White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will be going on maternity leave, and the comms shop has a plan for while she’s out, Politico White House bureau chief Dasha Burns reported on Friday.

Last December, Leavitt announced she and her husband, Nicholas Riccio, were expecting their second child, a girl due in May. The couple already shares a son, Niko, who was born in July 2024. The news meant that Leavitt was the first White House Press Secretary to be pregnant while holding that job title.

Leavitt is “scheduled to have her second child next week,” reported Burns in Friday’s Politico Playbook, and “will be returning to the podium after her maternity leave, though it’s unclear exactly how many weeks she’ll take.”

The White House Press Office will not be appointing anyone to “formally” fill in for Leavitt while she’s out, Burns wrote, “but the comms shop is planning to have some familiar faces at the podium to brief the press including VP JD Vance, Cabinet officials or even [President Donald] Trump himself.”

White House communications director Steven Cheung and the other staffers on Leavitt’s team (Pat Adams, Anna Kelly, Kush Desai, Abigail Jackson, Liz Huston, Taylor Rogers, Davis Ingle, Allison Schuster, Olivia Wales, Micah Stopperich, Ellie Acra, Georgia O’Neil, and Kieghan Nangle) will continue in their roles, Burns added.

Leavitt confirmed the report in a tweet quoting Burns’ post and tagging the members of her “incredible team.”

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