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Karoline Leavitt

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Not to be confused with novelist Caroline Leavitt.

Karoline Leavitt
Leavitt in 2025
36th White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 20, 2025
PresidentDonald Trump
Deputy
Preceded byKarine Jean-Pierre
Personal details
Born
Karoline Claire Leavitt

(1997-08-24) August 24, 1997 (age 27)
Atkinson, New Hampshire, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
Nicholas Riccio
​
(m. 2025)​
Children1
EducationSaint Anselm College (BA)
Leavitt's voice
Leavitt speaks on the Laken Riley Act.
Recorded January 31, 2025

Karoline Claire Leavitt (/ˈlɛvɪt/ LEV-it; born August 24, 1997) is an American spokesperson who has served as the 36th White House press secretary since 2025. She was the Republican candidate for New Hampshire's 1st congressional district in 2022.

Leavitt studied politics and communication at Saint Anselm College, writing for the school newspaper and founding a broadcasting club. She interned in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence and later became its associated director. In June 2020, Leavitt became an assistant White House press secretary. After Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election, she became a communications director for New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

In July 2021, Leavitt announced her campaign for the United States House of Representatives election for New Hampshire's first congressional district. She established herself as a pro-Trump candidate. Leavitt won the Republican primary, though she lost to Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas. She served as a spokeswoman for MAGA Inc., Trump's super PAC, and became the press secretary for his 2024 presidential campaign.

In November 2024, Trump named Leavitt as his White House press secretary. She is the youngest White House press secretary in U.S. history.

Early life and education (1997–2019)

A brick building with a green lawn
Saint Anselm College, where Leavitt studied (pictured in 2010)

Karoline Claire Leavitt[1] was born on August 24, 1997, in Atkinson, New Hampshire.[2] She was born the fourth and youngest child[2] to Bob and Erin Leavitt.[3] Her family owns an ice cream stand in Atkinson and her father owns a used truck dealership in Plaistow.[4] Leavitt attended Central Catholic High School, a private Catholic school in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She played softball and was named an Eagle-Tribune All-Star in 2014 and 2015.[5] In interviews she has credited her Roman Catholic education as formative for her spirituality and instilling her with certain mores, including faith, family, discipline, the importance of public service, and pro-life values.[6]

Leavitt began attending Saint Anselm College in 2015,[7] where she received a scholarship to play softball[8] and majored in communications and minored in political science. She interned with NBC Sports Boston but later shifted towards political journalism. Leavitt became involved with the New Hampshire Institute of Politics her sophomore year; as the institute's ambassador, she interned for a United States senator and WMUR.[9] By the end of her sophomore year, she had given up softball.[5] Leavitt applied for an internship at Fox News,[10] but later interned as a writer for the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence writing letters and notes on behalf of the president.[5] Leavitt founded Saint Anselm's broadcasting club and wrote for its paper, the Saint Anselm Crier. She later described herself as the "token conservative" on campus, and her writings reflected a conservative viewpoint.[6] Following the first inauguration of Donald Trump, Leavitt praised the "peaceful transfer of power" in the United States. In an opinion piece for the Crier in 2016, she stated that the media was "frankly crooked" and "unjust, unfair, and sometimes just plain old false".[10] Leavitt graduated in 2019, becoming the first person in her immediate family to graduate from college.[11]

Career

White House assistant press secretary (2019–2021)

Leavitt addressing the press during the criminal trial of Donald Trump in New York.

