Karoline Leavitt has already made history in her position with President Elect Donald Trump’s administration, the recent announcement of her appointment cementing her as the youngest White House press secretary in history at 27 years old. But if Trump’s second term in office is anything like his first, riddled with inter-office maneuvering and grudge-holding that turns into professional vacancies, she could also become the youngest person ever to leave the position—though whether it’ll be by firing or resignation, only time will tell. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had the longest run behind the podium during Trump’s first term, logging one year and 11 months on the job; the next-longest tenure was Kayleigh McEnany, who beat Stephanie Grisham’s stay by just a few days, each lasting just over nine months.
“Let’s MAGA!” Leavitt tweeted giddily when she clinched the job. Leavitt is no stranger to Trump, having served as both assistant press secretary under McEnany during his first spin through the White House, as well as his spokesperson during his 2024 presidential campaign, cutting her maternity leave short to do her first cable news hit just four days after she gave birth in early July, jumping back into action after the first attempted assassination of Trump.
Still, no matter how much adjacent experience a person has, it can be different to owning the podium in the press room. Here’s what Leavitt can learn about being press secretary, according to those who came before her.
Father knows best.
Trump often postures as a sort of father figure for his female mouthpieces, though the love is seemingly conditional. There’s Hope Hicks, a former model who parlayed her experience as press secretary on Trump’s 2016 campaign—her very first political job—into a White House “strategic communications” gig and then a turn as interim communications director after Anthony Scaramucci was fired after 10 days (11, if you ask him) in the role. Hicks was also 27 when she became a citizen of Trump World, and the president nicknamed her “Hopie” and “Hopester.” Trump told her rather than asked her to take the campaign job, as her mother, Caye Cavender Hicks, told the New York Times in 2016. The obedience and loyalty served her well, with Hicks commanding the maximum White House salary of $179,700, on par with senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Onetime Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort told the Times of Hicks, “Her most important role is her bond with the candidate.”
Another former Trump press secretary, Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, knew to play into Trump’s idea of himself as a father figure and used it to spin news. For example, when Trump the elder was found to have dictated a statement from son Donald Trump Jr. regarding a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Junior and several Russians about opposition intelligence, Sanders said in 2017 that “the president weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had.”
Invest in fire-proof pants.
Trump famously demands loyalty from his staff, even when that means repeating “falsehoods” on his behalf. There’s McEnany, now a Fox News host, who pledged that she would always tell the truth from behind that podium. In her first White House press briefing, she then proceeded to mischaracterize statements, distort inflation numbers, and straight-up lie throughout the briefing, including claiming that the Mueller Report had resulted in a “complete and total exoneration of President Trump.” The report itself states, “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” As a mere aide, McEnany also claimed that under Trump, “we will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism.” She said this over a month after the first COVID-19 cases had been reported in the U.S. Her prediction of a terrorism-free future, too, proved to be false: Though Trump liked to claim on the campaign trail there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency, multiple jihadist attacks in New York City, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, and several other deadly events were defined as such by his own administration.
Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, also kicked off his tenure with a whopper, falsely claiming that the not-quite-a-crowd for Trump’s Inauguration “was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe.” He “supported” that claim with several verifiably false pieces of “evidence,” claiming that images shared by the media had been “intentionally framed” to make Trump’s crowds look small, that floor coverings over the grass on the National Mall skewed perception (they were also used at President Barack Obama’s inauguration with its attendant larger crowds), and more. (He has since said that he regrets finger-wagging the press that day, a briefing that he ended without taking any questions.)
Trump apparently believes that Leavitt will follow in these footsteps. “Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator,” he wrote in the statement announcing her appointment. “I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium.”
She’s already gotten started, saying on a recent Fox News appearance that “there is no greater advocate for a free and fair press than Donald Trump,” and calling him “the most transparent president in American history.” His press advocacy has come most recently in the shape of referring to journalists as the “enemy of the people” and telling supporters that he wouldn’t mind if would-be assassins shot a few journalists, saying, “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news.” He later implied that the press section would act as his shield in the event of an attack: “See those people? They’re my glass,” he said, gesturing to the cluster of media. As for that transparency, we’ll just keep waiting on his tax and health records, to name the easiest ones.
You’re here for a good time, probably not a long time.
People don’t tend to last long in the Trump White House, especially in the communications department. Spicer held the position for about six months before he resigned under pressure, and Hicks’ predecessor, Scaramucci, was out in a mere 10 days. A comparison from the Brookings Institute of White House staff turnover by year per administration showed that by the end of his first term, Trump had a turnover rate of 92% in his key executive staffers, the highest of the past several presidents. In his first year in office alone, 35% of the names on his initial A-Team staff roster had changed, also the highest in recent administrations. Sure, there’s some shuffling to be done within the White House itself, like Grisham’s pivot from press secretary to spokesperson for Melania Trump, but the majority of goners stay gone.
Sanders, who held the role for the longest time by far in round one, told Vanity Fair via email that she thought Leavitt was suited to the job.
“White House Press Secretary is a tough job in any administration, but I know Karoline is sharp, genuine, and loyal and up to the challenge, and will do a great job defending President Trump and promoting his America First agenda,” she said.
There’s always Fox News.
The secret passageway between the Trump White House and Fox News is a well-trodden one, surely to the relief of future alums like Leavitt wondering what the next line on their resume will be. She already interned there during college, and many former Trump press personnel including Hicks, Sanders, and McEnany have landed gigs after their White House tenures. Now that former Fox hosts Pete Hegseth and Sean Duffy are up for Cabinet seats, Leavitt can do a little background networking on the job.
Keep a diary.
In a column for The Hill with advice for Trump’s future press secretary, published before Leavitt’s appointment was announced, Spicer implored whoever nabbed the role to “take pictures.” He reasoned that after leaving the job, “the pictures will allow you to look back and absorb moments that flew by. Hopefully most of those moments will bring a smile to your face.” They’ll also be helpful aides should Leavitt decide to later cash in by writing a memoir of her time in Trump’s White House, as Grisham, Sanders, Scaramucci, Omarosa Manigault Newman, and even Spicer himself did, among other Trump figures who lived to tell their tales in print. In his advice piece, Spicer even coopts a phrase that Leavitt, as the first-time parent to a very young child, has surely heard frequently, applying it to the tender love and patience that sticking it out in a Trump White House demands: “As the saying goes, the days are long, but the years are short.”
And, hey, those photos, notes, and journal entries could come in handy should Leavitt ever have to testify about Trump’s dealings in court. Ask Hicks, she knows.
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