White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made her last appearance before reporters on August 27, 2026, but the 28-year-old is not walking away from President Donald Trump. Her surprise exit, announced August 12, sends her back to MAGA Inc., the super PAC holding a roughly $400 million war chest that has quietly become the engine of Trump’s grip on the Republican Party — a hoard that has Washington operatives asking why a president who cannot run again needs that much money.
Leavitt, a mother of two, said she would leave to spend more time with her two-year-old son, Niko, and her daughter, Viviana, four months, whom she shares with her husband, real estate developer Nicholas Riccio, 60. Family is not the only motive, however: she is also positioning herself to help plan the president’s future.
At her final gaggle on August 27, Leavitt was asked whether Trump was “washing his hands” of Republicans after he amplified a conservative influencer’s post saying the GOP is “sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning.” She replied: “The president is wholeheartedly committed to helping Republicans across the board retain the majority.”
Her job at the super PAC has not been disclosed. She was a spokeswoman there in 2023 before joining Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, but the operation she is rejoining is far bigger and richer than the one she left, and it sits inside a maze of linked dark-money groups that make the cash hard to follow.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, August 21, Leavitt made clear she does not intend to disappear from view. “You guys will still see me all the time,” she said, according to Fox News. She is expected to return to MAGA Inc. in time for the Republican midterm convention, set for September 9 and 10 in Dallas. Her title and duties there have not been announced.
The $400 Million Question
Filings show MAGA Inc. had pulled in $305 million since Trump’s 2024 victory by February — about five times what any previous president had collected in the year after winning. Yet the group has barely touched the roughly $400 million it amassed heading into the midterms, leaving Republicans in competitive races waiting for the checkbook to open.
One of its biggest interventions of the cycle came in the August 25 South Carolina runoff, when it spent $827,711 on calls and texts backing Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was appointed to his seat after his death in July. She beat Rep. Ralph Norman to take the nomination.
The spending began in earnest on Monday, August 31, when Vice President JD Vance headlined a MAGA Inc. event in Sterling Heights, Mich., for Senate candidate Mike Rogers, in one of the first major pushes of the group’s November campaign. Rogers trailed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed by four points in polling released the same day. Federal filings put the fund at $403.5 million at the end of July, against $21 million spent since January 2025.
The donor roster reads like a directory of industries with billions riding on administration policy. The largest contributor is Foris Dax, the parent company of Crypto.com, which has given about $35 million. Others include Texas pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren, billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass, OpenAI power couple Greg and Anna Brockman, and crypto twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, whom the Daily Beast reports Trump describes as “male models with a big, beautiful brain.”
Among Leavitt’s new colleagues will be James Blair, the group’s current chief, who came from the White House, where he was deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, and was political director of the 2024 campaign and the RNC before that, plus veteran Trump strategist Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio. The fundraising machine is Trump’s own creation, and he says the money answers to him. What insiders whisper about is the possibility that the stockpile has little to do with November — that the president is quietly preparing a Constitution-defying bid for a third term, something he continues to raise as a joke.
An Empty Podium and No Replacement
The White House Press Office announced on September 2 that Vance will hold a press briefing on September 3 at 1:00 PM — the first White House briefing since July 23, a gap of 42 days. “Vice President @JDVance will take the podium tomorrow at 1:00 PM,” the press office wrote on social media.
The White House had not settled on a successor to Leavitt as of Tuesday, and NBC News reported it may not name one until after the midterms. A White House official told The Independent that the suddenness of her resignation was one reason for the delay, with Trump reportedly caught off-guard when she quit. The most widely reported name is Scott Jennings, 48, CNN’s resident conservative, described by CNN as the early favorite, who has held quiet meetings with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, since the job came open. Sources say he is unlikely to be the final pick; Jennings is loathed in parts of the MAGA movement because he initially faulted Trump for the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Vance will serve as the administration’s lead public messenger until a replacement is named, The Hill reported on September 2, and Trump has given no indication he is in a rush to choose one.
Other possibilities include Alina Habba, 42, Trump’s former personal lawyer and failed U.S. attorney pick, who pushed back on rumors she was in line for the job in a post on X; Katie Miller, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller; Monica Crowley, a onetime conservative pundit who serves as chief of protocol; Jason Miller, who once spoke for Trump’s campaign; and Anna Kelly, Leavitt’s deputy.
Trump told reporters last month, “I have never seen so many job applications in my life,” referring to the vacancy. On her final day, Leavitt said the president is “his own best spokesperson,” and told NewsNation there is “definitely a list” of candidates, adding, “I will say there’s no shortage of applications.”
Trump himself has otherwise stayed quiet about the replacement, aside from sharing an artificial intelligence-generated social media post declaring that he would be “The Best Press Secretary.”
From Intern to Youngest Press Secretary
Leavitt started in Trump’s first term as an intern in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence and was an assistant press secretary by January 2021. She won the Republican primary in New Hampshire’s first congressional district in 2022 but lost to incumbent Democrat Chris Pappas. She became the youngest person ever to serve as White House press secretary, taking the job at 27 when Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, and built a reputation for combative exchanges with reporters.
She stepped away from her duties in late April 2026, gave birth to Viviana in early May and returned to the podium for her first formal briefing in mid-July. While she was out, Trump repeatedly called to ask when she would come back — reportedly one factor in her decision to leave. She had earlier appeared on the Fox News show hosted by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to discuss juggling work and motherhood, crediting the president with supporting working parents.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office,” adding that she would remain among his top outside advisers as Republicans fight for the midterms.
In a White House speech on Monday, August 24, streamed on Fox News, the president thanked her directly. “And our press secretary, mother-of-two, and well, she decided she loved her children more than she loved Donald Trump,” he said. He went on to say he was “very upset” about her departure, adding: “She has to go home and spend time with her children. That does happen on occasion with some people when they love their children.”
Her departure caps a year of churn: former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been fired since the start of 2026, while former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement head Todd Lyons resigned amid scrutiny of their leadership. The Iranian Embassy, meanwhile, pushed a conspiracy theory that she quit over an Air Force One decoy-plane betrayal, though she was unlikely to have been aboard.
