Trump Names Sean Spicer as Press Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump today named GOP veteran Sean Spicer as press secretary.

He has been chief strategist and communications director for the Republican National Committee since 2011.

Named as counselor to the president is Kellyanne Conway, GOP pollster and strategist. She is the highest ranking woman in the Trump White House. Conway, who became Trump's campaign manager in August, was given top billing in a New York Times story today, which said Conway "will be joined" by Spicer.

Spicer previously worked for the George W. Bush administration as assistant United States trade representative for media and public affairs, and for the House Republican Conference.

Hope Hicks, a Trump spokeswoman before the launch of his political career, has been named director of strategic communications. Jason Miller is director of communications, and Dan Scavino will be director of social media.

“Sean, Hope, Jason and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition. I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will Make America Great Again,” Trump said.

Among Sean’s other distinctions are serving as an Easter Bunny at the White House Easter Egg Roll, being lampooned by the Onion, cited as a ‘Moment of Zen’ on ‘The Daily Show,’ and being mocked by David Letterman.”

Hicks joined the Trump Organization in 2014 after a stint with entertainment PR firm Hiltzik Strategies. She is reportedly a confidant of Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.

Conway Accused of Anti-Women Stances

Conway, according to broad.vice.com, has helped politicians avoid examining, or changing, their positions that are harmful to women by aggressively framing those issues as somehow pro-woman. She has a seat on the board of the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) but is currently on a leave of absence. IWF has ties to the Koch brothers that aims to "[increase] the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty"; despite its focus on women, it publicly opposes many mainstream feminist ideas.

Members of IWF have said, for instance, the wage gap is women's fault, that campus rape statistics are inflated, and that the Hobby Lobby ruling, which allows corporations with religious owners to refuse to pay for birth control, was "undoubtedly good news." The IWF also does not support paid paternity leave—or even paid maternity leave—or minimum wage hikes, despite the fact that nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers in the country are women.

Conway has used this contradiction, says broad.vice, to cultivate a false sense of moderation, which she in turn uses to manufacture support for the extreme issues on the Republican agenda from a "disinterested" perspective. Conway's survey group, The Polling Company, is a good example of how this tactic bears out. (The IWF has also hired Conway's Polling Company to conduct surveys for them.)

Conway’s survey company, the Polling Company, aided the Republican party's attack on women's reproductive rights by conducting a focus group for David Daleiden's anti-abortion group, Center for Medical Progress, after they released deceptively edited videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood illegally selling fetal tissue. Conway showed a non-partisan focus group clips from the videos, which had been debunked months earlier, as though they were objective, investigative reports, and the participants condemned Planned Parenthood as a result.

Broad.vice says Conway then described how participants in the group had come away "betrayed and disgusted." In an article about the survey in the Washington Times, Conway did not portray herself as explicitly anti-abortion while she played up the angle that she was just reporting people's honest reactions to an honest tragedy: "The most important thing that can be done is for more people to see these videos, because most have not," she told the publication. "It's like a magical elixir that shifts the burden of proof onto Planned Parenthood."