Newsweek/Getty
By David Averre
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Karoline Leavitt will leave her position at the end of the month, President Donald Trump declared yesterday, giving her a glowing review as "one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office" in a Truth Social post.
The reason for her departure is a personal one: to spend more time with her "beautiful young children and family" after her second daughter was born in May, Trump said.
It’s also her final parting gift to a president who has relied on her confrontational style to draw attention toward disputes over the administration's rhetoric, and away from some of its policies.
Read More on Analysis
Leavitt's departure announcement came just one day after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded a congressional briefing over the White House’s admission that Trump had been spirited off Air Force One amid a credible threat from Iran, while journalists and some staff were left on board.
That operation took place in Ankara on July 8, and remained secret for a month before the switcheroo came to light. Now, just as scrutiny over the security operation intensifies, Leavitt’s leaving announcement swoops in to steal some of the spotlight.
She was not aboard the decoy plane in July. For the past 18 months, she was the decoy plane.
$50 Million in Condoms for Gaza
Not for the president himself, obviously. There’s not a single person on Earth who can stand in the White House Briefing Room armed with nothing but a microphone and a little podium and successfully divert media attention from Trump.
Leavitt’s talent was more subtle: she became a lightning rod for controversy and press scrutiny. The provocative, often-combative way in which she issued statements and interacted with the media was not a failure of the communications strategy; it was the communications strategy.
Consider one of the first and most memorable claims of her tenure: during her inaugural White House briefing in January 2025, Leavitt announced: "DOGE and OMB found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza."
$50 million? On condoms?
With a bit of help from Elon Musk on X and a couple of right-wing pundits doubling down on the statement, it was also irresistible.
Reporters investigated the price of condoms, the population of Gaza and whether Hamas could conceivably use contraceptives to make bombs—an idea that Jesse Watters presented as cold, hard fact on FOX News. "Hamas floats these things with bomb-making material, and then KABOOM! Booby-trapped condom. Look it up."
The underlying story was rather less amusing. The administration had frozen funding connected to the International Medical Corps, which operated two field hospitals in Gaza serving around 33,000 civilians a month. Its work included emergency maternity care, a neonatal intensive care unit and treatment for severely malnourished children.
Of course, fact-checkers ultimately came to the conclusion that $50 million had not been earmarked for condoms in Gaza. The administration never produced evidence for the figure, and the organization apparently connected to the frozen funding said it had used no U.S. aid to purchase or distribute condoms.
Related Story
Is Pete Hegseth Checking the USS Abraham Lincoln’s Testosterone?
Related Story
Don’t Fear The Reaper
Wait…How Do Tariffs Work?
A similar flight of fancy worked with tariffs.
During a press briefing in March 2025, the press secretary fielded a question from an Associated Press reporter who pressed her on why Trump was pursuing "tax hikes in the form of tariffs," rather than the tax cuts he’d pledged as part of his election campaign.
"He’s actually not implementing tax hikes. Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that, again, have been ripping us off," Leavitt shot back. "Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people, and the president is a staunch advocate of tax cuts." Cue the cringe moment.
...
"I’m sorry…have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. They don’t get charged on foreign companies; they get charged on the importers," the AP’s Josh Boak replied.
"I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics, and the decision that this president has made," Leavitt said. "I now regret giving a question to The Associated Press."
Media organizations raced to publish a torrent of reports with commentary from leading economists breaking down why tariffs are effectively taxes and influencers plastered reaction videos ridiculing Leavitt all over social media. Conservative outlets celebrated Leavitt for "shutting down" a reporter, while critics crowed that the White House press secretary didn’t understand elementary economics.
But the argument about whether Leavitt knew what a tariff was proved more entertaining than the question of who would actually pay it, which, to be fair to the administration, may be divided among importers, consumers and foreign producers.
Making It Personal With the Press
This was far from Leavitt’s most explosive dogfight with the established American media.
When The Associated Press declined to adopt Trump’s "Gulf of America" rebrand, continuing to use Gulf of Mexico despite the president having issued an executive order changing federal terminology, the White House barred its reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other restricted events.
The AP eventually secured a court order restoring its access, with a federal judge ruling that the government could not punish a news organization because it disliked its choice of words. But the fight had already done its job, rebranding a serious dispute about press freedom into what became known internationally as a MAGA squabble over the name of some water.
That was tame in comparison to some of Leavitt’s more personal slugfests with individual reporters, one of which came in January in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
Related Story
Voters Don’t Want Ideology—They Want a Revolt
A reporter from The Hill asked Leavitt a legitimate question: how could then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claim that ICE was doing "everything correctly" when 32 people had died in the agency’s custody, American citizens had been mistakenly detained, and Good had been shot in the head?
Leavitt did not answer. Instead, she asked the reporter why he thought Good had been killed. When he replied that the agent had acted "recklessly" and killed her "unjustifiably," she pounced.
"You’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion…a left-wing hack." Leavitt said. "You’re not a reporter; you’re posing in this room as a journalist. You and the people of the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist; you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat."
The personal attack muddied scrutiny over the conduct of federal immigration officers and the fatal shooting of an American citizen over her treatment of a supposedly dishonest journalist.
Leavitt’s willingness to turn a professional dispute into a personal quarrel chimed perfectly with the president she represented. Trump has been involved in dozens of media and defamation lawsuits since entering politics and, during his second term, has continued pursuing news organizations including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC as a private citizen, despite residing in the White House.
Leavitt, though, did not force news organizations to prioritize confrontation. They could have simply ignored her, but didn’t. That's because they understood, just as well as she did, what would really get their audiences going.
...
Leaving a Legacy
One of Leavitt’s most influential moves during her tenure is one that is likely to endure—the introduction of a "new media" seat into the White House briefing room for podcasters, influencers and content creators.
For the Trump administration, it worked a treat. The arrangement gave Leavitt a steady supply of friendly, right-leaning personalities to pose useful questions, and helped her curate a profile as a defender of conservative America taking on an entitled press corps, with clips perfectly tailored to soar on social media.
But, beyond the obvious utility, there was genuine merit to the premise. The rise of social media and independent news outlets has precipitated a generational shift in the way large sections of the population consume their news. Now, millions of Americans get their updates from people who have never worked in a newsroom, while trust in the established media has plummeted.
Leavitt herself leaves no doubt about how she viewed her role, and remains steadfastly committed to her gambit to the last.
In her statement confirming her departure yesterday, she called speaking on Trump’s behalf from the White House podium "the honor and adventure of a lifetime" and said she had "relished holding the liberal media accountable and ensuring the American people hear the truth about President Trump’s successes."
The press may dispute that final part. But Leavitt understood the modern media landscape, understood the president she served and executed the job he gave her with ruthless efficacy.
Trump will miss her when she’s gone.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines