Karoline Leavitt: From College to the White House Press Secretary
Karoline Leavitt's journey from a New Hampshire college student to the White House Press Secretary is a remarkable one. She is the youngest person to hold the post. This article looks into her educational background, early career, and rise to prominence in American politics.
Early Life and Education
Karoline Leavitt was born on August 24, 1997, in Atkinson, New Hampshire, the youngest of three children to Bob and Erin Leavitt. Her family has Roman Catholic roots, and she has often spoken about the importance of faith in her life. Leavitt's upbringing instilled in her a strong work ethic. Her family owned an ice cream stand in Atkinson, and her father owned a used truck dealership in Plaistow.
Leavitt attended Central Catholic High School, a private Catholic school in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before enrolling at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, in 2015. She attended Saint Anselm College on a softball scholarship. By the end of her sophomore year, she had given up softball. She majored in communications and minored in political science.
College Career and Political Awakening
During her time at Saint Anselm College, Leavitt became increasingly involved in politics and media. She interned with NBC Sports Boston but later shifted toward political journalism. Leavitt became involved with the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in her sophomore year. As the institute's ambassador, she interned for a United States senator and the television station WMUR.
During the 2016 presidential election, while still a student, she became an intern at Fox News. That year she wrote an article in The Saint Anselm Crier that was critical of the “liberal media,” which she called “unjust, unfair, and sometimes just plain old false.” She founded Saint Anselm's broadcasting club and wrote for its paper, the Saint Anselm Crier. Some of her articles for the paper include op-eds attacking major news stations for having a liberal bias and defending Trump’s first travel ban, writing that anyone who believed the ban was racist “is acting on pure emotions stemmed from their ongoing hatred for Trump, not facts.” She also penned a letter to the editor, calling out professors who “infuse their political beliefs into their classroom lectures,” signing it, “A fed-up Republican student.”
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Leavitt graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in politics and communication. She has credited her experiences at Saint Anselm College for her subsequent success.
Early Career and the Trump Administration
After graduating from Saint Anselm College in 2019, Leavitt quickly entered the world of Republican politics. She interned in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence and later became its associate director. In June 2020, Leavitt became an assistant White House press secretary.
Leavitt subsequently began working in the first Trump White House, writing letters to constituents from the correspondence office. She later became assistant press secretary. After Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Leavitt joined Trump in alleging widespread voter fraud despite a lack of evidence.
Congressional Run and the 2024 Campaign
After leaving the White House in 2021, she became director of communications for Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York.
In July 2021, Leavitt announced her campaign for the United States House of Representatives election for New Hampshire's first congressional district. She established herself as a pro-Trump candidate. Campaigning as “a Generation Z conservative,” she supported tax cuts and stronger border security.
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Leavitt won her party’s primary but lost to incumbent Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in the general election. In 2022, Leavitt faced a Federal Election Commission complaint from End Citizens United alleging that her campaign and treasurer had illegally accepted campaign donations over the legal limit and had never repaid her donors. In January 2025, Leavitt disclosed in 17 amended campaign filings $326,370 in unpaid campaign debts she had failed to disclose for several years.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Leavitt was press secretary for the Trump campaign. Shortly after winning the race, Trump announced that she would serve as White House press secretary, saying, “Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator.”
White House Press Secretary
Leavitt became White House press secretary in January 2025. Only 27 years old, she was the youngest person to hold the post. She quickly garnered a reputation for being unflappable and, at times, combative.
Her tenure marked a separation from precedent, particularly with non-traditional media. In February, Leavitt announced that the White House would select who participated in the presidential press pool. That month, she said that "new voices are going to be welcomed" alongside traditional media. The following month, Axios reported that the White House sought to change the seating chart for reporters, potentially by appointing Leavitt as president of the White House Correspondents' Association.
Leavitt was named as a defendant in Associated Press v. Budowich (2025), a lawsuit that began after Trump's staff moved to block the Associated Press from certain press events over the Gulf of Mexico-America naming dispute.
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In her tenure as press secretary, White House briefings began to reflect Trump's conflict with the news media. According to an analysis by The New York Times in April 2025, Leavitt called on individuals standing on the perimeters of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room-a collection of reporters from The Gateway Pundit, Real America's Voice, One America News Network, The Daily Signal, LindellTV, The Daily Wire, and Turning Point USA-approximately a quarter of the time.
Leavitt has employed a combative communications style. Responding to a question from a journalist for The Hill on the killing of Renée Good, who said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who killed Good acted "recklessly" and "killed her unjustifiably", Leavitt called the reporter "biased" and a "left-wing hack".
Leavitt's campaign for New Hampshire's first congressional district focused on lowering taxes and lessening regulations to support small businesses, challenging critical race theory in public schools and educational indoctrination, supporting school choice, increasing ID requirements on voting, and funding police. She also supported Trump's immigration policies and opposed vaccine mandates.
Leavitt has said that she believed Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election and that "irregularities and chaos" occurred as a result of precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic, but that Joe Biden was certified in the Electoral College vote count. According to The Washington Post in March 2025, Leavitt privately believed that Trump lost the election. Leavitt denounced the January 6 Capitol attack, but said she did not believe that Trump incited it. Tweets she posted after the attack praised Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to certify the fake electors provided by Trump, and Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer who led rioters away from the Senate chamber.
Personal Life
In December 2023, Leavitt became engaged to Nicholas Riccio, a real estate developer from New Hampshire who is 32 years her senior. They married and in 2024 had a son, Nicholas (“Niko”) Robert Riccio.
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