After graduating, Leavitt was offered a full-time job in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence[5] responding to letters sent to the president;[12] by June 2020, she was its associate director.[13] That month, she was named as an assistant White House press secretary[13] after a friend who worked in the Secret Service[12] referred her to the press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany.[5] She attended a nomination ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett in the White House Rose Garden, an event that later served as the beginning of the White House COVID-19 outbreak;[14] Leavitt later tested positive for the virus.[15] In January 2021, weeks before Donald Trump left office, she became the communications director for New York representative Elise Stefanik.[16]

US congressional campaign in New Hampshire (2021–2022)

Main article: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in New Hampshire § District 1

On July 19, 2021, Leavitt announced her intention to run in the United States House of Representatives election for New Hampshire's first congressional district as a Republican in an interview with WMUR. She stated that she was encouraged to run after president Joe Biden reversed many of the policies enacted by his predecessor, Donald Trump,[17] and after Twitter erroneously suspended her account while she was working for Stefanik.[18] Within three days, her campaign had raised US$100,000.[4] Leavitt's campaign largely leveraged her experience within the Trump administration, as she sought to be viewed as the most pro-Trump candidate in the Republican primary.[19] She officially filed to run in June 2022.[20] Polling in August placed Leavitt second behind Matt Mowers, the Republican nominee in the 2020 House of Representatives election.[21]

Leading up to the primary, Leavitt criticized Mowers as insufficiently pro-Trump,[22] including noting that he was a former advisor to former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.[23] The dichotomy in Leavitt and Mowers's strategies exposed a divide in the Republican Party; Leavitt received endorsements from Texas senator Ted Cruz and representatives Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and Stefanik, in a demonstration of support from right-wing lawmakers.[24] She concluded her campaign with a gun shoot at a fish and game club.[25] Leavitt won the Republican primary in September, in an unexpected victory against Mowers.[26] She was defeated by Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas.[27]

Post-election work (2023–2025)

After losing to Pappas, Leavitt began working for MAGA Inc., Trump's super PAC.[10] She was featured in a video produced for Project 2025 training political appointees on how to counter the federal bureaucracy.[28] Leavitt began working for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign in January 2024 as his national press secretary.[29] In December 2023, Leavitt became engaged to Nicholas Riccio, a self-made real estate developer 32 years her senior. They met each other at a restaurant during Leavitt's congressional campaign.[30] Leavitt had a son with Riccio and named the baby after him in July 2024, days before Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump. Chris LaCivita, the campaign's co-manager, offered her a month of parental leave; Leavitt requested ten days. She returned to work hours after the assassination attempt.[10] She married Riccio in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration.[30]

Leavitt at her first White House press conference, January 2025

White House Press Secretary (2025–present)

On November 15, 2024, president-elect Donald Trump named Leavitt as his White House press secretary.[31] She is the youngest White House press secretary in history.[32] She was given a smaller office in the West Wing in comparison to her predecessors, with the office reserved for press secretaries instead being occupied by Taylor Budowich, the deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel.[10] Leavitt gave her first press conference on January 28, 2025, beginning the briefing by seeking to elevate non-traditional media.[33] During the press conference, she falsely stated that US$50 million in taxpayer dollars had been intended for use in funding condoms in the Gaza Strip.[34]

Leavitt holds her son while typing, White House, May 2025

Her tenure marked a separation from precedent, particularly with the treatment of traditional media. In February, Leavitt announced that the White House would select who participated in the presidential press pool.[35] That month, she stated that "new voices are going to be welcomed" alongside traditional media.[36] The following month, Axios reported that the White House sought to change the seating chart for reporters, potentially by appointing Leavitt as president of the White House Correspondents' Association.[37] Leavitt was named as a defendant in Associated Press v. Budowich (2025), a lawsuit that began after Trump's staff moved to block the Associated Press from certain press events over the Gulf of Mexico–America naming dispute. According to the lawsuit, Leavitt told Zeke Miller (the chief White House correspondent for the Associated Press) that the organization would be barred from certain areas of the White House unless it referred to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".[38]

A May 2025 photograph of Leavitt feeding her son while working drew international attention.[39][40][41]

Political positions

Leavitt's campaign for New Hampshire's first congressional district focused on lowering taxes and lessening regulations to support small businesses, challenging critical race theory in public schools and "indoctrination", supporting school choice, increasing requirements on voting, funding police. She also supported Donald Trump's immigration policies and opposed vaccine mandates. Leavitt is a proponent of repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides service providers immunity from liability for third-party content generated by users.[18]

