Who is Karoline Leavitt, The Youngest White House Press Secretary?

Karoline Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary in history, is due to give her first White House press briefing on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old, who served as Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, is expected to make her debut from the podium during the president’s second week back in office.

The first briefing of a new administration is a huge moment, as the press secretary comes face-to-face with the media.

Trump’s first press secretary during his first term, Sean Spicer, caused controversy in his debut briefing, by inflating crowd size estimates at the inauguration and stating that the White House may sometimes “disagree with the facts”.

Announcing Leavitt as his choice in November, Trump said that he was confident the one-time candidate for Congress – who also served in the White House press office during the first Trump administration – would “excel at the podium and help deliver our message to the American People as we Make America Great Again”.

“Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator,” Trump said.

A native of New Hampshire, Leavitt studied communications and political science at Saint Anselm College, a Catholic college in her home state.

While still in school, she interned at Fox News and in Trump’s White House press office. She told Politico in 2020 that she gained her “first glimpse into the world of press” through these experiences. They led to her decision to pursue a career in press relations, she said.

Leavitt began working for the first Trump White House shortly after graduating in 2019, first as presidential speechwriter and later as assistant press secretary, according to the website for her 2022 run for Congress.

“I helped prepare Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany for high-pressure briefings [and] fought against the biased mainstream media,” her website stated.

After leaving the White House, Leavitt served as the communications director for Elise Stefanik, a senior Republican congresswoman whom President-elect Trump has nominated to serve as United Nations ambassador.

Leavitt departed that role to run for Congress, winning the Republican nomination for New Hampshire’s first congressional district in 2022, only to lose in the general election to Democrat Chris Pappas.

The policy positions she listed on her campaign website largely align with many of Trump’s priorities. On the economy, she pledged to “CUT taxes” and “champion pro-growth, free market policies”.

She presented herself as a strong backer of law enforcement and strong borders, including “ZERO tolerance for illegal immigration” and said she would work to ensure the completion of the border wall.

In January 2024, she joined Trump’s third bid for the US presidency as his campaign press secretary.

Now, she’s been chosen to serve as the youngest White House press secretary in US history. Ron Ziegler was the previous record holder. In 1969, he was appointed to the position by Richard Nixon when he was 29.

The public will soon see Leavitt in the iconic spot behind the podium in the White House briefing room – a space that led to countless tense exchanges between members of the press and officials in Trump’s first administration.

Trump ran through multiple press secretaries during his first four-year term, including Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany.

After departing the White House, Sanders went on to win the race for Arkansas governor.

Grisham resigned after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot and has become a Trump critic. McEnany has continued to advocate for the president-elect as a Fox News personality.

(BBC)