“The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room,” Leavitt said during her opening announcements. “Because according to recent polling from Gallup, Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low.”

The first question of the briefing went to Axios co-founder Mike Allen, who was seated in the “new media seat,” even though Allen was quoted two weeks ago as telling his reporters never to attend White House press briefings.

Leavitt promised to provide more space for podcasters, bloggers, and social media influencers, though she then proceeded to call on reporters from a fairly routine group of news outlets, including CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News, along with the Washington Examiner and others.

“We know for a fact that there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that,” Leavitt said when asked how she views the role of press secretary. “We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.”

While she fielded plenty of questions, including over President Donald Trump’s federal grant funding pause and his aggressive deportation efforts, Leavitt held her own as she argued that the administration was acting within the law and in the best interests of voters.

“America is back,” she said toward the end.

Here is how some of Leavitt’s recent predecessors fared in their first briefings.

Sean Spicer, Jan. 23, 2017

The first briefing of the first Trump administration took place three days after his inauguration and, as such, was dominated by questions about the event.

Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, asserted that the largest audience in history had watched Trump’s inauguration — if television and online viewership were added to the in-person audience.

That led to a number of semantics arguments with reporters about what exactly Spicer was and was not claiming. When pressed on the statements by CNN’s Jim Acosta, Spicer unleashed some of his frustrations.

“There is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that [Trump] has,” Spicer said. “And I think that it’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win. … There’s this constant attempt to undermine his credibility and the movement that he represents.”

“The default narrative is always negative,” Spicer said. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

Like Leavitt, Spicer began his first briefing with a lengthy opening statement, though his briefing ran much longer than hers, lasting almost an hour and 20 minutes.

He also attempted his own shake-up of the press briefing room, saying that four “Skype seats” would be reserved for reporters who don’t live in the Washington, D.C., area. That concept was gradually phased out over the next few years.

Spicer made waves by sending his first question to the New York Post, a right-leaning tabloid that’s part of the Murdoch empire, rather than to a more conventional outlet such as the New York Times or the Associated Press.

The media also came under fire during Spicer’s first briefing, namely for a false report that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.

“Where was the apology to the president of the United States?” he said. “Where was the apology to millions of people who read that and thought how racially insensitive that was? Where was that apology?”

But Spicer never really recovered from that initial grilling and was lampooned by Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live. He was replaced after just six months by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was followed by Stephanie Grisham, who never held a press briefing, and then Kayleigh McEnany, the final press secretary of Trump’s first term. Spicer admitted in 2018 that he “screwed up” at times, citing the inauguration briefing “first and foremost.”

Spicer pledged to be truthful in his position but stressed that it was a “two-way street” and that the press had a role in reporting accurately. Eight years later, little has changed in the relationship between the Trump administration and the media.

Jen Psaki, Jan. 20, 2021

The Biden White House wasted no time with news briefings, holding one on the same day President Joe Biden was inaugurated. However, it lasted just half an hour, was limited in access by pandemic protocols, and started an administration in which the president was cordoned off from the press.

Psaki lambasted Trump over the then-recent Jan. 6 Capitol riot and announced a “100-day masking challenge,” which included mask mandates inside federal buildings and land and on public transportation, including airplanes.

The pandemic was the dominant topic, and Psaki did not deny a report that $500,000 had been spent deep cleaning the White House before Biden’s team entered it.

“If the president were standing here with me today, he would say he works for the American people,” Psaki said. “I work for him, so I also work for the American people. But his objective and his commitment is to bring transparency and truth back to government, to share the truth even when it’s hard to hear, and that’s something that I hope to deliver on in this role as well.”

Karine Jean-Pierre, May 16, 2022

While Trump churned through four press secretaries during his first administration — only Sanders held the job for more than a year — Biden had just two.

Psaki left for a gig with MSNBC in May 2022, to be replaced by Karine Jean-Pierre, who held the gig through the end of Biden’s single term.

Jean-Pierre made her big debut on May 16, 2022, a day when the news cycle was dominated by a mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead. However, she also took some time to reflect on her historic role as press secretary.

“I am obviously acutely aware that my presence at this podium represents a few firsts,” Jean-Pierre said. “I am a black, gay, immigrant woman, the first of all three of those to hold this position. I would not be here today if it were not for generations of barrier-breaking people before me. I stand on their shoulders.”

Prompted by the shooting, in which all of the victims were black and there were reports that the shooter was motivated by white supremacy, Jean-Pierre was asked about the so-called great replacement theory.

“We’re going to continue to call this out,” she said. “As we have talked about many times, the president, every chance he’s had, when we’ve seen a violent attack like this, with hatred and racially motivated, he calls it out and calls it what it is.”

However, some reporters in the room questioned why Jean-Pierre wasn’t going even further in calling out racism, and she went on to have a fairly contentious relationship with the media. Jean-Pierre also had the unenviable task of defending Biden as he publicly declined and dropped out of his own reelection bid, leading to more than one awkward moment.

Leavitt can claim a first of her own — at age 27, she is the youngest White House press secretary in history — though she hopes to become better known for her ability to speak for and defend the Trump administration.

“All of you, once again, have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history,” she said. “There has never been a president who communicates with the American people and the American press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th president of the United States.”