What Trump's Former White House Team Is Doing Now

Former President Donald Trump ran his administration like he ran his reality TV show — with cast members circling in and out as the drama aired across late night cable news shows. As Vulture points out, he regularly spoke about the ratings as episodes were pieced together through Fox News segments and tweet storms. In particular, his story arc with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, where they held a button measuring contest over a series of tweets and press releases, seemed about as infamously petty as the moment Theresa Giudice flipped a table while screaming at Danielle Staub on Season 1 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The only difference is it came with the unfortunate caveat of involving real nuclear weapons and the panic-inducing threat of World War 3.

Now that the Trump administration has aired its final season (pending any 2024 reboot), the cast of The Apprentice: White House have all moved on to different projects. From the key players to the supporting characters, here's what the stars of the Trump administration are up to now.

Ivanka Trump's husband Jared Kushner is just a couple degrees of separation away from Taylor Swift through sister-in-law Karlie Kloss, an alleged ex-member of Swift's purported girl squad. As such, Kushner — who previously served as a senior advisor to Donald Trump — has positioned himself as an outcast in politics, amassing a landfill of controversy large enough to rival that floating garbage island in the Pacific. According to Vox, this includes everything from his downgraded security clearance and numerous supposed conflicts of interest to his involvement in the infamous Trump Tower meeting that was at the center of Robert Mueller's investigation into possible Russian interference with the 2016 U.S presidential election. So, where is Kushner now? Just about as far away from Washington as he can get.

According to CNN Politics, Kushner has been "MIA" from Trump's so-called "political pack" and is, once and for all, "effectively done with Trump's rhetoric" (perhaps Kloss got through to Kushner as she claims to have tried). One insider told the network that "he's just checked out of politics," purportedly along with his wife, considering another insider told CNN that he's taking "some much needed time with his family." Other insiders told the publication that Trump is currently "angry" with Kushner, but that would hardly be the first time someone fought with their in-laws.

Basically, Kushner and Ivanka are enjoying their new lives on an indefinite Miami vacation.

Kayleigh McEnany's position at the White House raised a lot of questions. According to the Associated Press, she served dual roles, acting as the administration's press secretary and a Trump 2020 campaign advisor. This reportedly created "odd moments" (like whether McEnany's $183,000 per year taxpayer-financed salary was appropriate), and as Deadline writes, annoyed reporters who believed she was "acting more as a Trump campaign press secretary than government official." She was, after all, meant to be representing the White House. 

Still a newcomer when she left along with the rest of the administration, McEnany ultimately landed at Fox News before the ink was dry on whatever non-disclosure exit agreements the Trumps may have made her sign. Per a report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of her financial disclosure forms revealed she signed a deal with the network in January 2021 after Trump had lost the election. During the president's lame duck period, McEnany appeared on the network more than 20 times. Three months into her new gig, she's already off to a good start, helping peddle a particularly bizarre conspiracy theory about President Joe Biden's alleged "mental decline," per Independent. She is, apparently, the dream Fox & Friends is made of.

As former senior counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway is responsible for some of the Trump Administration's most memorable story arcs, including the invention of the Bowling Green Massacre and the practically patented phrase "alternative facts." Her unwavering support for Donald Trump, along with her husband's unwavering opposition, made for a family dynamic so bizarre its unequivocally worthy of its own reality TV show. According to Vanity Fair, George Conway even reportedly claimed his wife was "in a cult."

Kellyanne ended up resigning from her position in August 2020 to focus on her family, claiming (via The Washington Post) that the homestead needed "less drama, more mama." Not long after, she became publicly embroiled with a salacious public feud with her teenage daughter, Claudia, who accused her mother of being "physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive" in a series of TikTok videos, according to Vox. 

At the time of this writing, Kellyanne has supported her daughter throughout her run on the 19th season of American Idol, where she was eventually eliminated. Per Page Six, Kellyanne also managed to parlay her White House tenure into a "multimillion dollar book deal" (read: we're getting a spin off!).

Elaine Chao is often overshadowed by her husband Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest serving GOP leader in history who, in recent years, has been "relishing his turn as villain to the left," according to Politico. Chao helmed Former President Donald Trump's Department of Transportation — an appointment that came with a slight pang of irony as her husband famously opposed the former reality star's $2 trillion infrastructure spending bill, which as The Hill notes, was one of his initial campaign promises. Nonetheless, both Chao and McConnell were aligned on the insurrection, and it ultimately led to Chao's resignation.

According to The New York Times, Chao was the first cabinet member to resign after the Capitol riots. In a Twitter resignation, she claimed she was "deeply troubled" by the events. Per NPR, McConnell later blamed Trump for provoking the riot (despite voting to acquit Trump in is second impeachment trial, which accused him of doing exactly that).

Chao is still married to McConnell, who became Senate Minority Leader in 2021 following the Georgia runoff elections that gave Democrats a narrow majority. According to Business Insider, who combed over a report from the Transportation Department's inspector general, Chao faces accusations of allegedly misusing her office, including asking her staffers to help with her family's business by promoting her father's biography and "editing his Wikipedia page."

