Washington: Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Donald Trump's 27-year-old pick for White House press secretary, has had a meteoric rise since getting her break as a student assistant for Fox News during his 2016 campaign for the White House.
After serving as an assistant press secretary during Trump's first stint as president, she is set to return as the youngest person ever in the high-pressure top press job.
Leavitt "is smart, tough and has proven to be a highly effective communicator. I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium, and help deliver our message to the American People," Trump said in a statement announcing her appointment.
The conservative from New Hampshire has been a regular presence at Trump's side in 2024, serving as his campaign spokeswoman at his rallies, as well as his multiple court appearances.
The mother-of-one, who took nine days off to give birth to her son during the campaign in July, is a fervent believer in Trump's "America First" anti-immigrant agenda and shares his disdain for traditional media companies.
She told a Fox News podcast posted online on Friday that she had spent the campaign "battling a lot of 'fake news' reporters. I hate to call them that, but it's true."
"There are a lot of journalists who aren't interested in journalism any more and we deal with them every day," she added.
As press secretary, she will face enormous pressure from Trump, who is known to closely scrutinize cable news coverage.
Identity politics
Leavitt began her rise through the Republican party ranks after Trump and other contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination visited her university campus in Manchester, New Hampshire, for a primary debate that was broadcast by Fox News.
"As one of the lone conservatives on campus, they appointed me to be an assistant running around that week for Fox News. I was just running around backstage and that's when I decided what I wanted to do with my career," she said on the network's "The Untold Story" podcast.
She went on to pen a column for the student newspaper at Saint Anselm College entitled "Why Donald Trump just keeps on winning and the media doesn't get it," where she opposed the "identity politics" professed by many of her fellow students.
"I didn't believe ... that the color of your skin or your gender can hold you back in this country. I don't believe that's true. That's the foundation of my conservative beliefs," she told the podcast.
After leaving the White House following Trump's election defeat in 2020, she ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Representatives representing New Hampshire during the 2022 midterm elections.
She also worked as a communications director for Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, whom Trump has nominated to be UN ambassador.
Asked what was different about Trump as he prepares to take office again, she said he was more experienced in politics.
"I think he is more wise about the 'deep state,' the establishment in Washington DC and the lengths to which they were willing to go to derail his campaign and his success," she said.
