White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave her position at the end of August to focus on her family, US President Donald Trump has announced.
Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, praising Leavitt for her work in the White House and saying she would continue to advise him from outside the administration.
“Karoline has been a real leader in the White House,” Trump said, adding that she had done a “phenomenal job” advocating for justice, liberty and freedom since 2018.
Trump also described Leavitt as one of his “top outside advisors” and said she would remain an influential figure within the Republican Party.
Leavitt's decision to step down comes shortly after she returned from maternity leave. She and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, welcomed their second child, a daughter named Viviana, in early May.
The 27-year-old had temporarily stepped away from her duties in late April and returned to the White House podium in mid-July for her first formal press briefing since giving birth.
Trump called Leavitt one of the best White House press secretaries in the history of the office and said she would continue supporting his administration as Republicans work towards securing a decisive victory in the November midterm elections.
Leavitt has been associated with Trump since his first presidential term. She began her White House career as an intern in the Office of Presidential Correspondence before rising to become an assistant press secretary by the end of Trump's first term in January 2021.
After Trump left office following the 2020 election, Leavitt worked in communications for MAGA Inc, a pro-Trump super PAC. She later ran for the US House of Representatives from New Hampshire in 2022.
Although she won the Republican primary for New Hampshire's First Congressional District, she lost the general election to Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas.
Leavitt later became the principal spokesperson for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. After Trump returned to the White House in 2025, she took over as press secretary at the age of 27, becoming the youngest person to hold the position.
During her tenure, Leavitt developed a reputation for her confrontational exchanges with journalists at White House briefings. She frequently defended Trump's policies while challenging questions from reporters.
She also oversaw a change in the White House briefing room, giving bloggers, podcasters and social media personalities greater access alongside traditional news organisations.
Leavitt often gave the first question at briefings to a representative of the so-called “new media”, an approach she linked to Trump's use of podcasts and other alternative media platforms during his presidential campaign.
At her first briefing as press secretary, she said the administration would engage with a broader range of media outlets and personalities rather than limiting access to established news organisations.
Leavitt has repeatedly backed Trump's criticism of mainstream media organisations, while press freedom groups have accused the administration of restricting journalists' access to government officials. The White House also faced criticism after seeking to restrict access for Associated Press journalists amid a dispute over the administration's preferred terminology for the Gulf of Mexico.
Critics argued that such measures could undermine government transparency and press freedom protections under the First Amendment. Leavitt has been the only person to serve as White House press secretary during Trump's second term so far. His first administration, by comparison, saw four people hold the position, including Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
