Curtis Houck was silent about White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt laughably (and falsely) claiming that President Trump invented the doctrine of “peace through strength,” as purportedly exhibited through his bombing of Iran. However, he was more than happy to fangirl over Leavitt when she lashed out at CNN for daring to deviate from Trump-mandated orthodoxy on the bombing in his writeup of the June 26 briefing:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had one of her strongest briefings yet Thursday afternoon as she launched one scathing broadside after another at the liberal media for their anonymously sourced stories falsely claiming the weekend U.S. military airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites were a failure, calling these “agenda-driven leaks” and “fake and false narratives” led by CNN’s Deep State laundry person Natasha Bertrand.
Leavitt alluded to the liberal media’s hoax-peddling in her opening remarks:
[…]But she waited until roughly halfway through the briefing to unleash a torrent of facts about Bertrand’s record that should have immediately cast doubt on the accuracy of her story (which our Nick Fondacaro noted was already misleading).
Houck did not note that Leavitt offered any evidence to disprove Bertrand’s reporting beyond her loud, partisan ranting. Instead, he cheered that a right-wing reporter did her Trump Regime Media duty and adhered to the Trump-approved narrative:
Our friend and 2023 MRC Bulldog Award winner Mary Margaret Olohan of the Daily Wire wondered aloud why anyone in this administration would collude with Bertrand:
[…]In a follow-up, she wanted to know if Leavitt and the administration believe there’s an attempt by the liberal media to create fault lines inside the West Wing over foreign policy[.]
Houck cheered another Leavitt attack on CNN in her June 30 briefing, while again praising a right-wing reporter for pushing the preferred narrative:
During Monday afternoon’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ripped CNN for what had seemed to her like “unacceptable” behavior by “a major network” in “promot[ing]” an app that reveals the location of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officers, saying it’s “an incitement of further violence against our ICE officers” amid a historic spike in attacks against the brave men and women removing illegal immigrants.
Our friend and 2023 Media Research Center Bulldog Award winner Mary Margaret Olohan brought up, standing from her perch on one of the aisles representing the Daily Wire[.]
Houck didn’t mention that Leavitt admitted that she had never seen the CNN segment she was so vociferously denouncing, or that CNN has stated that it stands by Bertrand’s reporting. Instead, he moved on to name-check his mancrush by noting that “Fox’s Peter Doocy was back in the Briefing Room,” claiming he asked Leavitt a “hardball” question though he couldn’t be bothered to transcribe it. He also noted that “Doocy twice followed up, including on a proposal by Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) to explore stripping Mamdani of U.S. citizenship that the far-left radical obtained in 2018.”
Tim Graham used his June 30 podcast to hype how “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt ripped into socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Monday, and Mediaite editor Colby Hall just couldn’t figure out why she would attack this new radical face of the Democratic Party.”