Departing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt‘s 20 months behind the podium could have a lasting impact on how her successors, Republican and Democrat, operate.
Following in the footsteps of her Trump predecessors, including first administration White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who did not brief once during her tenure, Leavitt and her team approached presidential communications differently.
“Karoline Leavitt truly set a new standard for the White House press secretary,” the White House wrote in a statement on Thursday, Leavitt’s last day. “She fought for the facts, defended the America First agenda, and never, ever surrendered.”
Here are five ways Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary in history, and her colleagues have changed the press shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since the start of President Donald Trump‘s second term.
White House pool reporter reform
Last January, Leavitt and the White House communications staff revamped what reporters have access to the president every day as part of the so-called press pool.
The White House described being included in the pool as a privilege considering the opportunities to ask Trump questions and the White House Correspondents’ Association, which previously organized the rotation under which news outlets “pooled” or shared resources amid constraints, as a cartel since it was hard for new members to be added to the roster.
“It was a group decision,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told the Washington Examiner of the changes.
Leavitt and company also removed the three pool spots traditionally reserved for wire reporters on the roster and reallocated them among the press corps, more often than not to a more friendly face or platform.
New media seat in the White House briefing room
In addition to providing a pool spot to a member of the new media, Leavitt began every White House briefing with questions from a reporter sitting in a specially designated new media seat, a chair historically saved for an administration aide.
The new tradition ended the old one of an Associated Press reporter asking the first question of the briefing, with that journalist dictating when the briefing would be over in conjunction with the press secretary.
The new media seat hosted reporters from the likes of Axios and Semafor to other journalists who may not have had White House press credentials, from former sportscaster Sage Steele to conservative influencer Tim Pool. The new media seat also hosted reporters from smaller regional publications without a major Washington presence, like the New Hampshire Journal.
“The new media seat may or may not continue as a dedicated seat, but for some time the nature of the press in the White House press room has been diversifying,” Rutgers University history, journalism, and media studies professor David Greenberg told the Washington Examiner. “For a while now reporters have come from small outlets, fringe outlets, [and] ideological outlets. That trend seems likely to continue.”
Questions from the White House briefing room’s aisles
Leavitt additionally took questions from reporters standing in the aisles of the White House briefing room, an approach not adopted by her immediate Biden-era predecessors, Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre.
Leavitt’s decision to do so was another way she expanded press access to the White House from legacy news outlets, which pay for seats in the room, to those willing to stand.
Limited access to ‘upper’ White House press offices
Leavitt commenced her time as White House press secretary with an open door policy, with reporters permitted to enter her office if the door was open.
However, from last October, the White House introduced a new rule that prohibited reporters from an area of the West Wing known as “Upper Press,” which includes the offices of the more senior communications aides, compared to “Lower Press,” where the deputy press secretaries and more junior level communications staff sit.
The move made it more difficult for reporters to question White House senior aides likely to have greater insight into administration policy.
The White House explained the update in the context of changes to the National Security Council, contending the West Wing was “now responsible for directing all communications, including on all national security matters.”
“In order to protect such material, and maintain coordination between National Security Council Staff and White House Communications Staff, members of the press are no longer permitted to access Room 140 without prior approval in the form of an appointment with an authorized White House Staff Member,” the National Security Council wrote in a statement.
A more combative approach to White House reporters
Following the lead of Trump, who filed lawsuits against ABC News, CBS News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, Leavitt was more assertive and, at times, aggressive, with White House reporters.
“You’re a left-wing hack,” she told a reporter in January 2025 shortly after the inauguration. “You’re not a reporter. You’re posing in this room as a journalist. … You and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist — you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.”
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Leavitt similarly rolled out the “Media Bias” portal, asking the public to “submit biased or undeniably false articles” to the White House for inclusion on the website.
“The days of the Fake News Media controlling the narrative with lies, fake anonymous sources, and willful bias are over,” the White House wrote in a statement last December. “If the legacy media won’t honor their responsibility to accurately inform the public, we know the American people will.”