Karoline Leavitt Admitted Working For Donald Trump Puts A Strain On Her Age-Gap Marriage
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt isn't often praised for her honesty, but she was pretty candid about how President Donald Trump's ruthless schedule has impacted her marriage during a November 2025 interview with the Daily Mail. There are several photos of Leavitt and Trump that hint she'll never leave his side, despite the fact that her job as is wreaking havoc on Leavitt's personal life, and apparently, her solution to the chaos is to just grin and bear it. "Honestly, I have PTSD about making plans, so I just don't," she deadpanned, later elaborating, "My husband and I had three different mini weekend getaway vacations this summer. All three got canceled due to foreign policy events."
Making casual plans after work isn't an option either, with Leavitt calling it a "rookie move." She also disclosed that her work doesn't necessarily stop when she gets home, as she often spends hours catching up on the news when she's with her family. Simply put, quality time with Leavitt's decades-older husband, Nicholas Riccio, is scarce, but the dedicated White House staffer keeps pushing through because she knows it's only temporary. Leavitt's 32-year age gap with her hubby has been the talk of the town since she first started working for Trump, and it's arguably not just her hectic schedule that puts a strain on the marriage.
Leavitt and Riccio are also demonstrably very different people. "He's very introverted, unlike me," the government employee told "Pod Force One" during a November 2025 appearance on the show. "He stays behind the scenes. He's not on social media. He's very private." For someone who doesn't like the spotlight, Riccio probably isn't too fond of all the age-gap gossip doing the rounds.
Leavitt has admitted that her relationship with Riccio had a shaky start
When Karoline Leavitt first met her husband, Nicholas Riccio, she didn't necessarily believe that being in a romantic relationship with him would be a good idea, given that he is 32 years her senior. While making an appearance on "The Megyn Kelly Show," in February 2025, the former Fox News host asked Leavitt directly whether she had any reservations about Riccio's age, to which the Trump staffer frankly replied, "Of course. I mean, it's a very atypical love story." However, the massive age gap hasn't negatively affected their marriage. On the contrary, it's actually been helpful.
As she contended simply, "He's built a very successful business himself, so now he's fully supportive of me building my success and my career." And yet, during her "Pod Force One" interview, Leavitt admitted that her parents weren't totally on board with her decades older husband either. Unsurprisingly, telling them that the man she was seeing was about the same age as they were was a tricky conversation, to put it mildly, but luckily, Riccio quickly won them over. "Once they got to know him and saw who he is as a man and his character and how much he adores me, I think it became quite easy for them," she explained.
The fact that Riccio is actually older than Leavitt's mother likely made it considerably more uncomfortable, but the Trump staffer insisted that their age gap hasn't led to any awkward family dinners (yet), affirming, "We all have a lot of fun together when they come to visit."