How Trump’s press secretary went from praising Pence to becoming a 'staunch election denier'

02 December 2024

Donald Trump had four different White House press secretaries during his first term as president: Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham (who supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race), and Kayleigh McEnany. And when he returns to the White House on January 20, 2025, that position will be held by 27-year-old Karoline Leavitt.

According to CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, Leavitt will be "the youngest person ever to hold the position of White House press secretary."

Leavitt was 23 after the 2020 election. In an article published by CNN on December 2, Kaczynski details Leavitt's journey into "election denialism" — after having decried, in two tweets, the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.

In one of the tweets, Leavitt posted video of then-Vice President Mike Pence describing the attack as "a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol." And in the other tweet, she praised one of the police officers who was at the Capitol that day as "a hero."

But Leavitt later deleted those tweets, and when she unsuccessfully ran for a U.S. House seat via New Hampshire in 2022, Leavitt had — according to Kaczynski — become "a staunch election denier."

During an appearance on far-right One America News (OAN), Leavitt told host Natalie Harp, "I'm the only candidate in this race to say that President Trump won in 2020, and I will work my hardest every single day to make sure we get to the bottom of it."

Kaczynski reports, "Leavitt's shift from praising those who defended the democratic process on January 6 to embracing election denialism reflects a broader trend among Republicans who initially distanced themselves from Trump after the riot, only to rally behind him later as his grip on the party tightened. As Leavitt steps into her role in the briefing room, her past statements and actions will likely draw scrutiny over how she balances messaging on behalf of Trump with maintaining credibility in the press briefing room."

Read CNN's full report at this link.

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