Columbia Journalism Review

04/29/2025

Rarely a day goes by without a viral sound bite. When asked whether deportees are entitled to due process, Leavitt dismissed the premise, saying that it was “not quite true,” and noted that the administration was exploring “legal pathways” to remove US citizens. Commenting on the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland father who was wrongly deported, she noted with chilling detachment: “Based on the sensationalism of many of the people in this room, you would think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year.”

Pablo Manríquez—the editor of Migrant Insider, an outlet launched last October that didn’t receive press credentials under the Joe Biden administration but was accredited in the first weeks of Trump’s second term—observed that Leavitt’s tenure has “fractured the press corps in a profound way,” taking advantage of existing disunity. “The reason everybody is so afraid is because there is no solidarity,” he said. “As soon as they took AP out of the Oval Office, there should have been an uprising.” Even so, he noted, “Karoline Leavitt is a pretty standard press secretary at the White House.” She’s conducting a performance, and “she sticks to her talking points.”

Leavitt has no problem lying—perhaps not a political oddity, though, in February, when she seized control of the briefing room from the White House Correspondents’ Association, which for years had set the terms of admission, she took advantage of a weaker press pool, with fewer challengers in her midst. “The changes to the press pool today show that the White House is just using a new means to do the same thing: retaliate against news organizations for coverage the White House doesn’t like,” the WHCA wrote in a statement on April 15.

“Restrictions on White House media coverage only hurt the American people who rely on unfiltered journalism to stay informed and make decisions critical to their lives.”

Now, as Leavitt designates briefing-room seats to “well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility,” solidarity among the press pool seems to be disintegrating, and she is exploiting the divisions, performing for an audience of one. “She gives these briefings and is clearly talking to Trump,” a correspondent said. “He’s watching, he’s sending notes. She sometimes reads her phone and delivers his message. This is prime time for him, and he’s very happy with her.”