Karoline Leavitt made history when she became the youngest person ever to hold the title White House press secretary.
In a special episode of “The Signal Sitdown” filmed at the White House, Leavitt opens up about her relationship with President Donald Trump, her political upbringing, and how the president is garnering record support with young voters.
At just 27 years old, Leavitt is tasked with communicating Trump’s priorities to the American people, oftentimes through testy exchanges with the adversarial corporate media in the White House briefing room.
“I don’t think anyone could anticipate having this job,” Leavitt told The Daily Signal. “Certainly, one may hope for it, but you never really know if it will happen.”
These days, Leavitt makes headlines sparring with journalists, but once upon a time, she thought she might become one. “I always was enthralled with the media and news growing up,” Leavitt said. “Always thought I wanted to be a reporter, actually on your side of the table, and covering the news.”
That started to change, however, when Trump burst on to the political scene. “2016 was the first election I was actually eligible to vote in, and I cast my ballot in the New Hampshire primary for Donald Trump,” Leavitt recalled.
Before she pulled that lever, she wrote about why Trump was the best option in the 2016 GOP primary. “I actually wrote an editorial in the school newspaper when I was in college, and the title of it was ‘Why Donald Trump Just Keeps On Winning,’ and this was when he was in that 15- or 17-person primary. A lot of people were doubting him at the time.”
“His economic message really resonated with me,” Leavitt said of her early support for Trump. “My parents, neither of them went to college. And so I watched them work very hard for everything that they earned for my brothers and me. And growing up in that environment informed, I think, my perspective of the world and hearing the president really speak for the forgotten man and woman.”
“I realized that this was an outsider, not a politician, a businessman, like the people I grew up with who see the world in a very commonsense way. And that’s how I knew I was a supporter of President Trump,” she told The Daily Signal.
That year was the first time Leavitt met the president. “Ironically, I asked the president a question when I was a student at St. Anselm College way back in 2016,” Leavitt said. “I was one of the students chosen to ask him a question, which is very ironic when you think about how it’s come full circle.”
“Now I’m taking questions for him.”
Leavitt and Trump’s relationship continued to grow when she worked for the first Trump administration and ran for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022. Over that time, she came to know the president as a great conversationalist” and “a great storyteller.”
“I’ve had many dinners sitting with him and just listening to his life stories,” Leavitt said with a smile. “Every once in a while, I’m reminded, especially when we are traveling and we’re at Trump Tower or some of his amazing properties, that this was Donald Trump before he was President Trump. What a great figure, an icon, to work for.”
Most of all, the president is as “funny” behind the scenes as he is on camera or online, she said. “He’s hilarious. Literally one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”
But the laughs don’t serve to downplay the seriousness of the work the administration has in front of it. “We move at Trump speed. We work so hard. We’re constantly working and grinding and moving to the next thing, especially on the communications team because the news cycle changes so frequently,” Leavitt said.
“But every once in a while, we do try, as a team, to smell the roses, if you will, literally and figuratively in the Rose Garden, to just remember the moment that we’re in,” she added. “It’s been a miraculous journey and I’m just very grateful for the opportunity.”
“I know that when these four years are over, the world and the country will be a much better place because of President Trump,” Leavitt concluded.
