{"id":7086,"date":"2026-08-17T22:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7086"},"modified":"2026-08-17T22:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:12:05","slug":"trumps-maga-beauty-standards-exhausting-for-press-secretary-female-staffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7086","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s MAGA beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Women working in Donald Trump\u2019s White House were not surprised that Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced last week she was leaving her job \u2014 and they don\u2019t think it was just because she wants to spend time with her young children.<\/p>\n

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In an interview with the Daily Mail, several anonymous White House employees spoke of the pressure that Leavitt, executive assistant Natalie Harper and other female staffers are under to adhere daily to a \u201cMAGA perfect\u201d standard of beauty that requires a lot of time, energy and money. The beauty routine can involve daily hair blow-outs, time at the gym and regular Botox treatments \u2014 on top of long hours and being available to a famously demanding president 24 hours a day, every day of the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be exceptional at your job, which is a given, but if you\u2019re a woman you have to look a certain way, dress a certain way and be available 24\/7, because this is a president who barely sleeps,\u201d one \u201cburned-out\u201d White House staffer told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdd to that the pressure of a family at home, and it\u2019s no wonder so many of us flame out,\u201d the employee said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s perhaps no coincidence that six\u00a0women from Trump\u2019s inner circle have left since January, according to the Daily Mail. These women include Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem.<\/p>\n

Noem, especially, became known for adopting the MAGA aesthetic, which also has been likened to the ideal embodied by Barbie dolls. Starting in Trump\u2019s first term, his oldest daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump often had Barbie-related monikers attached to her. Noem, meanwhile, was dubbed \u201cICE Barbie\u201d during her 14-month tenure, because of her habit of pairing her cascading hair and heavy makeup with uniformed bullet-proof vests while joining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.<\/p>\n

This pressure on female White House staffers to adopt this look has came up since Leavitt\u2019s announcement, the Daily Mail reported. While Trump\u2019s \u201cformidable press secretary\u201d said she wanted to devote herself full-time to being a mother to her two young children, including to a daughter who was born in May, the Daily Mail suggested that she may not miss having to constantly live up to the idea of being a \u201cMAGA glamazon.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Trump rose to power in politics, the women around him \u2014 including his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka \u2014 became known for adopting an ultra-feminine appearance that\u2019s become a recognizable aesthetic among pro-Trump women. That generally means having cascading hair and wearing heavy make-up, as cultural critics at Mother Jones, the New York Times and other news outlets observed. MAGA woman also generally aspire to puffed-up lips, slim figures and long legs, which can mean getting surgical enhancements, spending time at the gym and carefully watching what they eat.<\/p>\n

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Critics of Trump say his ideas about female appearance stem from his misogyny. Trump likes attractive, \u201csubservient\u201d women in his orbit who lavish him with praise, according to Anthony Scaramucci, who famously served as the president\u2019s communications director during his first term.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, people are transactions to Donald Trump\u2014they\u2019re not people,\u201d Scaramucci told author Nell Scovell and host Joanna Coles on the Daily Beast podcast, explaining that the president sees the women around him as \u201ctransactions in his field of vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking a certain way to please Trump can be especially challenging for younger aides who don\u2019t make a lot of money, but who are still expected to pay for professional wardrobes and styling, the Daily Mail reported. \u201cMost of the women at the White House get their hair blown out at least twice a week before work and then there is pressure to go to the gym and dress well,\u201d a legal source said.<\/p>\n

Supporters of Trump told the Daily Mail he\u2019s not wrong to demand \u201ca certain level of professionalism and beauty\u201d because he\u2019s a businessman and \u201chas always\u00a0believed that you need to dress to impress.\u201d<\/p>\n

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These defenders also say Trump himself doesn\u2019t \u201cforce these women to have 6 a.m. blow-outs or get plastic surgery or go on weight-loss drugs.\u201d The source said the women do what they can to impress their boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get the Botox and fillers because the White House is a competitive place,\u201d the source said. \u201cEveryone is vying for his attention. He\u2019s the President of the United States, for God\u2019s sake.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Karoline Leavitt and other women working for Trump, the daily beauty routine can be exhausting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-things-to-do"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump’s MAGA beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7086\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump’s MAGA beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For Karoline Leavitt and other women working for Trump, the daily beauty routine can be exhausting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=7086\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-17T22:12:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Trump’s MAGA beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-17T22:12:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086\"},\"wordCount\":797,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/348f848649532365cedd2edc77e12ba4-scaled.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Things To Do\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=7086\",\"name\":\"Trump’s MAGA beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers - 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