Wonder Woman Karoline Leavitt: Her Life as a New Mom & Trump’s Spokeswoman
By Emma Foley
Karoline Leavitt at 29 weeks at a rally for President Trump in Wildwood, N.J., May 11, 2024.
Karoline Leavitt’s day begins around 4 A.M. with an early Fox appearance. There might be a Newsmax hit after that, then another at Fox Business. She’ll have coffee in between calls from Comms, a bite to eat between briefings. There’s a town hall tonight, the motorcade leaves for the flight at 2.
As the Trump campaign’s 2024 national press secretary, Leavitt has adjusted to the “Donald Trump sleep schedule.” That is, four hours a night.
If she happens to be in New York, she’ll dash from studio to studio, touching up her hair and makeup along the way. If she’s working from her home setup in southern New Hampshire, she’ll attend to her three-month old baby in-between hits.
For the first six months in the role, Karoline was pregnant. And ever since having baby Nicholas in July, she’s been balancing being a new mother with being spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Karoline was just a few weeks along when Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign managers, reached out to offer her the position. She felt in good faith it was important to let them know that she was expecting, even though she had not yet shared the news outside her immediate family.
“Knowing I was going to have a baby in the middle of a presidential campaign— which, I found out, is no easy thing to do— they couldn’t have been more accepting and welcoming of me,” she told The Conservateur.
The unwavering support of Wiles and LaCivita is a testament to Leavitt’s work ethic and impressive resume. Prior to her promotion, the twenty-seven-year-old had already served in the Trump administration, had worked in consulting and sales, and had even filled in as a radio host. In 2022, Leavitt won the New Hampshire Republican primary bid for the United States Congress at just 25, running her campaign’s social media marketing entirely by herself.
In all of those experiences, Leavitt poured every ounce of her being, heart and soul.
Wherever the wild ride took her— from Alvin Bragg’s cold Manhattan courthouse to ringside at a UFC fight with Dana White— Karoline enjoyed every step of the journey (including, she says, lots and lots of McDonald’s).
Karoline Leavitt at 27 weeks in a Manhattan courthouse for President Trump’s trial in New York City, May 29, 2024. Photo by Doug Mills.
And when it came to maternity leave, “I had a feeling that I would be the type of person who would want to get back right away,” Leavitt said, though the turnaround ultimately proved shorter than even she expected.
Still, other mothers on the Trump team promised Karoline that she would almost certainly need eight weeks to recover. Although her due date landed smack in the middle of the Republican National Convention, the team insisted she rest.
In July, Karoline hunkered down in her New Hampshire home for the final stretch of her pregnancy and what would turn out to be a very, very difficult labor. In the end, though, Karoline and her husband Nick got to smile down at their beautiful baby boy, Nicholas.
The happiest week of her life, she confessed, did come with a bit of “FOMO”— that is, the fear-of-missing-out— on the excitement of the campaign trail. And that faint longing prompted her to check in on her coworkers and boss.
“I had just brought my newborn, my three-day-old baby home from the hospital. And I said, ‘I’m going to turn on the television and watch the rally today.’” It was Saturday, July 13.
Her tiny son Nicholas in her arms, Leavitt watched as her boss was shot, narrowly escaping death, on live television.
With postpartum hormones already running high, the sight, Leavitt recalled, was jarring. She watched as her coworkers ran for cover across the screen, away from the assassin’s bullets, and ducked into the large black SUVs that brought them to Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work.’”
Four days after delivering her first child, Karoline Leavitt was back on television.
Karoline Leavitt at 38 weeks appears on Fox News Channel’s Jesse Watters Primetime, June 25, 2024.
“I felt compelled to be present in this historic moment,” she explained. “The president literally put his life on the line to win this election. The least I could do is get back to work quickly.”
Leavitt saw the other mothers of young children on the campaign as inspiration and proof that she could find balance as a working mother.
“We have a really welcoming environment for children at the office, the headquarters in West Palm Beach,” she explained. “You know, we joke that on Saturdays, it’s bring-your-kid-to-work day.”
Danielle Alvarez, a senior advisor to the campaign, has two daughters, one eight-months-old and the other three. Sonny Joy Nelson, the director of media bookings, has a one-year-old baby boy.
“Sonny and I will be on the phone with one another late at night or early in the morning,” Leavitt described. “Her baby’s crying. My baby’s crying. We’re working together through the chaos. And it’s a crazy but very rewarding thing all at the same time.”
