Karoline Leavitt Admits She Couldn’t Find a Man Her Age, but Why She Chose One Older Than Her Mom Has Folks Calling BS
Karoline Leavitt didn’t dress up her explanation or try to soften the optics.
The 28-year-old White House press secretary spoke candidly about choosing a partner who is 60, saying the connection she built with Nicholas Riccio made sense long before the public weighed in. For her, it wasn’t a story about chasing novelty.
It was about finding the stability, she said. Younger men simply weren’t bringing to the table.
She shared that the numbers people fixate on mattered far less than the emotional reality she kept running into. Leavitt said she learned quickly that men her age didn’t offer the grounded energy she wanted. She wasn’t looking for flash or charm; she was looking for someone steady enough to balance a life that demands constant pressure management. And she said that wasn’t showing up in the dating pool of her own generation.
The conversation resurfaced in a recent episode of the “Pod Force One” podcast, where she addressed the age gap directly last month.
Host Miranda Devine asked whether she “could not find boys your own age who are as mature,” and Leavitt didn’t hesitate.
“Honestly, no,” she replied, making it clear the gap wasn’t accidental. She called Riccio “an amazing guy,” explaining that they “met during my congressional campaign,” and said their introduction came through a mutual friend who invited him to her event.
“We met, and we were acquainted as friends for quite some time, but then of course we fell in love,” she recalled.
She emphasized how different he felt from the younger men she had dated, saying he is “very introverted, unlike me,” and someone who “stays behind the scenes” and is “very private.”
She admired that he is a “self-made man” with a “successful real estate business back home,” adding, “He’s built his career. And so he’s in a place where he can support me with mine.”
At home, she said his consistency shows up daily: “He’s an incredibly hands-on father… he is my number one fan.”
Through every description, she underscored that the maturity she sought — and didn’t find among younger men — was present in him from the beginning.
Of course, once the interview spread online, the commentary followed instantly. When RadarOnline posted its take about the clip on Instagram, many people weighed in.
One person wrote, “Her daddy issues are pretty obvious,” while another asked, “Is that her Dad??”
Someone else joked, “Baby has a Daddy/Grandpa in one while Mommy has a Hubby/Daddy in one.”
Another commenter added, “Kid looks like trump,” and another chimed in, “More years between her and the baby, than husband wife.”
The reactions moved fast, but given her position in Trump world, she’s used to anything personal becoming public property in minutes.
Still, she admitted the toughest crowd wasn’t social media — it was her family.
She told Devine that introducing Riccio to her parents was “a challenging conversation,” one she knew would land with more shock than comfort.
With her husband older than her mother and only slightly younger than her father, the age comparison was impossible to ignore. But she said everything changed once they saw the way he supported her, respected her parents, and embraced their role as grandparents.
Over time, she said the dynamic smoothed into something warm and familiar, adding that “now we’re all friends.”
Her demanding job as Trump’s “superstar” created its own challenges. In an interview shared by the Daily Mail, Leavitt described the nonstop pace of her role, saying she wakes up before dawn and rarely gets a predictable day. She admitted that canceled trips and derailed evenings left her cautious about planning anything at all, saying she now just “rolls with it” and makes the most of unexpected free moments with her husband and their son, Niko.
Her relationship with Trump adds another layer of unpredictability, though she doesn’t linger on it publicly. She acknowledges that serving as his spokeswoman comes with shifting demands that touch every part of her personal life.
In the end, she returns to the same point: the maturity she needed wasn’t showing up in men her age, and she found it in Riccio. Whether social media agrees or not, she seems completely unfazed — and fully committed to the choice she stands by.
