US President Donald Trump has tapped Indian-American former journalist Kush Desai as his deputy press secretary, the White House said in an official statement on Friday.

WHO IS KUSH DESAI?

• Desai previously served as Deputy Communications Director for the 2024 Republican National Convention and Communications Director for the Republican Party of Iowa.
• Desai served as the Deputy Battleground States and Pennsylvania Communications Director at the Republican National Committee. In this role, he was responsible for shaping messaging and building narratives, with a focus on battleground states, especially Pennsylvania.
• Desai has extensive experience in political communications.
• Before joining the Republican National Committee as a Research Analyst, Desai worked as a reporter at The Daily Caller in Washington for 10 months, according to his LinkedIn profile.
• He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College, a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire.
• According to his LinkedIn profile, he was awarded the James O. Freedman Presidential Research Scholarship, a programme that allows students to gain research experience by working with Dartmouth faculty.
• He is bilingual, fluent in both English and Gujarati.

The White House Office of Communications will be overseen by Deputy White House Chief of Staff and Cabinet Secretary Taylor Budowich.

Earlier, Trump announced the appointments of Steven Cheung as Assistant to the President and White House Communications Director, and Karoline Leavitt as Assistant to the President and Press Secretary.