THE WASHINGTON POST: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to leave administration

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave the administration at the end of August, one of the most high-profile exits of Trump’s second term, with the midterms less than three months away.

Ms Leavitt, 28, was the youngest press secretary in history and the first to give birth while serving in the role.

She has been a loyal adviser to President Donald Trump who played a highly visible role in his efforts to remake the presidency and erode trust in traditional media reporting, in part through aggressive moves to control which news outlets have access to the White House.

In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Mr Trump said that Ms Leavitt will leave her role to spend more time with her children.

Ms Leavitt gave birth to a girl in May and is also the mother of a 2-year-old boy. Mr Trump said that she would continue to serve as an outside adviser.

“Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections,” Mr Trump wrote.

Ms Leavitt said in a lengthy social media post that the job has been the “honour and adventure of a lifetime,” but that she had decided to leave the administration after she returned from maternity leave this summer.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” she wrote.

The White House has not announced who will succeed Ms Leavitt. One of her deputies, Abigail Jackson, also left this month, adding to staffing complications. During Ms Leavitt’s maternity leave, a rotating cast of Cabinet secretaries filled in for occasional press briefings.

Ms Leavitt worked as an intern in the first Trump White House. After her college graduation, she was hired in the press shop under Kayleigh McEnany, Mr Trump’s fourth press secretary.

After Mr Trump’s loss in 2020, she worked as communications director for New York Republican representative Elise Stefanik.

In 2022, at the age of 25, she launched a bid for Congress in New Hampshire but lost to the Democrat candidate Chris Pappas.

She then began doing TV for Mr Trump’s PAC, MAGA Inc., and rose to become national press secretary for Mr Trump’s campaign.

Ms Leavitt gave birth to her first son on July 10, 2024, at the height of Mr Trump’s campaign for the presidency. She returned to work three days later, after the President was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Once Mr Trump returned to the White House, Ms Leavitt gained widespread notoriety for her rapid-fire briefings during which she broadcast Mr Trump’s messages and sparred with reporters on air.

She oversaw significant changes to the briefing room and press pool, the rotating group of journalists who cover the President.

Early in Trump’s second term, she invited influencers and podcasters to join the traditional Washington press corps and started each briefing with a question from the “new media” seat.

The seat was often given to right-wing influencers who openly supported the President.

The White House also took over decisions about which journalists could participate in a pool, a responsibility that for decades had been managed by the independent White House Correspondents’ Association.

The White House limited the access of wire services like the Associated Press and Reuters, while granting greater access to pro-Trump outlets and influencers.

Ms Leavitt is one of the most frequent surrogates for Mr Trump on cable news, repeatedly appearing on Fox News.

On Monday night, she shared on Instagram that she appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” from a news van in her driveway after putting her children to bed.

In the segment, she attacked the Democratic Party and claimed Mr Trump’s policies have made the country “more affordable” — counter to administration’s own inflation reports.

In the post about her departure on Wednesday, Ms Leavitt promised to be “a vocal advocate for MAGA and the Republican Party” in her new role outside the White House.

“Our country is facing an existential threat from an increasingly extremist Democrat Party that seeks to destroy everything great about America, and I believe it is incumbent upon all of us who care about this country to fight back against that threat,” she wrote.

“My fight is entering a new phase, but it is far from over.”