Welcome to Stop the Presses, a weekly newsletter about how right-wing extremism has exploited the weaknesses in American journalism and what we can do about it.

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Karoline Leavitt is a professional liar

Trump’s press secretary is paid by the taxpayers to hoodwink the taxpayers.

Mark Jacob Apr 14

Before Karoline Leavitt became White House press secretary, she made a video for the radical Project 2025. Advising future right-wing political appointees, she said: “Sometimes you’re going to have to ‘fake it till you make it’ a little bit.”

But Leavitt is faking it more than a little bit.

At her very first press briefing after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Leavitt bragged about uncovering “waste” and claimed that “there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.” Separately, Trump said Hamas planned to use the condoms to build bombs. But, as it turns out, the funding in question had nothing to do with Hamas or the Middle East. It was for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases in a province of the African nation of Mozambique called Gaza.

At that same briefing, Leavitt said:

• “This White House believes strongly in the First Amendment.” (In fact, Trump has long called for various TV networks to be shut down, and he’s canceling students’ visas for speaking out about the Israel-Hamas war.)

• “There is no doubt President Trump has always been the hardest-working man in politics.” (He spent a weekend golfing in Florida after his tariffs caused the biggest stock plunge since the pandemic.)

• “The American people gave President Trump an overwhelming mandate on Nov. 5.” (He got less than half the popular vote.)

• “This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.” (It’s specifically provided for in the Constitution.)

• “There was no greater ally to our European allies than President Trump in his first term.” (Trump said he told our NATO allies that if their military spending fell short, he’d urge Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.”)

• “I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day.” (Really?)

After Leavitt’s debut, the New York Times called her “steely and unflinching.” Which was an endorsement of her performance skills, not her honesty. Leavitt is the latest and perhaps the most talented in a series of professional liars who have turned the Trump press secretary role into the job of fascist propagandist. Her salary, believed to be about $180,000 a year, is paid by the taxpayers to con the taxpayers.

Unlike some previous press secretaries, Leavitt doesn’t come from the world of journalism. She’s pure politics, and it shows. Undocumented immigrants are “foreign terrorist invaders.” A court ruling isn’t simply a court ruling – it’s a “smackdown to a rogue left-wing, low-level district court judge.”

At 27, Leavitt is the youngest-ever White House press secretary. She’s a Roman Catholic who wears a cross and says a group prayer before every press briefing. She’s married to real estate developer Nicholas Riccio, who is 32 years her senior. Asked about the age gap, she said, “It's a very atypical love story, but he's incredible.” They were married in January, about six months after she gave birth to their first child. She said she skipped taking maternity leave because the assassination attempt on Trump inspired her to go right back to work.

Leavitt is an enthusiastic helpmate for Trump’s attacks on the free press, such as removing the Associated Press’ White House access because it declined to call the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America.” Just last week, Leavitt took another stand to promote pettiness: “As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios.”

Leavitt is following the bad examples of past Trump press secretaries.

Just a day into Trump’s first term, Press Secretary Sean Spicer defied photographic evidence to claim: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe.”

The next press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, lied that she had heard from “countless members of the FBI” who were glad Trump fired Director James Comey. Sanders admitted her lie when she was questioned under oath in the Mueller investigation. She called it a “slip of the tongue.”

Sanders’ successor, Stephanie Grisham, didn’t lie at formal press briefings because she didn’t hold any. But in one embarrassing episode, she and Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner that accused the Washington Post of not reporting that Trump was the first sitting U.S. president to walk across the DMZ into North Korea. Problem was, the op-ed itself included a link to a Washington Post story headlined “Trump becomes first sitting president to set foot into North Korea.”

The final press secretary of Trump’s first term was Kayleigh McEnany. In 2015, before she joined Team Trump, she called his comments about Mexicans “racist,” but she later became comfortable with his racism. Like Leavitt, she wore a cross while bearing false witness. McEnany said the Mueller Report was a "complete and total exoneration of President Trump,” even though the report said explicitly that it “does not exonerate him.” During the COVID pandemic, McEnany insisted “the president never downplayed the virus,” even though there was audio of Trump saying, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic.”

Several spokespeople who were not press secretaries have helped delegitimize White House communications. Who can forget Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” or Anthony Scaramucci, whose 11-day tenure as White House communications director was so short that a “Scaramucci” is now cited jokingly as a unit of time measurement.

Given the ongoing work of fiction coming out of the White House, why do news outlets’ top journalists hang on every word? Why not send an intern to record the hijinks while experienced journalists find the truth elsewhere?

It’s a sad fact that prominent journalists still want to be part of the White House’s sorry show. They help Leavitt and other Trump mouthpieces subject the truth to death by 1,000 cuts – or 1,000 Scaramuccis.

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