The White House press secretary's job has been empty for ten days, and on Sunday the man who runs the White House's communications put forward a name for it in the most public way possible. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted a video of himself interviewing Nicki Minaj aboard Air Force One and captioned it: "Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have found the new White House Press Secretary!" Minaj quote-posted the video minutes later with an American flag and a laughing emoji, and the clip has since been watched millions of times.
The seat Cheung was joking about filling is a real vacancy. Katie Zacharia took the podium on October 9, succeeding Karoline Leavitt, and was gone five days later, after a single 14-minute briefing and mounting questions about her legal credentials — the shortest tenure of any White House press secretary in history. President Donald Trump, who had defended her against what he called nasty treatment, told reporters, "Maybe it's not for her," and let her make the call. The White House has signalled it is in no rush to name a permanent replacement before the November 3 midterm elections.
The two-minute interview itself was staged like an audition. Seated across a conference table inside the aircraft, Cheung put the questions a press secretary would face. Asked why the economy is growing, Minaj answered: "We have a president that understands economics, first of all. The president is naturally a businessman. He's worked his way out of not having a dollar left in the bank. So if he can do that with himself and his own finances, surely he knows what to do with the country. He's very tough. Internationally, he tells them what we need, not what they need."
"Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have found the new White House Press Secretary!" — Steven Cheung, White House communications director, captioning his Air Force One interview with Nicki Minaj
Asked whether anyone works harder than Trump on the campaign trail, Minaj said absolutely not. Asked about the polls, she turned the question around: "Well, let's ask Hillary Clinton how fake the fake polls are. We don't pay those polls any mind. Obviously, they are there to deter our voters from going out and casting their votes. Conservatives, we are winning, and we need not let anything stand in our way."
The prediction-market company Kalshi quickly turned the float into a market on the vacancy: its traders put deputy press secretary Anna Kelly first at 24%, Minaj at 8% and commentator Scott Jennings at 5%.
Hours after the interview was posted, Minaj joined Trump on stage at his rally in Port Huron, Michigan, where she led "We Love Trump" chants — the float and the rally appearance landing on the same day, in the middle of the closing stretch of the midterm campaign. No formal nomination has been announced, and Cheung's post was playful in tone: an audition tape, not an appointment. But it was posted by the White House's own communications director, on the president's own aircraft, about the most scrutinised communications job in Washington.
Minaj's own verdict on the man she would be speaking for came in her answer about his work ethic: "You have a man who's won three elections. You know, legacy media continues to attack him left and right, and what does he do? He wakes up at four o'clock in the morning, he outworks people who are half his age. He knows that he would be fine — he can kick his feet up and just chill out for the rest of his presidency. But no, he's paying it forward. He's thinking about the other Republicans that have to win during these elections. So that tells me that he's a great guy."
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