She held the podium longer than almost anyone expected.
Now she’s walking away — and she’s still got the president’s ear on who comes next.
And Karoline Leavitt just revealed what she told President Trump about finding her replacement in her final interview as White House press secretary.
The Last Morning on the Couch
Leavitt sat down with Fox & Friends for what was billed as her final official television interview in the role, and she didn’t hold much back about where things stand with the search for her successor.
Asked directly whether she had weighed in on who should replace her, she didn’t dodge it. “Of course, we’ve spoken about it,” Leavitt told the hosts.
She declined to name names. But she made clear the competition is real.
“One thing I’ll say is there is no shortage of applications. There’s a lot of people who want this job, a lot of capable people who want this job,” she added.
Nearly 20 months behind that podium gives a person some strong opinions about what the job actually demands. Leavitt said she’s shared her thinking with the president on the qualities his next press secretary needs to have, and she hopes to stay in the loop until he makes his call.
The one non-negotiable she kept coming back to? Trust. “Ultimately, it has to be his decision to make,” she said. “[The] press secretary and the president — you spend a lot of time together — it has to be someone he trusts fully, and I know he’ll make the right decision at the right time, and I’ll be here to help him if he continues to want me to do so.”
That’s not a throwaway line. The press secretary lives and dies by her relationship with the president. Get that wrong and the whole thing falls apart in front of the cameras.
Why She’s Leaving and Where She’s Going
Leavitt called the departure “bittersweet,” which is about as honest as you’d expect from someone who clearly loves the work. “It’s bitter because I’m leaving a job that I love so very much,” she said.
But the reason isn’t complicated. She gave birth to her second child, a daughter, in May, returned to the podium in July after maternity leave, and then made the call that she couldn’t give both the job and her kids what they needed at the same time.
“I have a 2-year-old and 4-month-old. They’re just at a critical time in their life where they need their mom home a little bit more,” she said. “I look forward to spending more time with them but continuing to serve the president as a top adviser on the outside.”
That outside role has a specific address. Leavitt will be heading to MAGA Inc., President Trump’s super PAC, where she previously worked as a spokesperson before the administration began. She said she intends to “serve the president on the outside” and “cheer him on over the next two years.”
And she made sure to say goodbye to the press corps the right way. At a farewell gaggle outside the West Wing, she told the reporters she’d spent nearly two years sparring with, “I’ll miss you guys.”
That’s the mark of someone who took the job seriously even when the job was brutal.
The Record She Leaves Behind
Leavitt was named White House press secretary by Trump in November 2024 and officially took over when he returned to the White House in January 2025. At 29, she holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever to serve in that role. She also made history as the first press secretary to serve while pregnant.
Nearly 20 months is a serious run by any standard. Trump went through four press secretaries during his first term, with their tenures ranging from six months to just under two years. Leavitt outlasted most of them and did it while the administration was moving at a speed that would have worn down anyone.
The White House has logged 2.4 million words from open press events with Trump during his time back in office, according to the White House itself. Leavitt was the one standing at that podium translating all of it for a press corps that wasn’t always interested in a fair fight.
Former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer, who served in the first term, summed up what comes next plainly. “There are two critical aspects of the job — the public-facing one that includes the briefing where the press secretary is the public face of the President’s policies and priorities,” Spicer told Fox News Digital. He added that the next press secretary will “undoubtedly” be someone who has a strong existing relationship with the president. “He values and understands the importance of this role in communicating his positions on policy, personnel and key issues, so I can’t imagine it not being someone currently in his orbit,” Spicer said.
Spicer also confirmed he was not seeking the role again.
Who’s in the Running
Several names have surfaced in the speculation. Stephen Miller, Scott Jennings, and Anna Kelly are among those floated as replacements, according to reporting from Fox News.
Jennings, the establishment Republican who reinvented himself as a Trump defender on CNN after years working for George W Bush and Mitch McConnell — whom he has called “my mentor” — reportedly ranks as a front-runner on the live-betting platform Kalshi. Worth remembering: after January 6, Jennings described the protesters as “domestic terrorists” who “ought to be treated like any other terrorist uprising with the full force and fury of the US government” and claimed Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for what happened that day. His current positioning as a Trump-aligned voice sits uneasily against that record, and anyone vetting candidates for this role would be doing the president a disservice to ignore it.
Anna Kelly, Trump’s principal deputy press secretary, is another name in the mix. Kelly previously served as national press secretary for the Republican National Committee during the 2024 election and has done media appearances for the White House, including during Leavitt’s maternity leave. She has never conducted a full briefing, but she has the institutional knowledge and the campaign-trail experience that Spicer described as essential.
Alina Habba, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and was a constant presence on the 2024 campaign trail, was an early betting favorite but has publicly distanced herself from the speculation. “Flattered by the Kalshi odds, but I’m not in the running for any job,” she wrote on X.
In the meantime, the briefing room will see a rotating lineup of administration officials filling in rather than a permanent replacement — a setup similar to what happened while Leavitt was on maternity leave earlier this year.
What Comes Next for the Podium
The press secretary job is not just a communications role. It’s the daily face of the presidency, the person who walks into a room full of reporters who are actively looking for a crack in the armor and has to hold the line without giving an inch on the things that matter.
Leavitt did that for nearly 20 months. She leaves with the president’s trust intact, a clear sense of what the job demands, and a stated commitment to stay involved in the decision about who comes next. That kind of continuity matters.
But the broader question is whether anyone can step into that role and hold it the way she did. The Trump administration moves faster than any in recent memory, and the press corps knows it. Whoever takes that podium next will be tested from day one.
Trump himself has not tipped his hand publicly. No announcement has been made, and Leavitt confirmed no decision is final. She said there’s “definitely a list” in play, but that the call belongs entirely to the president.
And knowing Trump, he’ll make it when he’s ready and not a moment before.
Sources: Fox News, Fox & Friends, The Hill, American Bazaar Online