President Trump’s new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, takes to the White House podium for the first time on Monday, where she will do battle with reporters, many of whom are spoiling for a fight as they try to make names for themselves.

In the 24/7 news cycle, the press corps that gathers daily at the White House will fill up the briefing room’s 49 seats, armed with loaded questions they’ll use to try to trip up the president’s spokeswoman.

Yet they may be biting off more than they can chew. Ms. Leavitt may be just 27 —she was a student at Saint Anselm College a scant five years ago, emerging with Bachelor of Arts degrees in communications and political science — but to Mr. Trump, she’s wise beyond her years.

“Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator,” the president said in a statement announcing her appointment in November. “I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium and help deliver our message to the American people.”

Ms. Leavitt is the youngest person ever to hold the position. In fact, the job has not been held by anyone younger than 30 years old since 1969, during President Nixon’s administration. Only she’s hardly new to Team Trump, having served as the national press secretary for his 2024 campaign.

She’s had a political bent since before she even graduated, starting her career as an intern at Fox News during college. As a junior, she interned in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence. After graduating, she served as Mr. Trump’s assistant press secretary during his last administration, learning the ropes from then-Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

In between her stints in the White House, she served as a communications director for Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York, who was then the fourth-ranking House Republican and has since been nominated for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

She also launched a bid for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire in 2022, campaigning on her conservative values and gun rights, winning the Republican primary in an upset victory. Mr. Trump congratulated her on her victory “against all odds,” adding that she had “wonderful energy and wisdom.” But she lost in the general election to the incumbent Democrat, Chris Pappas.

Ms. Leavitt got engaged to entrepreneur Nicholas Riccio — at 59, 32 years her senior — in December 2023 and gave birth to their son, Nicholas, in July 2024. But she went back to work just four days later, saying in an interview she was inspired to get back on the campaign trail after a gunman tried to assassinate Mr. Trump during his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13, 2024.

“I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work,'” Ms. Leavitt told conservative outlet the Conservateur in October. “I felt compelled to be present in this historic moment. The president literally put his life on the line to win this election. The least I could do is get back to work quickly.”