Karoline Leavitt has already made historical past in her place with President Elect Donald Trump’s administration, the current announcement of her appointment cementing her because the youngest White Home press secretary in historical past at 27 years previous. But when Trump’s second time period in workplace is something like his first, riddled with inter-office maneuvering and grudge-holding that turns into skilled vacancies, she may additionally change into the youngest individual ever to depart the place—although whether or not it’ll be by firing or resignation, solely time will inform. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had the longest run behind the rostrum throughout Trump’s first time period, logging one 12 months and 11 months on the job; the next-longest tenure was Kayleigh McEnany, who beat Stephanie Grisham’s keep by only a few days, every lasting simply over 9 months.
“Let’s MAGA!” Leavitt tweeted giddily when she clinched the job. Leavitt isn’t any stranger to Trump, having served as each assistant press secretary beneath McEnany throughout his first spin by the White Home, in addition to his spokesperson throughout his 2024 presidential marketing campaign, reducing her maternity depart brief to do her first cable information hit simply 4 days after she gave start in early July, leaping again into motion after the primary tried assassination of Trump.
Nonetheless, regardless of how a lot adjoining expertise an individual has, it may be totally different to proudly owning the rostrum within the press room. Right here’s what Leavitt can study being press secretary, in keeping with those that got here earlier than her.
Father is aware of greatest.
Trump usually postures as a type of father determine for his feminine mouthpieces, although the love is seemingly conditional. There’s Hope Hicks, a former mannequin who parlayed her expertise as press secretary on Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign—her very first political job—right into a White Home “strategic communications” gig after which a flip as interim communications director after Anthony Scaramucci was fired after 10 days (11, if you ask him) within the function. Hicks was additionally 27 when she turned a citizen of Trump World, and the president nicknamed her “Hopie” and “Hopester.” Trump advised her moderately than requested her to take the marketing campaign job, as her mom, Caye Cavender Hicks, told the New York Times in 2016. The obedience and loyalty served her properly, with Hicks commanding the utmost White Home wage of $179,700, on par with senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Onetime Trump marketing campaign supervisor Paul Manafort advised the Instances of Hicks, “Her most necessary function is her bond with the candidate.”
One other former Trump press secretary, Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, knew to play into Trump’s concept of himself as a father determine and used it to spin information. For instance, when Trump the elder was discovered to have dictated an announcement from son Donald Trump Jr. relating to a 2016 Trump Tower assembly between Junior and several other Russians about opposition intelligence, Sanders said in 2017 that “the president weighed in as any father would, based mostly on the restricted data that he had.”
Spend money on fire-proof pants.
Trump famously calls for loyalty from his workers, even when meaning repeating “falsehoods” on his behalf. There’s McEnany, now a Fox Information host, who pledged that she would at all times inform the reality from behind that podium. In her first White Home press briefing, she then proceeded to mischaracterize statements, distort inflation numbers, and straight-up lie all through the briefing, together with claiming that the Mueller Report had resulted in a “full and whole exoneration of President Trump.” The report itself states, “whereas this report doesn’t conclude that the president dedicated against the law, it additionally doesn’t exonerate him.” As a mere aide, McEnany also claimed that under Trump, “we won’t see illnesses just like the coronavirus come right here, we won’t see terrorism.” She mentioned this over a month after the primary COVID-19 instances had been reported within the U.S. Her prediction of a terrorism-free future, too, proved to be false: Although Trump favored to assert on the marketing campaign path there have been no terrorist assaults throughout his presidency, a number of jihadist assaults in New York Metropolis, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue taking pictures, and several other deadly events have been outlined as such by his personal administration.
Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White Home press secretary, additionally kicked off his tenure with a whopper, falsely claiming that the not-quite-a-crowd for Trump’s Inauguration “was the most important viewers to witness an inauguration, interval. Each in individual and across the globe.” He “supported” that declare with a number of verifiably false items of “proof,” claiming that photos shared by the media had been “deliberately framed” to make Trump’s crowds look small, that flooring coverings over the grass on the Nationwide Mall skewed notion (they have been additionally used at President Barack Obama’s inauguration with its attendant bigger crowds), and extra. (He has since mentioned that he regrets finger-wagging the press that day, a briefing that he ended with out taking any questions.)
