She’s been thrown off CNN for calling it a ‘hostile environment,’ reamed out journalists for negative coverage, and at the tender age of 27 is already a veteran of a Trump administration.
Oh, and she’s a new mom.
Now Karoline Leavitt is in the pole position to be tapped as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary after his election victory.
Figures in Trump world said Leavitt has impressed the president-elect with her no-nonsense attitude and work ethic. Four days after giving birth to son Niko in July, she was back on the campaign trail after seeing her boss get shot on live TV.
‘She talks to everybody, not just Fox News, but goes on TV and takes incoming, which is a big part of the job, and then she hits back and is a very, very effective messenger,’ said a Trump confidante, who was granted anonymity to discuss staffing issues.
‘The president trusts her and trust is everything with him.’
For the time being, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest as he goes about selecting more senior White House staff. And since his election triumph last week a number of other figures have put themselves in the frame.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba suddenly appeared in headlines this week as a contender, much to the surprise of the president-elect’s inner circle.
Reports cited her fiery defense of Trump during his multiple legal battles and ease in front of the camera as propelling her into contention.
Yet her sudden emergence as a contender raised eyebrows in Trump World, which knows that the best way to get ruled out of a job is to begin jockeying for it.
In contrast, Leavitt has kept a low-profile during the past couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, there is no shortage of other possible names from within the campaign and outside.
Former adviser Bryan Lanza (who has told friends that he has other plans), CNN analyst and flamethrower Scott Jennings, and political pundit Katie Pavlich have all been mentioned as possible for the front-and-center post.
Then there is Steven Cheung, who as campaign communications director was the first port of call for reporters looking for comment. But he is a rare presence on television and is seen as more likely to take an off-camera position.
And senior adviser Jason Miller won plaudits for managing messaging.
But a friend of Trump told DailyMail.com that Leavitt’s age meant she was far better suited to the grinding 14-hour days expected of a press secretary.
‘And Trump loves the way she takes incoming on CNN and then punches back,’ he said. ‘She’s a star.’
But she already has a résumé filled with relevant experience.
She knows her way around the White House. Like many junior members of the press shop, she initially joined the office of presidential correspondence, helping process and reply to incoming mail, after graduating from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.
From there she joined the communications team under Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany towards the end of Trump’s first term.
When he left office she went to work for high-profile New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, before making her own run for Congress in New Hampshire, the state where she grew up scooping ice cream at her parents’ store.
Her effort to become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress fell 15,000 votes short in the 2022 midterms, when an expected red wave failed to materialize.
She was back in the Trump fold within weeks, joining an allied group before linking up with the campaign itself earlier this year, quickly becoming a fixture on television despite being pregnant with her first child.
That did nothing to tame her fiery, bomb-throwing style.
In June, she clashed with CNN presenter Kasie Hunt, who took her off air after they argued about whether the network’s journalists could be neutral moderators in the upcoming debate.
Leavitt said the debate would be a ‘hostile environment’ for Trump, and that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash had been ‘biased’ against him in the past.
‘Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues,’ said Hunt.
After another back and forth, Hunt ended their conversation and the camera cut away abruptly.
Two weeks later Leavitt and her husband Nick became parents to baby Nicholas, little realizing that the election was about to enter its most tumultuous period yet.
‘I had just brought my newborn, my three-day-old baby home from the hospital,’ she told The Conservateur, a website for conservative women.
‘And I said, ‘I’m going to turn on the television and watch the rally today.”
The date was Saturday, July 13. A day later she was back fielding questions on television.
‘The president literally put his life on the line to win this election,’ she said. ‘The least I could do is get back to work quickly.’
