White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will be departing her role at the end of the month to prioritise her family, United States President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social.

“Karoline has been a real leader in the White House, and has done a phenomenal job fighting for Justice, Liberty, and Freedom, since 2018,” Trump wrote in a post on Wednesday, revealing the staffing shake-up.

He noted that Leavitt would remain one of his “top outside advisors” and an “influential voice within the Republican Party”.

Leavitt is the latest in a series of senior Trump officials to step down from his second administration.

Since the start of this year, high-level figures like former Attorney General Pam Bondi and ex-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have been fired.

Other officials — including former Secretary of Labour Lori Michelle Chavez-DeRemer and Todd Lyon, acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — have resigned amid scrutiny over their leadership.

Leavitt’s departure, however, comes on the heels of her maternity leave. She and her spouse Nicholas Riccio gave birth to their second child, a baby girl named Viviana, in early May.

The 27-year-old stepped away from her duties as White House press secretary in late April. She returned to the White House podium for her first formal news briefing in mid-July.

“Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office”, Trump said in his post.

He added that Leavitt would continue to serve his administration as the Republican Party seeks to “conclusively win the Midterm Elections” in November.

Leavitt has been a presence in Trump’s inner circle since his first term in office. She started as an intern, serving in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, and from there, her career quickly advanced.

By the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021, Leavitt was a spokesperson for the White House, serving as an assistant press secretary.

Her relationship with Trump continued even after he was voted out of office in the 2020 presidential election. She worked in communications for MAGA Inc, a super PAC named after Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and in 2021, she launched a bid to serve New Hampshire in the US House of Representatives.

While she won the state’s Republican primary for New Hampshire’s first congressional district, she was ultimately defeated in the 2022 midterm election by incumbent Democrat Chris Pappas.

When Trump launched his 2024 bid for a second term as president, Leavitt supported his campaign as its primary spokesperson. Upon his inauguration in 2025, she became the youngest person ever to act as White House press secretary, assuming the role at age 27.

Her style at the White House podium has been described as “combative”, and she developed a reputation for clashing with reporters during her frequent news briefings.

“I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made,” she told one reporter from The Associated Press early in her tenure.

Under her leadership, the White House briefing room also expanded its ranks to include bloggers and social media influencers.

Leavitt was known to begin her briefings by giving the “new media chair” the opportunity to ask the first question of the day — though critics pointed out that the honour often went to right-wing content creators.

She tied the expanded approach to media to Trump’s own campaign tactics, which involved appearances on podcasts like Joe Rogan.

“In keeping with this revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room,” she said at her inaugural news briefing as secretary.

Leavitt has frequently echoed Trump’s criticisms of mainstream media outlets as biased against right-wing voices.

Press freedom advocates, however, have slammed the Trump administration for imposing new restrictions on journalists’ access to the executive branch.

Last October, for instance, the White House announced a new rule that would limit journalists’ ability to access Leavitt’s office for reporting purposes.

The White House also attempted to ban members of The AP from attending certain presidential events amid a dispute involving the publication’s use of the term “Gulf of Mexico”, instead of Trump’s preferred name, “Gulf of America”.

Critics slammed such manoeuvres as efforts to restrict government transparency and curtail the right to a free press guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Leavitt has been the only person so far in Trump’s second term to serve as press secretary.

During his first term, however, four individuals served in the role, including Sean Spicer and current Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (Al Jazeera)

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