Karoline Leavitt, 28, is stepping away from her high-pressure job as Donald Trump’s press secretary to focus on her two young kids and her 60-year-old husband. According to a post from Trump on Truth Social, Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month and become one of Trump’s “top outside advisors.” In other words, the official story is that she’s resigning on her own terms for family reasons—not because Trump’s approval ratings are at historic lows and she’s bailing before things get worse.
But is that official story the full truth? Don’t bother asking Leavitt—I’m not sure she’s all that familiar with the concept of truth. She may have been the youngest White House press secretary ever, but her communication style clearly made her a perfect fit for the Trump administration. I won’t sugarcoat it with words like “misrepresented” or “made false claims.” Leavitt’s time in government was defined by attacking Trump’s opponents and repeating lie after lie after lie.
As a lowly writer, I’m held to much stricter standards than the departing press secretary or her boss, the president. Unlike Leavitt or Trump, I actually have to back up my statements with facts and evidence. So here’s a look at some key moments from Leavitt’s time in office.
First, there’s her role in pushing false claims about the economy. One of Trump’s biggest economic moves in his second term has been his global tariffs, which were even applied to volcanic islands with only penguins on them. During a press briefing in March 2025, Leavitt told reporters that tariffs were a “tax cut for the American people.” Economists say that’s nonsense. “Economists don’t agree on much, but we agree tariffs are taxes on consumers,” Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University, told the fact-checking site Politifact. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation also crunched the numbers and found that in 2025, Trump’s tariffs “amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000” per U.S. household.
But what’s $1,000, right? It’s nothing to Trump, who made a massive $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term through various questionable means. It’s probably not a big deal to Leavitt either—she earns just under $200,000 in her role, and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, runs a real estate business reportedly worth millions.
And if you’re upset about tariffs driving up the already high cost of living, Leavitt’s advice is to work harder (or marry a real estate tycoon). Last month, Fox News’ Jesse Watters told Leavitt, “Some of these kids—and I call them kids because they’re in their 20s and have never had real jobs—are complaining things are expensive.” Leavitt agreed, adding that her generation was raised with “silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them.” She suggested that’s un-American, because the country “was built on meritocracy and hard work, pulling up your sleeves, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps.”
It’s not just tariffs where Leavitt’s numbers seem off. In January 2025, she justified Trump’s freeze on federal funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by claiming it was wasting money. “[T]here was about to be 50m taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt said. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars.”To be perfectly clear: that claim about condoms was a lie. Documents show that no condoms were sent anywhere in the Middle East, let alone to a place undergoing what many experts have called a genocide. However, the US did provide billions of taxpayer dollars to help Israel destroy Gaza, which has arguably reduced births far more quickly than condoms would have. The dismantling of USAID, justified by Leavitt, has also increased pregnancy complications and maternal deaths in poor countries. A study published in the Lancet last year estimated that US funding cuts could lead to more than 14 million deaths, including over 4.5 million children under five, by 2030. I guess, if you’re Leavitt, being “good stewards of tax dollars” means contributing to mass death and suffering. Money well spent!
Along with her talent for numbers, Leavitt will also be remembered as a consummate professional who stayed dignified under pressure. Last October, for example, SV Dáte, Huffington Post’s senior White House correspondent, texted Leavitt asking who suggested Budapest for a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine. Her response? “Your mom did.” When Dáte then asked if she thought that was funny, she replied: “It’s funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journalist. You are a far-left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the media—they just don’t tell you that to your face. Stop texting me your disingenuous, biased, and bullshit questions.”
That was a quick look at Leavitt’s past. What’s in store for her future? Despite her comments about her family, don’t expect her to go full tradwife. None of the ambitious women advancing the Trump administration’s anti-woman agenda want to devote their own lives to the domestic drudgery they praise for others. They’ve got less privileged women to handle the childcare, cooking, and cleaning for them. No, rather than being a tradwife, one imagines Leavitt might end up with a nice little gig on Fox News or Bari Weiss’s CBS. Or perhaps, like Sean Spicer, her predecessor under Trump 1.0, she might go the reality TV route and entertain us all on Dancing with the Stars. No doubt there will also be a “tell-all” book in her future, in which, depending on which way the political winds are blowing, she’ll tell us all the things she thinks will rehabilitate her reputation.
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And, of course, for now there’s her new role as an “outside advisor.” I can’t tell you exactly what that involves, but I can tell you that, going forward, communications with Trump and his outside advisers can apparently be considered privileged. On Monday, after Todd Blanche was sworn in as attorney general, the justice department’s office of legal counsel issued a 21-page opinion about the president’s “executive privilege,” which protects communication between Trump and advisers who don’t work for his administration. This makes a future Democrat-led investigation into the Trump administration much harder, as his advisers—now including Leavitt—won’t be able to be thoroughly questioned by Congress. Exactly the sort of move you’d expect from a president that Leavitt has called the “most transparent” in history.
Best of luck, then, to Leavitt in her future endeavors. I’m sure she’ll roll up her designer sleeves, pull herself up by her bootstraps, and find a way to make huge amounts of money. And best of luck to all of us. If there’s one thing you can be sure about when it comes to the revolving door that is the White House, it’s that no matter how bad the person leaving is, the replacement is always worse.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the articles premise written in a natural conversational tone
General Background
Q Who is Karoline Leavitt and why is everyone talking about her
A Shes a former White House press aide for Donald Trump who recently won a primary for a congressional seat in New Hampshire Shes been in the news because of a recent column by Arwa Mahdawi that highlights a pattern of false or misleading statements she has made and questions what her political future looks like now that those claims are getting more scrutiny
Q What is the trail of lies the article is talking about
A The article points to several instances where Leavitt has made statements that are factually incorrect or have been contradicted by evidence This includes things like exaggerating her role in the White House making dubious claims about election integrity and repeating false narratives about the January 6th Capitol riot
Q Is Arwa Mahdawi a neutral reporter or a commentator
A She is a columnist and commentator not a breakingnews reporter Her piece is an opinion column so its written from a critical perspective She is arguing that Leavitts pattern of misinformation is a serious problem not just a oneoff mistake
Q Does the article say Leavitt is a liar in a criminal sense
A No The article is about political and publicfacing dishonesty not legal perjury Its about the accuracy of her public statements her credibility and how her past rhetoric might affect her ability to govern
About the Specific Claims
Q What are some specific examples of the lies mentioned in the article
A The column discusses her false claims about the 2020 election being stolen her downplaying of the January 6th attack and instances where shes embellished her own biography such as her exact role in the Trump administration The core issue is that she continues to repeat disproven narratives
Q Why would a candidate keep repeating claims that are proven false