There's been major speculation as to whether John Bolton, Former President Trump's third national security advisor, quit or was fired back in 2019. As we previously reported, during his term, he didn't have quite the same drama as his predecessor, Michael Flynn, who ended up being a key player in Robert Mueller's investigation, admitted he lied under oath about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. But by all accounts, Bolton did not get along with Trump. Per BBC, they regularly butted heads until Trump tweeted (via HuffPost) that Bolton's services were "no longer needed." He claimed that he asked Bolton to resign, but Bolton claimed he was the one who offered to resign.

Either way, Bolton left the White House and did what most scored staffers do: he wrote a salacious tell-all book. According to The New York Times, The Room Where It Happened centered around Trump's first impeachment and claimed that the former president should have been investigated numerous times — not just when he allegedly pressured Ukraine in the infamous quid pro quo incident. Bolton claimed Trump regularly seemed willing to effectively "give personal favors to dictators he liked," alleging "the pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept." 

Bolton's book ended up becoming a No. 1 best-seller on Amazon before brick-and-mortar stores even stocked it, as the Justice Department attempted — and failed — to stop its publication.

John Ratcliffe has had a long career in politics, first serving as the mayor of Heath, Texas, then joining Congress as a U.S. Representative. His so-called story arc with the Trump administration was short and sweet, lasting all but a few months in the revolving door role of director of national intelligence. Nonetheless, he was there. He was part of it, and just as swiftly, he was replaced by Avril Haines, the first woman to ever hold the role, as President Joe Biden took office.

Since then, Ratcliffe's biggest claim to fame is stoking the public's fear of UFO's during a Fox News segment where he announced the existence of a comprehensive report on so-called "anomalous aerial vehicles" (i.e. alien space crafts). "There are a lot more sightings than have been made public," he told host Maria Bartiromo. "Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that, frankly, engage in actions that are difficult to explain."

He then went on to explain that some of these UFO's used technology humans haven't yet developed or "speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom." So, when War of the Worlds reboots as a documentary rather than a highly underrated Tom Cruise flick, don't say no one ever warned you. The Space Force doesn't sound so funny anymore, does it?

Like many Trump supporters faced with Twitter's increasingly stringent policies regarding the spread of false news and conspiracy theories, Russell Vought left his post as Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director and joined Parler. The oft-scrutinized social media platform, which NPR reports was booted off Amazon's servers for failing to remove "violent and hateful posts," is widely regarded as a safe haven for the far-right. It even reportedly played a role in the organization of the deadly January riots at the Capitol, according to The Washington Post.

Prior to Vought's White House exit, which came as President Joe Biden transitioned into office, he was criticized for attempting to "sabotage" the new administration. The Washington Post chastised  the OMB director for failing to control debt within his two years of service, leading to a $6 trillion increase, the largest in American history. He was also accused of "block[ing] civil servants" in his department from "cooperating with the Biden transition" and refusing to help Biden with "policy analysis and budget preparation," as is customary. Did he succeed in his efforts? Not really.

Upon taking office, Biden almost immediately sought to reverse some of Vought's policies, which included reinstating accountability measures that Vought had dismantled and military diversity training that Vought targeted. Since leaving the White House, Vought moved on to launch the Center for American Restoration, which Axios describes as a "pro-Trump think tank."

Richard Grenell lasted but a season as acting director of national intelligence before he was swiftly replaced by John Ratcliffe. During those sweet three months, Vanity Fair reports that the former ambassador to Germany was "widely disliked by diplomats and journalists." A former staffer even told the magazine that "Ric Grenell is basically like the bumper guards at the bowling alley that you put up for kids so that they can hit some pins, that is what he is like for Trump." Nonetheless, Grenell was the highest-ranking openly gay person in the government, and remained one of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters throughout his tenure as president.

Grenell moved onto making his own presidential moves — at least if you consult Google. His biggest claim to fame is an algorithm error that listed him as the actual president of the United States. As The Guardian reports, upon learning of his sham appointment, Grenell began tweeting out executive orders and teasing President Joe Biden about tripping up the stairs to Air Force One. "I will run up the stairs without tripping," he wrote. Sadly, his term as fake president was even more short lived than his term as acting director.

The Guardian seems to believe that Grenell is planning to run for state office. In February 2021, Politico reported that the former diplomat had spoken with Trump about running for California governor as Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom faced a potential election recall.

Jovita Carranza joined the Trump administration in 2017 as the U.S. treasurer, but in 2020 — at the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic — she was placed at the helm of the Small Business Administration (per The New York Times, she was nominated in 2019 to replace Linda E. McMahon, a former WWE chief executive, but there were delays in her confirmation).

According to Forbes, her new appointment made her "the highest-ranking Latina in Trump's cabinet," and she crafted the Paycheck Protection Program, which helped preserve employee wages at small businesses that were forced to shut down or partially close amidst the pandemic. Prior to that, she spent decades in business administration, working her way up from an overnight shift at UPS, where she spent 30 years, and eventually landing a role as the SBA deputy administrator for President George W. Bush.

Carranza left the Trump administration at the end of January 2021 as Joe Biden took office, but according to Fox Business, she's still the head of JCR Group, a business consulting firm that she launched during the Obama administration. She has also championed women entrepreneurs by aiding in the expansion of the WBC program to launch Women's Business Centers around the nation. Though she's no longer serving in her role, she has contributed to press releases helping showcase the SBA's work.