NEW YORK (AP) — Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has found her next chapter: She is heading to Fox News.
Leavitt will serve as an on-air contributor beginning Nov. 1, the network said Monday.
“Karoline’s firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape,” said the network’s CEO, Suzanne Scott.
For her part, Leavitt, in the same statement, said she looked forward “to bringing my unique perspective from my experience as White House Press Secretary, along with the same energy and candor that defined my tenure, to Fox’s millions of viewers across their many platforms.”
Leavitt, now 29, was the youngest person to hold the role of press secretary. When she left at the end of August, President Donald Trump described her as one of his “most trusted aides.” At the time she said she wanted to spend more time with her two children. Her second child, Viviana, was born in May, and she has a two-year-old son.
Leavitt is not the first of Trump's press secretaries to join Fox. Kayleigh McEnany joined in 2021 and remains at the network. And Dana Perino, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, is a political commentator at the network.
Trump, meanwhile, has hired several Fox News personalities to key jobs in his own administration, chief among them Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Trump has an increasingly thorny relationship with the network, whose key commentators have long given him favorable coverage. He has expressed frustration with Fox coverage choices as recently as Sunday when he bemoaned what he said was the network's lack of coverage of his rallies.
“Sad to see that Fox & Friends (Sunday) is not covering our packed house and incredibly enthusiastic (beyond!) Rally that took place in Ohio last night, or the ones in Alabama, Texas, or Oklahoma over the past two days,” he posted on his Truth Social platform. “They were all sold out, with thousands of people trying to get in, and are absolutely phenomenal, better than ever!”
"Remember, Fox tried this act once before, and almost went out of business (and always right before an election!). That can happen again!" Trump wrote. He also criticized the recent firing of longtime Fox financial journalist Maria Bartiromo.
The comments came as Trump is embroiled in an increasingly bitter standoff with news outlets whose coverage displeases him, capped by his recent efforts to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds and also to keep CNN out of broadcast pool assignments. A judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the ban, and a hearing is scheduled for Thursday as the news outlets seek relief pending a final resolution of the case.
Before becoming White House press secretary, Leavitt served as press secretary for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
She also, at age 25, made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2022 from her home state of New Hampshire.
FILE - The then White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks at the daily briefing at the White House in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising near their records on Monday after a couple buyout announcements helped lift the market.
The S&P 500 added 0.5% and pulled within 0.5% of its all-time high, which was set during the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 30 points, or 0.1%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.8% and was on track to set its own record.
One of the market's strongest gains came from PTC, which leaped 34% for the biggest move in the S&P 500. Schneider Electric of France said it would pay $205 in cash for each of the software company’s shares in a deal valuing it at about $22.6 billion.
That helped lift prices for other stocks in the software industry, and Autodesk rose 5.6%.
RXO, meanwhile, jumped 21.5% after C.H. Robinson Worldwide said it would buy the truck brokerage business in a deal where RXO investors could get $30.25 in cash for each of their shares. C.H. Robinson fell 13% for the largest loss in the S&P 500.
Trading was otherwise relatively quiet as the wait continues for the start of the latest earnings reporting season. Analysts have big expectations for how much profit companies made from July through September. They're forecasting growth of nearly 30% from a year earlier for companies in the S&P 500, according to FactSet. If they're correct, it would be the third straight quarter of growth above 25% for the index.
Such strong growth and the expectation for more are what have allowed stocks to rally near records despite a long list of worries and challenges.
Monday's moves came as the oil market continued to swing because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the global crude industry to return to normal. The price for a barrel of Brent crude veered between $100 and $103 in the morning and was most recently at $101.71, down 0.5%.
Worries about high oil prices have helped push up yields in the bond market, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 5.33% from 5.28% late Friday. It’s near its highest level since 2002.
High yields can slow the economy by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money, while also making investors feel less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments.
Another factor that's been pushing up yields is the strength of the U.S. economy, which is benefiting from big spending by businesses on AI data centers. U.S. consumers also continue to spend and drive the economy, even though they say they're getting more frustrated by the high inflation that's squeezing their finances.
A report on Monday gave a mixed update on the strength of the U.S. economy. It said that activity for real estate, transportation, finance and other businesses in the services industries grew in September for a 27th straight month. But the growth was not quite as strong as economists expected.
The report from the Institute for Supply Management also said that prices U.S. services businesses are paying for materials and services grew at a faster rate, which could be a discouraging signal for upcoming inflation for everyone.
The general expectation on Wall Street is that the Federal Reserve will hike its main interest rate at least once by the end of the year in hopes of reining in the fast increases for the cost of living. The Fed raised its federal funds rate last month for the first time in three years.
In stock markets abroad, France’s CAC 40 fell 0.9% for one of the world’s bigger losses. Worries have been rising about the French government’s big debt and its strained budget.
On the winning side of the globe was Japan, where Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4% on strength for technology stocks.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
FILE - The New York Stock Exchange is shown in New York's Financial District on Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
FILE - Signs mark the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York's Financial District on Wednesday Dec.11, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
