Meet Donald Trump’s gun-loving 27-year-old press secretary
Unfailingly loyal and on-message, Karoline Leavitt has been rewarded with the top public-facing White House job.
She bills herself as the ultimate Gen Z political pioneer and the social media accounts of Karoline Leavitt, the new White House press secretary, are meticulously on brand.
Smiling Instagram shots on beaches are interspersed with polished performances on Fox News and links to stories hailing her as a “Wonder Woman” working mother, who will be the youngest person to step up to the White House press podium.
But behind the smiles and perfectly coiffured hair is a lifelong Trump loyalist, encapsulated by a 2022 Instagram video.
The video shows her enthusiastically unloading a machinegun at a firing range with the caption “@joebiden come and take it":
Leavitt, 27, also has a long-running feud with the liberal media and has spoken about how she plans to instil some “decorum” in the press room. As of Friday, Leavitt had still not given the daily press briefing that is customary at the White House – but had made several appearances on Fox News.
It is a natural home for Leavitt. She was an intern at the conservative news outlet when she was studying for her 2019 degree in communications and political science at Saint Anselm Catholic College in her home state of New Hampshire.
She grew up in a small town and worked in her parents’ ice cream parlour during the holidays.
“My dad came from nothing and worked his way up,” Leavitt told the Eagle Tribune in 2020. “He didn’t take any handouts from anyone. He reminds me of President Trump.”
Leavitt attended college on a softball scholarship but her sporting ambitions fell by the wayside as she became hooked on politics during the 2016 Trump campaign. She wrote supportive opinion pieces in the student newspaper, including one when she was 19 that read: “The liberal media is unjust, unfair and sometimes just plain old false”.
While her fellow students were partying at college football games, she was firing off letters to the White House, and secured an internship during Trump’s first term. After graduating, she joined his team full time, swiftly rising to become assistant press secretary.
When Trump lost the 2020 election, Leavitt became communications director for the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, whom Trump has now nominated for ambassador to the United Nations. Then in 2022, she stood for Congress, in an attempt to become the youngest person to be elected, selling herself as “a Generation Z conservative” who understood the concerns of the younger generation.
She ultimately lost the New Hampshire seat to her Democratic rival but her star in the Maga universe was rising and a few years later Trump came calling again. In January last year he appointed Leavitt as his campaign press secretary.
In the role Leavitt was unfailingly on-message, appearing to relish combative exchanges with reporters in highly polished performances. At a campaign rally she said she had “the great pleasure of fighting the fake news media all day” and during an interview CNN cut her mic when she accused the network of bias.
Trump’s presidential campaign coincided with Leavitt’s pregnancy with her first child with her husband Nicholas Riccio, a property tycoon more than 30 years her senior. But plans to take some maternity leave evaporated when Leavitt turned on the TV in July, three days after giving birth to her son Nicholas, to learn that the president had survived an assassination attempt.
“I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work’,” she told the news outlet The Conservateur in October. “The president literally put his life on the line to win this election. The least I could do is get back to work quickly.”
She has leaned into her role as a working Republican mother, telling The Conservateur: “I have legitimately done my make-up while nursing my baby while talking on the phone prepping for my TV hit all at the same time … no man could ever do this.”
She has been rewarded with the top public-facing White House job. Trump has hailed her as “smart, tough, and … a highly effective communicator”.
Those qualities might be pushed to the limit in the coming months and years. During his first term, Trump tore through five press secretaries:
The first was Sean Spicer.
Spicer was pressured into resigning after six months and went on to a media career that included appearing in Dancing with the Stars.
His successor, Anthony Scaramucci, lasted only two weeks. He is now an outspoken Trump critic.
Eventually Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has since become Republican governor of Arkansas, settled into the role and held on to it for nearly two years.
She stopped the traditional daily press briefings and her successor, Stephanie Grisham, held none at all.
Grisham went on to be chief of staff to Melania Trump as first lady but resigned on January 6, 2021, amid the Capitol riot by Trump supporters. She spoke at the Democratic national convention last summer to warn of Trump’s unfitness for office.
Finally, Kayleigh McEnany took the reins and showed Leavitt the ropes.
Leavitt has told Fox News she is expecting a “hostile media” and wants to instil some “decorum” in the press room. She has spoken about shaking up the press corps and giving more access to podcasters and social media influencers.
It has been a low-key start so far. She held a brief gaggle with reporters outside the White House last Wednesday but it has been Trump who has relished the limelight, holding two long press conferences since taking office. True to form, Leavitt was there to put a positive spin on it.
“The American people are hearing directly from the leader of the free world,” she told Newsmax on Thursday. “This is the type of truth and transparency that they deserve.”
The Times
