NEWSJimmy Fallon Jokes Karoline Leavitt Can Take Her Skills to Help Taylor Farms Manage PR After Lettuce Outbreak
Jimmy Fallon joked about Karoline Leavitt being left behind during Donald Trump’s reported plane switch.
Aug. 16 2026, Published 5:52 a.m. ET
Jimmy Fallon has a new career idea for outgoing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
On the August 12 episode of The Tonight Show, Fallon joked that Leavitt was leaving because President Donald Trump had failed to bring her along during his secret aircraft switch in Turkey following a recent NATO summit.
Fallon noted that Trump left some key officials behind on Air Force One during the July 8 maneuver, including Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio. Leavitt was on maternity leave at the time, but Fallon imagined her as one of the stranded staffers anyway.
The Jimmy Fallon Punchline
Jimmy Fallon imagined Karoline Leavitt taking a new job at Taylor Farms.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, really? You didn’t take me?’ Yeah, apparently, she’s moving on to an easier job working as the press secretary for Taylor Farms lettuce,” Fallon joked, referring to the produce company facing a widespread cyclospora outbreak.
The host poked fun at Karoline Leavitt’s upcoming White House departure.
In reality, Trump announced Wednesday that Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month to spend more time with her family.
“Our wonderful White House Press Secretary, and one of my most trusted aides, Karoline Leavitt, will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Leavitt, who was 27 when she took the job, became the youngest White House press secretary in history.
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- Donald Trump Throws Karoline Leavitt Under the Bus and Claims She's 'Doing a Bad Job'
- Jimmy Fallon Jokes Karoline Leavitt Will Work for Taylor Farms PR Amid the Parasite Outbreak After Resigning From the White House: 'An Easier Job'
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A Recurring Late-Night Character
Jimmy Fallon’s joke added another late-night moment to Karoline Leavitt’s public profile.
While Leavitt has never shied away from clapping back at haters from the podium, her approach to late-night roasting may shift as she transitions out of the public eye.
“When a spokesperson becomes a recurring late-night character, the instinct is to push back, and that is almost always the wrong call,” said Amore Philip, founder of Apples and Oranges Public Relations.
“The goal is not to win the exchange, it is to deny it oxygen,” she added.
“The strategy I coach is to separate the person from the punchline,” she explained. “Keep the official doing serious, substantive work in serious venues, so the entertainment version and the real one drift apart. Let the comedy peak and pass while you stay visibly focused on the job, because humor has a short half-life when it is not fed.”
Leavitt’s Next Chapter
Karoline Leavitt is preparing to leave her press secretary role to spend more time with her family.
“Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least,” Leavitt said in her own statement.
She also wrote that she could not be “the best mom my two young children deserve” while devoting the time required to the job.
Philip said that when a statement is unavoidable, “lightness beats defensiveness.”
“A brief, self-aware acknowledgment can neutralize a bit faster than a statement that reads as thin-skinned,” she explained. “In political communications, the tone of your reaction becomes the next headline, so the reaction has to be more disciplined than the joke.”