Leavitt has falsely stated that Trump is the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election and that "irregularities and chaos" occurred as a result of deceiving precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic, but that Joe Biden was certified in the Electoral College vote count. She denounced the January 6 Capitol attack, though she does not believe that Trump incited the attack.[42] According to The Washington Post in March 2025, Leavitt privately believed that Trump lost the election.[10] Tweets posted by Leavitt after the attack praised vice president Mike Pence, who refused to certify the fake electors provided by Trump, and Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer who led rioters away from the Senate chamber.[43]

Electoral history

2022 United States House of Representatives Republican primary for New Hampshire's first congressional district[44]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Karoline Leavitt 25,888 34.6
Republican Matt Mowers 18,969 25.4
Republican Gail Huff Brown 12,996 17.4
Republican Russell Prescott 7,546 10.1
Republican Tim Baxter 6,897 9.2
Republican Mary Maxwell 671 0.9
Republican Kevin Rondeau 606 0.8
Republican Gilead Towne 466 0.6
Republican Mark Kilbane 356 0.5
Republican Tom Alciere 341 0.5
Total votes 74,736 100.0
2022 United States House of Representatives election for New Hampshire's first congressional district[45]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Chris Pappas 167,391 54.1
Republican Karoline Leavitt 142,229 45.9
Total votes 309,620 100.0