Alina Habba, Trump’s lead attorney, is also a mother of two children. Trump appointed his daughter in law Lara Trump, another working mom, to lead the RNC, and tapped Susie Wiles, a mother and grandmother, to lead his campaign.
Exactly one week after coming home with Niko from the hospital, Leavitt answered the phone to a call from Trump. This call wasn’t business-as-usual.
“It was incredibly warm and kind,” she said. “He wanted to check in. He asked me how I was doing.” Then, to Leavitt’s surprise, the president handed the phone to his wife, Melania.
“Mrs. Trump and I talked about how wonderful it is to be a mother to a boy. They spoke about their love for Barron, and the president cracked a joke: ‘We have a little boy, but he’s not so little now!’”
The Trumps instructed Karoline to enjoy every moment and soak it in, because it all goes by so fast. “That was such a special phone call,” she shared. “I’ll never forget receiving it.”
With the support of the entire Trump team, including the president himself, Leavitt felt confident that if she took this working-mom thing one day at a time, those days would turn to weeks and those weeks, eventually, would turn to months.
Karoline also knows how fortunate she is to have a village behind her. Her husband, a self-employed business owner, has the flexibility to be wherever his wife and baby need him. Karoline recounted “baby and hubby’s” recent drive down to Bedminster, New Jersey, to be within reach of her while she staffed Trump there.
Karoline’s mother, Niko’s Mimi, also gave up her job at a yoga studio in New Hampshire to lend a hand as campaign travel demands more of Karoline.
Still, balancing any career as the mother of a newborn is not an easy endeavor.
“Leaving the baby every day to go to work, it does break your heart,” Leavitt confessed. “It’s incredibly challenging emotionally, physically, spiritually.”
“It would have been a lot easier for me to respectfully decline this job offer and enjoy this past year in the peace and comfort of my previous job.” Leavitt revealed that after her congressional campaign concluded in fall of 2022, she launched a successful business with a roster of clients.
“But I know I’m doing it for a bigger cause— to win this election.”
“We’re four weeks away,” she continued. “I’m almost at the finish line. Back in January when I took the job, I thought, How am I going to do all this? But here we are. It’s October, and I’ve done it.”
The media continues to lie that Trump demeans women, despite the fact that he has empowered women in business and politics. Many of his top advisors in the White House were women and working mothers.
“He doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman, with kids or no kids,” Leavitt noted. “He just wants the hardest worker and the best person for the job. And that’s what makes him a great boss.”
That being said, Karoline quickly learned that working moms are the best multitaskers in the world.
“Your brain will learn to move in ways that you never thought possible and you learn to be a master at multitasking,” she said.
She raised both elbows and tilted her head to the side to act out one morning when Niko was still less than a month old.
“I have legitimately done my makeup, while nursing my baby, while talking on the phone prepping for my T.V. hit all at the same time.”
“I realized at that moment,” she said bluntly, “no man could ever do this.”
Leavitt joked that it’s almost like Niko knew she didn’t have time for nonsense.
“My whole pregnancy, I was never sick. I was tired, more tired than usual, but he was so good traveling with me on all these flights, you know, in hotel rooms and different cities all over the country.”
“And exactly the way he was inside of me,” Leavitt beamed, “is who he is as a baby now.”
At three-months-old, Niko is starting to smile when he hears his mother’s voice— even when it’s on a television screen. Leavitt shared a picture her husband had sent of their son that morning, recognizing his mommy during her appearance on Newsmax.
Although Niko got to fly on Trump Force One plenty of times in-utero, Leavitt is still eager for “the reveal”— that is, when little Niko will get to meet the president in-person.
“I still have the onesie ready to go!”
If there’s one value Leavitt hopes to instill in her son Nicholas as he grows, it’s confidence.
“If he knows his worth is not from any other person, but from God, he can accomplish anything.” She also hopes that her son grows up to be kind and— though serious when he needs to be— fun.
And, she added modestly, she hopes he loves his mom.
“My hope in all this is, when I tell Niko one day all that I did when he was in my belly and around the time he was born, he’ll be proud of his mom.”
Karoline Leavitt need not worry about that.
Emma Foley is a Content Manager at National Review in New York City. After growing up in Pennsylvania, Emma earned a degree in Marketing and Theology from Boston College. You can follow her @emmafoleymedia.
