Karoline Leavitt (27)
New press spokeswoman is a tough Trumpist
At 27, she is the youngest press secretary of a US president in history. During her debut at the White House lectern on Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt announced that she wants to open up the press room to TikTokers, bloggers and podcasters and make room for "new media".
The ultra-conservative representative of Generation Z is thus in line with her 78-year-old boss Donald Trump, who wants to shake up the US political and media landscape.
"Revolutionary media strategy"
After Trump had already focused largely on online networks and podcasters during his election campaign and criticized traditional media, Leavitt has now announced that she will adopt his "revolutionary media strategy".
She is "very proud to be opening up this space for new media voices thanks to President Trump", said the 27-year-old. "Whether you're a content creator on TikTok, a blogger, a podcaster - if you produce legitimate news content (...) you will be allowed to apply for press accreditation for this White House."
"Intelligent and tough"
Some things won't change in Trump's second term, however. Leavitt conceded that the former reality TV star Trump will mostly be in the spotlight himself. "The president is the best spokesperson the White House has," she said at her first White House press briefing after Trump's inauguration. "And I can assure you that you will hear as much as possible from both of us."
Even before taking on her new role, Leavitt had cultivated her public image. Her social media profiles show a mixture of snapshots from the life of a young working mother and clips from her appearances on the conservative TV channel Fox News, in which she attacks "fake news" media.
Leavitt is "smart, tough" and will "shine on the podium", Trump said when he appointed her shortly after his election victory in November.
Failed to make the leap to the House of Representatives
Leavitt has been a loyal Trump supporter for years. She grew up in the state of New Hampshire on the east coast, where her parents ran an ice cream parlor. In 2017, she wrote a letter to her university's newspaper to protest against a professor who criticized Trump during class.
Eight years later, she has enjoyed a meteoric rise - thanks in part to her aggressive defense of her current boss.
Having been a member of Trump's press team during his first term, Leavitt ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress in her home state in 2022 - campaigning for Trump and gun ownership. A post on Instagram at the time showed her with a machine gun and the line "@joebiden, come and get it" addressed to the then president.
With loyalty to the "Wonder Woman"
Her hard-hitting appearance on television during Trump's 2024 election campaign finally landed her the job of spokeswoman. In a remarkable exchange, a CNN journalist broke off the interview with Leavitt when she criticized the broadcaster's choice of presenter for the TV duel between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Her loyalty is so unwavering that she returned to work just four days after the birth of her first child, when Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in June. "I looked at my husband and said: 'Looks like I need to get back to work,'" Leavitt told The Conservateur magazine in an article titled "Wonder Woman."
The young woman with the long blonde hair is causing a stir. Conservative commentator Mary Rook commented on a photo showing Leavitt and two female staffers with similar hairstyles with the words: "Now the era of blonde supremacy finally begins."
Wear and tear on press spokespeople under Trump 1
In her first briefing, Leavitt appeared experienced and confident in her exchanges with the media. Unlike her predecessor, Joe Biden's spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, she managed without the thick folder in which spokespeople often keep important notes.
She also escaped the fate of Trump's very first press spokesman Sean Spicer, who insisted at his first briefing that the crowd outside the Capitol at Trump's inauguration was the largest in US history, making a mockery of himself forever.
Spicer was followed by three other spokespeople in Trump's first term - one of them, Stephanie Grisham, never once appeared in the press room.
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