Fox News has landed one of the most recognizable faces of the second Trump era. The network announced Monday that former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will join as an on-air contributor.
Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott made the announcement. Leavitt officially begins on November 1, just two days before voters head to the polls in the midterm elections.
At 29, Leavitt will provide political analysis and commentary across the Fox News lineup and its many platforms. That puts one of the sharpest communicators of the Trump White House in front of millions of viewers at the most politically charged moment of the year.
Scott said Leavitt’s firsthand experience inside the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape. Leavitt said she plans to bring the same energy and candor that defined her time at the podium.
That energy is well documented. Leavitt served as the 36th White House press secretary, and she became the youngest person ever to hold the job. She served from January 2025 until the end of August 2026.
Her departure stunned Washington. President Trump announced on August 12 that she would step down so she could spend more time with her young children. She had welcomed her second child, a baby girl, with her husband Nicholas Riccio in May.
Trump did not say goodbye to a loyalist so much as reassign her. He said she would remain one of his top outside advisers and an influential voice in the Republican Party as the GOP works to win the midterms. He also called her one of the best press secretaries in the history of the office.
Her exit left a gap that has been awkward to fill. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Attorney General Todd Blanche have all stepped in at the podium at various points. The president has yet to name a permanent replacement.
Leavitt’s road to this moment began in New Hampshire. She attended Saint Anselm College on a softball scholarship and graduated in 2019 with a degree in politics and communication. She even interned at Fox News during the 2016 presidential election.
She later worked in Trump’s first administration as a presidential writer and assistant press secretary. During the 2024 campaign she served as the national press secretary, and she became a fixture on television defending the president’s agenda.
She is not the first Trump press secretary to land at the network. Kayleigh McEnany, who served at the end of Trump’s first term, is now a co-host of “Outnumbered.” It is also worth remembering that Tony Snow made the trip in reverse, leaving Fox to become President George W. Bush’s press secretary in 2006.
The move did not come out of nowhere. Fox host Sean Hannity floated the idea on his show in recent weeks, asking how “The Briefing With Karoline Leavitt” sounded. Leavitt said she would join his program anytime. For now, the title is contributor, but the audience’s appetite for more is obvious.
Her send-off was warm. On her last day as press secretary, Leavitt sat down with the “Fox & Friends” crew, who played a montage of her clashes with reporters. Fox host Dana Perino, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary, called Leavitt a little sister and a mentor.
Leaving the White House has not meant leaving the fight. Leavitt recently spoke at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, and she helped host the launch of the AI-powered America.gov website in Washington. Trump’s outside political operation, MAGA Inc., is also part of her post-White House portfolio, and nothing in the Fox announcement says that changes.
