With Karoline Leavitt joining President-elect Donald Trump‘s administration as White House press secretary, press briefings might look slightly different in 2025. At 27, Leavitt will be the youngest person to serve in that role and she has signaled that she will approach the entire operation differently.
During an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Leavitt said that she was “incredibly honored” that Trump chose her to represent him “behind the White House podium.” She also noted that she would defer to him about whether daily press briefings would continue. “Ultimately, he is the decision maker,” she told the Fox News host.
Should the daily briefings continue, Leavitt hopes there will be “decorum” in the briefing room. However, she also said that she is ready to deal with the “hostile media,” which she has accused of pushing “lies and hoaxes” about Trump.
Last night on Hannity, incoming White House Press Secretary @KarolineLeavitt gave her first interview since President-elect Trump announced his intention to appoint her. pic.twitter.com/PqTQvnpuXt
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 20, 2024
The name and faces of the journalists present for those briefings might also be different. Leavitt alluded to the presence of “different voices” potentially joining the legacy media outlets, a reference to the podcasters and social media influencers that Trump sought out during the campaign.
TVNewser reached out to various broadcast and cable news outlets seeking their thoughts on how they are preparing to work with Leavitt. We asked executives to answer the following question: There is already an understanding of how the first Trump administration approached White House press briefings. Using that experience, how is your network preparing to handle the White House press briefings under Karoline Leavitt.
We received responses from Fox News, NewsNation, Scripps News, and Newsmax. Notably, these respondents are either conservative-leaning outlets (Fox News and Newsmax) or smaller networks (NewsNation and Scripps News).
Mainstream outlets like ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, BBC News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, Telemundo, Univision, and PBS News either didn’t respond or declined to comment, suggesting that they are still figuring out the road ahead.
Bryan Boughton, Fox News Washington bureau chief
Regular press briefings and transparent dialogue with the media are essential to a healthy democracy. Our team’s approach will be the same for this administration as it has with all others, and we will be participating in an open dialogue with the upcoming administration.
Bill Sammon, NewsNation svp of Washington, D.C., editorial content for The Hill and NewsNation
The short answer is that The Hill and NewsNation will cover Karoline Leavitt the same way we’ve covered every other White House press secretary. The longer answer is that we’re, of course, mindful that this particular president tends to closely monitor White House press briefings. So, it will be interesting to see how President Trump reacts to exchanges between grizzled reporters who’ve covered multiple administrations and the youngest White House press secretary in history.
