Many got their first glimpse of Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday, when she conducted the first formal press briefing of the new Trump Administration.
She’s making history as the youngest White House press secretary — she’s 27 — but she also merits attention as someone who is unabashedly Catholic.
From a story about her three years ago:
It has been a rapid rise for Leavitt…who grew up in Atkinson scooping chocolate at her family’s ice cream stand. As a communications major at St. Anselm College, which she originally attended on a softball scholarship, she founded the school’s first broadcasting club in 2017, working with other students to cover college news and local sports.
The club also provided Leavitt with her first chance to do something she would regularly do as a candidate: go on camera to defend and support the policies of President Trump…
During her time on campus, Leavitt interned at WMUR, New Hampshire’s only statewide network television station, and also wrote op-eds for the school’s newspaper, the St. Anselm Crier, where she took aim at the “liberal media” and criticized her professors for criticizing the president. Leavitt would later describe herself as the “token conservative” on campus, a status that, whether accurate or not at the Catholic college, only seems to have given her more resolve to speak out.
Woven tightly with those conservative political convictions are Leavitt’s religious ones. She talks about her Catholic education as formative for her spirituality, including in an interview with the Catholic Current podcast.
“Central Catholic High School was an incredible place,” she told Father Robert McTeigue, describing her alma mater in Lawrence, Mass. “It taught me discipline. It brought me closer in my own relationship with God, and it also taught me the importance of public service and giving back to your community.”
Those same values–faith, family, opposition to abortion rights–now help drive her political campaign for Congress, her first run for elected office.
“This is a challenge that I’ve thrown myself into,” she said on the podcast. “And my faith in God carries me through. I wake up everyday and say my prayers and ask God to give me the strength I need to power through another day on a very difficult campaign trail.”
Meanwhile, Wikipedia notes:
Leavitt is married to Nicholas Riccio, a real estate developer more than 30 years her senior. She gave birth to their son on July 10, 2024.
You can learn more about her background here.
Early reviews? The New York Times described her “steely and unflinching debut,” noting:
It was a new day in the old briefing room. Mr. Trump’s top flack wasted no time throwing down the gauntlet in her first performance behind the lectern. She was steely and her patience seemed to be in short supply at points. She betrayed no fear and little ambivalence and she seemed quite confident speaking on her boss’s behalf.
Predictably, not everyone is a fan.
FOX mentioned this:
A first-term House Democrat is attacking White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X after she sought to clarify a White House memo rescinding an earlier policy statement on President Donald Trump’s federal funding order.
“Karoline Leavitt is a Fake Christian, like so many in this Golden Calf administration,” Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., wrote on Wednesday.
And so it goes.
UPDATE: More controversy rages around her first briefing.
From FOX:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt‘s recent claim the Biden administration sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, according to an independent U.S. government agency.
Leavitt claimed that the Trump administration stopped the multimillion-dollar shipment, saying it was a “waste of taxpayer money.”
A United States Agency for International Development (USAID) report shows no such shipment. The report did show a “small delivery,” valued at $45,680, was made to Jordan. The territory of Gaza is not mentioned in the 48-page report.
