Trump names Karoline Leavitt White House spokeswoman

Photo: The Washington Post via Associated Press Karoline Leavitt has been nominated as a White House representative by the next US president Donald Trump.

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Published on November 15

• United States

President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he has chosen Karoline Leavitt, 27, to become White House spokeswoman, a position as prestigious as it is exposed for someone who has proven herself alongside him during the campaign.

The appointment of this young press secretary, who will be the face of his administration on a daily basis starting January 20, comes at the end of a week in which the Republican has appointed his closest loyalists to key positions in his future government.

“Karoline is smart, strong and has proven herself to be a very effective communicator,” Donald Trump said in a statement.

This strategic position involves answering questions from the press on camera almost daily. Karine Jean-Pierre, the current incumbent in the Biden administration, has been in the role since May 2022 at age 50.

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Earlier Friday, the president-elect announced the creation of a National Energy Council (NEC) to “oversee America’s path to energy dominance,” and named North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is known for his close ties to the oil and gas industry, as its head.

On Thursday, he announced that he was handing the Department of Health and Human Services to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notoriously skeptical of vaccines, and that key positions at the Justice Department would be handed over to lawyers who personally defend him in his legal disputes.

As with the choice of thunderous Trumpist Matt Gaetz for the Justice Department, these nominations “meet two criteria: loyalty and rupture,” analyzed Todd Belt, professor of political science at George Washington University, for AFP on Thursday.

Lectern

Karoline Leavitt, appointed Friday, “did a phenomenal job as national spokesperson during my historic campaign and I am pleased to announce that she will be White House spokesperson,” added Donald Trump, assuring that “she will excel in front of the lectern and help us deliver our message to the American people to make America a great nation again.”

She will report to Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, who will take on the same title in the White House.

Karoline Leavitt previously worked in Congress as communications director for Elise Stefanik, a 40-year-old New York state representative who was recently nominated by Donald Trump to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

She also personally campaigned for a seat in the House of Representatives from New Hampshire in 2022, but lost.

“I didn’t grow up in a political family. Like most Americans, I grew up in a middle-class, entrepreneurial family here in my home state of New Hampshire. I got into politics in college,” she said on a Fox News podcast Friday.

She describes helping a team from this popular conservative channel at her university in Saint Anselm, when she was, during the Republican primaries in 2016, “one of the only conservative people on campus.”

“That’s when I decided what I wanted to do with my career,” she said.

During his first term, Donald Trump worked with several spokespeople, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kayleigh McEnany and Sean Spicer.