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Karoline Leavitt joins Fox News as an on-air contributor starting Nov. 1

Photo: White House Office of the Press Secretary / Public domain (source)

Karoline Leavitt Joins Fox News, With a Message for Republicans: Don’t Buy the Doom and Gloom

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 5, 2026 · 4 min read
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Karoline Leavitt, who served as President Trump’s White House press secretary until the end of August, is joining Fox News as an on-air contributor. Fox News Media announced the hire on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, and said she will start on Nov. 1, two days before the midterm elections.

For one of the sharpest communicators the Trump movement has produced, it is a natural next step. And if her recent television appearances are any guide, she is not planning to ease into it quietly.

The announcement

According to TheWrap, Leavitt will provide political commentary across Fox News Media’s platforms. The New York Times first reported the hire, according to The Washington Post.

Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott praised the move, saying Leavitt’s “firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail” gives her “a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape.” Scott added, “We look forward to her providing our audience with authentic and sharp insight across all FOX News Media platforms.”

Leavitt said she looked forward to “bringing my unique perspective from my experience as White House Press Secretary,” the AP reported, and said in a statement quoted by TheWrap that she was “grateful for the opportunity to continue appearing on FOX News Channel.”

The White House sent her off warmly. “Karoline is one of the best and most effective communicators around,” communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement, adding that the White House was thrilled she would have the chance to talk with Fox viewers about the administration’s agenda, according to The Washington Post.

Who she is

Leavitt, 29, was the youngest White House press secretary in American history. She held the job from the start of Trump’s second term in January 2025 until she stepped down at the end of August 2026. When she announced her departure, she said she felt she could not be the best mother to her two young children while in the role, The Washington Post reported. She gave birth to a daughter in May and has since moved with her family to New Hampshire. According to the Post, citing an anonymous source, Fox agreed to build a studio in her home.

Her résumé runs deep in Trump world. She was an assistant press secretary in Trump’s first term, communications director for Rep. Elise Stefanik and national press secretary for the 2024 campaign, according to TheWrap. In 2022, she won a Republican congressional primary in New Hampshire before losing the general election to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Trump called her one of his “most trusted aides,” the AP reported.

She follows a well-worn path. Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s final press secretary in his first term, joined Fox in 2021 and remains there.

Her message for the midterms

Leavitt has made no secret of the message she intends to carry. In a clip from an appearance with Sean Hannity that circulated after the announcement, she told Republican voters to tune out the pessimism:

“Don’t buy the doom and gloom, the manufactured demoralization operation that is taking place from the Democrat Party and their friends, as you call it, in the left-wing media mob. They’ll have you believing that Republicans are completely demoralized, but we have to be more amped up than ever to fight back against these radical communists, against these extreme left liberals, who again want to totally take our country backwards to the days of Joe Biden and even worse.”

Her bottom line: “The only thing that we can control is our vote on Election Day. That’s where we can make our voices heard.”

That message lands against a gloomy backdrop in some quarters of the party. The Daily Beast, citing a CNN report based on anonymous White House sources, reported in late September that some insiders saw losing the House as a foregone conclusion, and one source described the strategy as “all a turnout game” aimed at energizing the president’s existing supporters. In a Sept. 28 interview with Hannity, Leavitt said that “over the next 36 days” Republicans must “ruthlessly prosecute the Democrats as who they are,” arguing that Democratic candidates “campaign as moderates” and then govern as something else, according to The Daily Beast.

Why it matters

The hire comes at an interesting moment for Fox and the president. Trump has recently criticized the network on Truth Social, saying he believes it gives Democrats more airtime than Republicans, The Washington Post reported. Adding one of his most loyal and effective defenders to the contributor roster, in the final days of a midterm campaign, puts a proven MAGA voice in front of millions of viewers on a regular basis.

The White House, meanwhile, had not named a replacement press secretary as of the announcement, according to the Post.

For conservatives who watched Leavitt spar with the White House press corps for more than a year and a half, her move to Fox will feel less like a departure than a change of venue. The briefing room podium is gone. The audience is bigger.

The left spent a year and a half trying to rattle Karoline Leavitt at the podium, and now she has a bigger microphone and a simple message: stop listening to the gloom and go vote.

Sources

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