying she wanted to devote more time to her newborn daughter, Viviana, and her 2-year-old son, Nicholas.
Leavitt’s final day behind the White House podium is Thursday.
According to one source, producers at The View are hoping to book Leavitt as a guest shortly after her departure from the administration, effectively using the appearance as a potential trial run. But the interest is said to go beyond a one-off booking, with the show seriously considering her for a permanent seat on its all-female daytime panel.
A second source told Our News Outlet that formal negotiations have not started, though ABC representatives have made their interest unmistakable to people in Leavitt’s circle.
Leavitt declined to comment when contacted by Our News Outlet. ABC also did not issue a comment, although a person familiar with the program confirmed that The View has invited Leavitt to appear as a guest. The long-running daytime show is set to launch its 30th season 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.
