Karoline Leavitt gives first media briefing as Trump's White House press secretary

Karoline Leavitt made history Tuesday as the youngest White House press secretary with her first briefing, calling on the media to be truthful in their reporting and giving a sneak peek into how the Trump administration is redefining transparency.

The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room was packed for Ms. Leavitt’s first briefing, a vast contrast to the briefings at the end of the Biden administration, where seats were left open as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held forth.

Ms. Leavitt, 27, gave no indication of how often press briefings would be held. But she pointed out how talkative President Trump has been in his first weeks in office, and told reporters that she can “assure you that you will be hearing from both him and me as much as possible.”

Ms. Leavitt talked of Mr. Trump’s first-week accomplishments, including his flurry of executive orders. She also spoke of his Cabinet picks who have been confirmed by the Senate: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

She also announced changes to the landscape of the press allowed in the briefing room, making room for less traditional voices.

“In keeping with this revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room,” she said.

“It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025,” she said, adding that 440 passes to the White House will be restored to journalists who have had them taken away under the Biden administration.

She said the briefing room also will be open to “new journalists who produce news-related content and whose outlet is not already represented by one of the seats in this room,” and invited independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers and content creators to apply for passes.

She announced a seat in the front of the press briefing room will be named the “new media seat,” and gave the first couple of questions to outlets who fit the criteria — Axios and Breitbart.

“As the youngest press secretary in history, thanks to President Trump, I take great pride in opening up this room to new media voices to share the president’s message with as many Americans as possible,” she said.

Ms. Leavitt also shared Mr. Trump’s conclusion regarding the drone-sighting frenzy, saying they were flown for “research and various other reasons.”

“This was not the enemy,” she said. Biden administration officials were heavily criticized for not being transparent about drone sightings late last year.

Ms. Leavitt said she commits “to telling the truth” from the briefing podium, and called on the press corps to be truthful in its reporting.

“I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States,” she said. “That is my job and I will say it’s very easy to speak the truth from this podium when you have a president who is implementing policies that are wildly popular with the American people.”

She said the Trump administration is “correcting the lies and the wrongs of the past four years, many of the lies that have been told to your faces in this very briefing room.”

And, she immediately added, “I would like to point out, while I vow to provide the truth from this podium, we ask that all of you in this room hold yourselves to that same standard.”

“We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family and we will not accept that,” Ms. Leavitt said. “We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.”

Mr. Trump had four press secretaries during his first term — Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany.