Karoline Leavitt will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August, just weeks after returning to the briefing room following the birth of her second child, but will remain close to President Donald Trump as an outside adviser ahead of the upcoming November midterms.
Trump announced her departure on Wednesday, saying Leavitt wanted to spend more time with her family and describing her as one of his most trusted aides. Leavitt, 28, said in a statement that serving as press secretary for the past year and a half had been the ‘honor and adventure of a lifetime’, but that returning to work after the birth of her daughter had made her reconsider how to balance the job with raising two young children.
She will not leave Trump’s political team altogether. The president said Leavitt would become one of his top outside advisers and remain an influential Republican voice as the party prepares for the midterms. No successor has yet been announced.
The announcement came less than a month after Leavitt returned to the White House briefing room on 16 July. Her last briefing had been on 27 April, before she went on maternity leave and gave birth to her daughter on 1 May. She had already resumed work at the White House in late June before returning to the podium.
Leavitt became the youngest White House press secretary in US history when she took the job at 27 in January 2025. Her first briefing immediately showed how the Trump administration intended to change its relationship with the press: she announced greater access for podcasters, bloggers, and independent media while repeatedly challenging the so-called ‘fake news’ mainstream media.
One of the lighter, and for Hungarians, probably the most memorable episodes of her tenure came during Viktor Orbán’s visit to the White House in November 2025. As Leavitt defended the administration during a heated exchange with reporters, Orbán turned to Trump and jokingly asked whether he could hire her.
Trump played along. ‘You know, that’s a very good decision you’ve just made,’ he told Orbán, before turning towards his press secretary and adding: ‘Please, don’t leave us, Karoline.’ Leavitt later reposted the clip, telling the Hungarian prime minister that she appreciated the offer but was ‘staying right here’. The footage spread widely online and drew millions of views.
Leavitt had worked in Trump’s first White House before serving as communications director for Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik. She ran for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022, winning the Republican primary but losing the general election, and later returned to Trump’s operation as a spokesperson during his 2024 campaign and presidential transition.
That is exactly why she is being pulled from the White House and put on the campaign trail again, as she proved to be highly effective in 2024. One of the most frequently cited examples of that is her CNN interview back in June 2024, right before Trump debates with Joe Biden on CNN. Leavitt went on live television and repeatedly attacked moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as biased against Trump until host Kasie Hunt cut off the interview. The Trump campaign then used the episode to reinforce its argument that Trump was entering a hostile media environment.
Resigning from the White House position would allow her to campaign more freely during what is expected to be a very difficult midterm fight for Republicans.
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