Karoline Leavitt is leaving her job as White House press secretary and going back to MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned PAC where she worked before joining the Trump campaign. She told reporters on Friday that her next move is returning to the outside political operation, setting up a fresh role just as her White House tenure is ending.
The timing matters because Leavitt also said Friday would be her last day on the job, after confirming aboard Air Force One that the trip to Myrtle Beach for a campaign rally would close out her run as press secretary. She said she would still join Trump for the Republican Convention in September, signaling that she is not disappearing from the public fight around him.
Trump had already prepared the ground for her exit, saying earlier this week that Leavitt would be one of his top outside advisors and an influential voice within the Republican Party. But Leavitt’s answer on Friday was more specific: she is headed back to MAGA Inc., where she once served as spokesperson, and where the money is real. Politico reported last month that the group’s war chest stood at $350M, giving the operation plenty of room to keep staff, buy airtime and run the kind of political push that lives outside the White House walls.
Her departure also closes a short but intense stretch in the briefing room. Leavitt wrote on X that since returning to the White House after the birth of her daughter, she felt she could not be the best mom her two young children deserve while giving the constant time, energy and attention the press secretary role demands. She called the decision bittersweet. During her maternity leave, briefings were led by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, underscoring how the job has already been carried by others when she was away.
What remains unanswered is not whether Leavitt is leaving, but what she will actually do once she is back at MAGA Inc. No successor has been named at the White House, and for now the post is open while one of Trump’s most visible communicators moves back into the political machinery that helped elevate her in the first place.
