Karoline Leavitt Departs Trump White House To Praise And Gratitude

WASHINGTON — Friends and colleagues on Thursday praised White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who will depart the Trump administration on Friday.

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The youngest White House press secretary in history, Leavitt made a name for herself through her steadfast loyalty to President Donald Trump, her curled-lip responses to legacy media from the podium, and her embrace of new media outlets at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“It is a blessing, a privilege and honor to stand behind the White House podium,” she said Thursday morning, reflecting on her 20 months in the role. “So, whoever gets the job next is a very lucky person to work for this president at this moment in history, and I’ll be here to help every step of the way.”

Leavitt took the role at 27 years old and has been praised for a confidence and presence that many of her older predecessors lacked. Prior to each briefing, she said a prayer for strength and wisdom with her team, then strode through the lower press door, flashing a big, camera-ready smile. She maintained that smile through much of the briefings, doing her best to call on each reporter by name.

Many of the reporters asking questions in those high-profile briefings were unable to cross the threshold of the James Brady Briefing Room during past administrations. Under Leavitt’s watch, the White House opened up the briefings to “new media” — conservative reporters, podcasters, influencers, and other non-traditional forms of media that had become prominent during the 2024 election.

“It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere,” she told the press in January 2025. Thanks to this effort, The Daily Wire has been able to attend countless briefings and Oval Office gaggles, travel on Air Force One and Air Force Two, and even gain a seat in the briefing room.

Leavitt typically remained poised and calm during briefings, sharing updates from the president and promising reporters she would check with Trump when she didn’t know the answer to their questions. Often she was humorous with the press: “It’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” she joked during one briefing.

But she could occasionally be biting.

“You’re a left-wing hack,” she fiercely told one offender in January 2026. “You’re not a reporter. You’re posing in this room as a journalist… You and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist — you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.”

“We are not going to be lectured about national security and American troops by Democrats and the mainstream media, who turned the other cheek when the Biden Administration, because of their incompetence, left 13 service members dead in Afghanistan and not a single person in the previous Administration was held accountable,” she said sternly on another occasion.

When she first took the podium in January 2025, she was a mother with a son, Niko, about six months old. Even before she began the White House role, Leavitt was working for Trump on the campaign, jumping back on television four days after she gave birth in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. She gave birth to her second child, a baby daughter, in May of this year, and said that she is departing the administration to focus more on her role as a wife and mother.

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Speaking to The Daily Wire ahead of Mother’s Day in 2025, Leavitt reflected on the sacrifices that the mothers in the administration were making to support the president. Her job was the opportunity of a lifetime, she said, and it was a temporary position.

“President Trump is only going to be here for four years, and this is a historic moment in history,” she told The Daily Wire at the time. “I work for a president whom I truly believe in and know that his policies are making a difference.”

When she wasn’t preparing for briefings or defending the president on television, Leavitt was quietly fielding questions from reporters, persuading them on framing, and overseeing a communications team that has operated far more smoothly than Trump’s first administration could ever have dreamed. She was up at 5 a.m. every day, immediately reading the news and catching up on whatever the president had posted overnight, preparing herself to take on the news media once again.

She did her best to spend time with her son Niko before she headed to the White House and sought to get home in time for dinner.

“I do really try to prioritize returning home for bedtime,” she shared in May 2025 with The Daily Wire. “I savor that time — eating dinner together, doing tubby, doing book time, and then putting him down every night is a priority for me.”

“That’s actually advice I was given by my predecessor Sarah Sanders, who encouraged me to set that boundary. Of course it’s not possible every night,” she added. “There are national security crises, real challenges that we are working on solving every day, and so when duty calls I remain, but I do prioritize my job as a mother above anything and try to make it home.”

She will now have that opportunity to prioritize her family. Trump, who will notice her absence more than any other administration departure, said he understands.

“Are we gonna miss Karoline?” he asked reporters outside Air Force One. “I’m gonna miss her!”

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He added with a smile: “She’s made that job very glamorous.”