Aug. 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump named his longtime aide, Hope Hicks, as interim White House communications director Wednesday.
Hicks, the assistant to president and director of strategic affairs, replaces Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 10 days in the job, the White House announced.
Former press secretary Sean Spicer twice dually served as communications director. Mike Dubke resigned from the post in May and Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller was offered the position, but he stepped down on Christmas Eve for family reasons.
“Hope Hicks will work with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and all of the communications team and serve as the Interim White House Communications Director,” a White House official said in a statement. “We will make an announcement on a permanent communications director at the appropriate time.”
Hicks, 28, first worked with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, when she was at a public relations firm. She joined the Trump Organization in New York in 2014 and Trump named her his campaign press secretary in 2015.
“Mr. Trump looked at me and said, ‘I’m thinking about running for president, and you’re going to be my press secretary,'” Hicks told New York magazine in 2016. “I think it’s ‘the year of the outsider.’ It helps to have people with outsider perspective.”
Hicks is “sometimes treated like an extended family member,” Politico reported.
She has worked behind the scenes during the campaign and in the White House. A White House official told CNN she will remain in her current office space near the Oval Office.
She grew up in Greenwhich, Conn., was a teen model, played lacrosse in high school and graduated from Southern Methodist University, according to a profile in Town & County magazine.
Her parents met while they were working on Capitol Hill for opposite political parties. Her mother, Cay Anne, was a legislative aide for a Democrat from Tennessee and her father, Paul, was chief of staff for a Republican congressman from Connecticut.
