Former Obama intern ties knot with former Obama staffer who specialized in ‘environmental justice’
Rachel Scott, the ABC News correspondent whose racially charged exchange with Donald Trump made headlines during the 2024 presidential campaign, got married earlier this month at a luxurious estate in California. The New York Times documented the affair, as did Vogue, which published a splashy feature complete with nearly 100 photos from Victoria Gold, a Los Angeles-based wedding photographer who specializes in celebrities and other “chic couples.”
The glossy coverage has raised eyebrows in media circles given that Scott and her new husband, Elliott Smith, are liberal activists whose ideological allies tend to resent such extravagant displays of wealth and privilege. Scott interned at the White House during the Obama administration before pursuing a career in liberal journalism. Smith is a professional activist who also served in the Obama administration. As a staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency, he reportedly “contributed to the agency’s environmental justice initiatives.” He is currently an administrator for student engagement at Yale University. Before that, Smith was a “social justice organizer” at Repairers of the Breach, an activist group led by William Barber II. Left-wing billionaire George Soros funded the group as a part of a $220-million racial justice campaign launched after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Vogue reports that the wedding festivities included “a traditional Native American ceremony in honor of Elliott’s Ramapough Lenape heritage.” It’s unclear whether a land acknowledgment was also performed at the venue, which stands on the traditional and ancestral home of the Chumash people. “It grounded us,” Rachel told the fashion mag. The bride wore three outfits, wowing guests at the after-party in a flashy black ensemble. “I could not pass up the opportunity to wear this black-based navy blue crystal-embroidered dress by Falguni Shane Peacock, styled by Eleanor Schain,” she said. “The blue crystals felt like stardust scattered across the sky.”
Bob Iger, CEO of ABC News parent company Disney, attended the wedding with his wife, Willow Bay, dean of the journalism school at the University of Southern California—Scott’s alma mater. Iger was briefly denounced as a fascist for temporarily suspending Jimmy Kimmel after the host’s inflammatory and factually incorrect comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Earlier this year, Kimmel and Scott sat together at the Gracie Awards, which honor “exemplary programming created by women.” Scott was recognized for her outstanding contributions to journalism, while Kimmel presented an award to his wife, Molly McNearney, who won an award for being a writer on Kimmel’s show.
Scott was hailed as a breakout star of the 2024 campaign after her contentious interview with Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. In her opening question, she implied that black voters shouldn’t trust Trump because he was a racist. Scott’s fellow moderator at the event, Harris Faulkner of Fox News, later said she was “disappointed” that the interview got off to such an “emotional” start.
Trump, who was nearly assassinated less than three weeks earlier, did not appreciate the question. Scott persisted and criticized Republicans for suggesting Kamala Harris was a “DEI hire” who was “only on the ticket because she is a black woman,” even though reporting on the 2020 election has made clear that Biden felt pressured to pick a black woman for the sake of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Kamala got the nod because she had already run in the Democratic primary, and because she waged a successful campaign to tarnish the reputation of a rival contender, Karen Bass.
The resulting exchange produced a memorable soundbite of Trump questioning Harris’s racial background. “I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” Trump said of Harris. “So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she black?”
Harris recounted the episode in her recently published memoir, 107 Days. The failed candidate wrote that members of her staff wanted her to push back at Trump by giving a “big speech” about her racial identity. Harris rejected the idea because she had “always felt it was more important to stress that I was the most qualified person, regardless of race or gender.” She also didn’t want to take Trump’s bait. “Today he wants me to prove my race,” she reportedly told aides at the time. “What next? He’ll say I’m not a woman and I’ll need to show my vagina?”
Scott’s clash with Trump elevated her profile at ABC News, which made her a co-host of What You Need to Know, a recently launched short-form news show on the Disney+ streaming platform. Her co-host, ABC News reporter James Longman, is a pioneer in the field of beefcake journalism who regularly flaunts his bod on social media. He has been criticized for comparing Trump to Muammar Qaddafi and for posting photos of himself reporting from conflict zones on his Tinder profile.
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