--- title: More Women Are Speaking for the White House description: The White House reorganized its communications shop Tuesday, making longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, the permanent communications director. canonical: https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-13T18:44:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:24:10.478Z article:section: Politics og:title: More Women Are Speaking for the White House og:description: The White House reorganized its communications shop Tuesday, making longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, the permanent communications director. og:url: https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Morning Must Reads og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: More Women Are Speaking for the White House twitter:description: The White House reorganized its communications shop Tuesday, making longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, the permanent communications director. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # More Women Are Speaking for the White House by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Sep 13, 2017 6:44 PM UTC  The early morning sun rises behind the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. The early morning sun rises behind the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Sep 13, 2017 6:44 PM UTC The White House reorganized its communications shop Tuesday, making longtime Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks the permanent communications director, bringing in Bush White House veteran Mercedes Schlapp to run strategic communications, and promoting a pair of longtime aides to fill other vacancies. The new structure gives the White House communications team a historic concentration of women in senior roles, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders already at the podium. The tide is turning for Silicon Valley in Washington and across the country, as the wonder of invention yields to new concerns over privacy, economic displacement, and inequality. The White House has refugee admissions in the crosshairs, as it weighs limiting entrants to the lowest levels in a generation. And Trump’s voter commission head relies on bogus information. _Here are your must reads:_ **Must Reads** [There’s Blood In The Water In Silicon Valley ](https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/theres-blood-in-the-water-in-silicon-valley?utm%5Fterm=.eemoJOJRg#.qnQ0NLNMj)The bad new politics of big tech \[BuzzFeed\] [Teflon Don Confounds Democrats ](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/13/teflon-trump-democrats-messaging-242607)Democrats have attacked the president every which way, but polling and focus groups show none of it’s working \[Politico\] [White House Weighs Lowering Refugee Quota to Below 50,000 ](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/us/politics/trump-refugee-quota.html?emc=edit%5Fth%5F20170913&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=55003713&%5Fr=0)Lowest in a generation \[New York Times\] [Trump Ambassador Qualifications: Wrote a Cookbook, Sang in a Church Choir ](https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ambassador-qualifications-wrote-cookbook-sang-church-choir-195041927.html)What they told Congress \[Yahoo\] [Trump’s Push for Tax Cuts Is Coming Up Against a Familiar Challenge: Divided GOP ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trumps-push-for-tax-cuts-is-coming-up-against-a-familiar-challenge-divided-gop/2017/09/11/bd7a875c-9763-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152%5Fstory.html?hpid=hp%5Fhp-top-table-main%5Ftaxreform-5pm:homepage/story&utm%5Fterm=.90772d3b1220)Factionalized party still has no plan \[Washington Post\] **Sound Off** “The President was 100 percent right in firing James Comey. He knew at the time that it could be bad for him politically but he also knew and felt he had an obligation to do what was right, and do what was right for the American people and certainly the men and women at the FBI. I think there is no secret Comey, by his own self-admission, leaked privileged government information. Weeks before President Trump fired him, Comey testified that an FBI agent engaged in the same practice; they face serious repercussions. I think he set his own stage for himself on that front. His actions were improper and likely could have been illegal. Comey leaked memos to the New York Times, your own outlet. He politicized an investigation by signaling he would exonerate Hillary Clinton before he ever interviewed her or other key witnesses.” — White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who came prepared Tuesday to attack the former FBI director **Bits and Bites** [House leaders to meet on future of Dreamers](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/12/dreamers-house-republican-leadership-242635) \[Politico\] [Top White House Official to Discuss Climate Change at U.N.](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/climate/trump-adviser-gary-cohn-un-climate-change-meeting.html) \[New York Times\] [Top Dems say Flynn left Mideast trip off security clearance](https://www.apnews.com/1142790614824255ae9c53ec87eab372/Top-Dems-say-Flynn-left-Mideast-trip-off-security-clearance) \[Associated Press\] [From Trump hotel lobby to White House, Malaysian prime minister gets VIP treatment](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/from-trump-hotel-lobby-to-white-house-malaysian-prime-minister-gets-vip-treatment/2017/09/12/1b296f54-97d1-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fterm=.804e2a9a37a1) \[Washington Post\] [Senate Intel slips sentence into bill that could lead to spying on US citizens](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article172919021.html) \[McClatchy\] [Fact check: Kris Kobach’s bogus ‘proof’ of voter fraud](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/12/fact-check-kris-kobach-bogus-proof-voter-fraud/656863001/) \[USA Today\] [Hillary’s best Bernie bashing](https://www.axios.com/hillarys-best-bernie-bashing-2484334526.html) \[Axios\] More Women Are Speaking for the White House ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/"},"headline":"More Women Are Speaking for the White House","datePublished":"2017-09-13T18:44:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:24:10.478Z","description":"Morning Must Reads: September 13","url":"https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/","keywords":["Morning Must Reads"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb24c27fcf0ec0da8/6986837dcd6848a30809364f/morning-must-reads1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Morning Must Reads","caption":"Capitol","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4939246/more-women-are-speaking-for-the-white-house/","name":"More Women Are Speaking for the White House"}}]}] ```