On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dropped a bombshell: She would be leaving the Trump administration after serving the president since the 2024 campaign trail.
My colleague, The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg, reported that Leavitt’s announcement was so sudden that Trump did not have a viable candidate waiting in the wings to replace her. Leavitt has been one of Trump’s most stalwart defenders and did her job far more deftly than some of her predecessors in the first Trump administration.