In a change, Cutis Housk used his writeup of the May 1 White House press briefing to fangirl more over press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s special guest than anything Leavitt had to say:
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held yet another unusual morning press briefing, but this time, her guest was Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to provide barn-burning remarks on what the administration called President Trump’s first 100 days of “Restoring Common Sense.”
Miller repeatedly took the liberal media — living in safe, wealthy confines — to task, particularly for choosing dangerous illegal immigrants over American citizens.
Evenn though Leavitt held other briefings in May, Houck couldn’t be bothered to cover them. That’s probably just as well, because he would be forced out of his fangirl zone into defending her questionable behavior. For instance:
- She blithely dismissed ethical and conflict-of-interest concerns over Trump inviting investors in his new meme coin to the White House for dinner.
- She threatened fellow Republicans who aren’t rushing to support Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill.
- She defended the appearance of a quid pro quo in Qatar’s giving a luxury airliner to Trump, laughably insisting that he “only works with the interests of the American public in mind.” In a later presser she even more laughably insisted that Trump was dining with those crypto dudes in his “personal time.”
- She wouldn’t answer a question from Houck mancrush Peter Doocy about whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin is the good guy or the bad guy in his war against Ukraine.
- She had a meltdown when a reporter asked her about an inaccurate image Trump showed to defend the immigration of white South Africans to the U.S. However, intern Matthew seck devoted a post to complaining that MSNBC host and former White House press seretary Jen Psaki called out Leavitt’s reaction.
- She aggressively refused to answer a question about Elon Musk’s criticism of Trump’s budget bill.
- A onetime Trump lawyer called Leavitt “Creepy Karoline” for smearing judges who follow the law in ruling against Trump’s executive orders during one briefing, adding that “I don’t think anybody in America really takes her seriously on a matter of substance.”
Additionally, the former editor of the conservative Daily Caller called Leavitt’s decision to fill the briefing room with right-wingers and MAGA influencers was “increasingly bile-inducing,” adding: “If you actually care about the state of our media today, some gatekeeping is in order.” Indeed, a few days later, a blogger for the right-wing site Zero Hedge promoted the discredited “Clinton body count” conspiracy theory during a briefing.