Raj Shah
| Raj Shah | |
|---|---|
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| Principal Deputy Press Secretary | |
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Assumed office September 12, 2017 |
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| President | Donald Trump |
| Preceded by | Sarah Huckabee Sanders |
| White House Deputy Assist. to the President and Deputy Communications and Research Director |
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In office January 20, 2017 – September 12, 2017 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1985 (age 31–32) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Education | Cornell University BA government, 2006. |
Not to be confused with former USAID director Rajiv Shah
Raj Shah (born c. 1985) formerly in charge of opposition research at the Republican National Committee, was named in January 2017 to the then-incoming Trump Administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Communications for Research in the White House Communications Director's office. On September 12, 2017 he was named Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Press Secretary.
Shah's parents immigrated to the US from Mumbai with origins in Gujarat, India. His father came to the US for studies in the 1970s, then moved back to India. After their marriage, his father and mother returned to the US in late 1970s, living first in Chicago and then in Connecticut, he an engineer, she a dentist. Shah was born and raised in Connecticut.
Shah attended Brien McMahon High School and was named an Ettinger Scholar in Norwalk. He studied government at Cornell (2002-2006) and received the bachelor's degree in 2006.
Shah volunteered in Bridgeport for Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) during high school and interned for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and others in Washington as his interest in politics developed. In an interview with his hometown paper after appointment to the White House in 2016, Shah said 9-11 happened when he was a senior in high school. He found he wasn't agreeing with Democrats in his family and whom he met in internships, cast his first vote for George W. Bush in 2004, and interned in the White House in 2005.
By the 2012 presidential election cycle, Shah was deputy research director at the RNC and he said in that job "he learned what not to do in the 2016 election". He worked with campaign staff and manager of the Mitt Romney campaign and others to plan how, particularly, to try to defeat Hillary Clinton well before she announced she was running in 2016. Shah was also a co-founder of America Rising, "a right-leaning political action committee that produces opposition research on Democratic candidates". The playbook on the anti-Clinton campaign was
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