References

  1. ^ "Karoline Claire Leavitt in the Washington, District of Columbia, U.S., Voter Registration Records, 1929-2023" (Document). Voter Registration Records.
  2. ^ a b Sexton, Adam (August 9, 2022). "Karoline Leavitt, R, 2022 candidate for 1st Congressional District seat in New Hampshire". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  3. ^ Griffith, Ivy (January 28, 2025). "Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's Parents Gave Her a Traditional Catholic Upbringing". MSN. Retrieved May 2, 2025.
  4. ^ a b DiStaso, John (July 22, 2021). "Leavitt says Dems 'abandoned' her family's business despite COVID relief loans". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d e Burt, Bill (November 29, 2020). "Meet the assistant press secretary". The Eagle-Tribune. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  6. ^ a b Bookman, Todd (October 19, 2022). "It may be her first campaign, but building blocks of Leavitt's politics were laid years ago". New Hampshire Public Radio. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  7. ^ Schweitzer, Sara (October 26, 2015). "US shouldn't challenge countries that require burkas, Trump says". The Boston Globe. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  8. ^ McDonald-Gibson, Charlotte (April 15, 2025). "Meet Trump's gun-loving 27-year-old press secretary". The Times. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
  9. ^ Costa, Jamie (November 28, 2024). "Taking flight: Karoline Leavitt's rise from Atkinson to the West Wing". The Eagle-Tribune. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Voght, Kara (March 24, 2025). "In Karoline Leavitt's world, Trump's word is enough". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  11. ^ Megerian, Chris; Superville, Chris (January 28, 2025). "Karoline Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary, makes her debut in the briefing room". Associated Press. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  12. ^ a b Wren, Adam (April 25, 2025). "The Political Education of Karoline Leavitt". Politico Magazine. Retrieved April 25, 2025.
  13. ^ a b Sherman, Jake; Palmer, Anna (June 6, 2020). "W.H. eyes July negotiations on coronavirus package". Politico. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  14. ^ Buchanan, Larry; Gamio, Lazaro; Leatherby, Lauren; Keefe, John; Koettl, Christoph; Schoenfeld Walker, Amy (October 2, 2020). "Tracking the White House Coronavirus Outbreak". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  15. ^ Crowley, Michael; Haberman, Maggie; Sullivan, Eileen (October 5, 2020). "The White House outbreak grows as Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary, tests positive for the virus". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  16. ^ Zanona, Melanie (January 3, 2021). "As Pelosi scrambles for her job, McConnell loses control". Politico. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  17. ^ Sotomayor, Marianna (November 3, 2022). "Karoline Leavitt wants to be Gen Z's conservative voice in Congress". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  18. ^ a b DiStaso, John (July 19, 2021). "Young conservative Republican Karoline Leavitt becomes candidate for 1st District U.S. House seat". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  19. ^ Sexton, Adam (September 21, 2021). "Leavitt aims to be most pro-Trump candidate in NH-01". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  20. ^ Sexton, Adam (June 8, 2022). "Leavitt files to run in New Hampshire's 1st District". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  21. ^ Sexton, Adam (August 15, 2022). "Poll shows emerging GOP frontrunners in New Hampshire's 1st District, open race in 2nd". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  22. ^ Sexton, Adam (August 28, 2022). "Leavitt builds conservative momentum heading into primary". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  23. ^ Sexton, Adam (August 28, 2022). "Karoline Leavitt says she's the right choice in 1st District Republican primary". WMUR. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  24. ^ Karni, Annie (September 9, 2022). "In New Hampshire, a MAGA Rivalry Is Splitting House Republicans". The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  25. ^ Karni, Annie (September 12, 2022). "Gun Shoot Will Conclude Former Trump Aide's House Primary Race". The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  26. ^ Karni, Annie (September 13, 2022). "Leavitt Upsets Mowers, Winning New Hampshire House G.O.P. Primary". The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  27. ^ Karni, Annie (November 9, 2022). "Pappas wins re-election in New Hampshire, holding off a Trump acolyte". The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  28. ^ Kroll, Andy; Surgey, Nick (August 10, 2024). "Inside Project 2025's Secret Training Videos". ProPublica. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  29. ^ Foley, Emma (October 23, 2024). "Wonder Woman Karoline Leavitt: Her Life as a New Mom & Trump's Spokeswoman". The Conservateur. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  30. ^ a b Khan, Melina (March 19, 2025). "Karoline Leavitt, press secretary from NH, addresses 'atypical' 32-year age gap with husband". The Portsmouth Herald. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  31. ^ Gold, Michael (November 15, 2024). "Trump Names Karoline Leavitt as His White House Press Secretary". The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  32. ^ Vock, Ido (January 28, 2025). "Who is Karoline Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary?". BBC News. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  33. ^ McCreesh, Shawn (January 28, 2025). "White House Press Secretary Makes Steely and Unflinching Debut". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  34. ^ Goldin, Melissa (January 29, 2025). "No evidence that $50 million was designated by the US to buy condoms for Hamas". Associated Press. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  35. ^ Grynbaum, Michael (February 25, 2025). "White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  36. ^ Grynbaum, Michael; Robertson, Katie (April 15, 2025). "White House Ends a Regular Reporting Slot for Independent Newswires". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  37. ^ Allen, Mike (March 30, 2025). "White House to take charge of briefing-room seating chart". Axios. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  38. ^ Robertson, Katie (February 21, 2025). "Associated Press Sues Trump Officials Over White House Ban". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
  39. ^ Millward, David (May 9, 2025). "'Super mom' Karoline Leavitt pictured working with baby son on lap". The Telegraph. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
  40. ^ "White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's 'power mom' moment goes viral: 'Truly admirable'". The Times of India. May 11, 2025. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
  41. ^ Banerjee, Shrey (May 8, 2025). "Power mom! Press Secy Karoline Leavitt seen working while feeding baby, netizens inspired". Hindustan Times. MSN. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
  42. ^ DiStaso, John (July 24, 2021). "Leavitt says Trump won 2020 election but says she recognizes Biden is president". WMUR. Archived from the original on July 25, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2025.
  43. ^ Kaczynski, Andrew (December 2, 2024). "Trump press secretary pick removed post praising Pence on January 6, then ran for Congress as an election denier". CNN. Retrieved April 25, 2025.
  44. ^ "New Hampshire Primary Election Results". The New York Times. September 13, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
  45. ^ "New Hampshire First Congressional District Election Results". The New York Times. November 8, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2025.
Political offices
Preceded by White House Press Secretary
2025–present 		Incumbent
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