Karoline Leavitt returned to the White House briefing room podium Thursday after eight weeks of maternity leave. Having moved seamlessly from looking after a screaming baby who thinks the world revolves around them to raising a newborn, she’s now back in the room and available to make excuses for the worst impulses of Donald J Trump.
While Leavitt was away, the Trump administration continued its usual hobby of generating enough headlines to keep several constitutional law professors, political reporters and therapists in full-time employment. On Wednesday, Trump’s former personal lawyer appeared at a confirmation hearing for attorney general and seemed like he wasn’t sure if he actually was still the president’s counsel anymore. On Thursday morning, everyone’s favorite ICE-siccing border czar, Tom Homan, promised more “bloodshed” if Democrats don’t “shut their mouths.”
So, you know, the usual stuff in MAGAville, and hardly a gentle transition back to work for Leavitt.
By the time Leavitt made her return to the podium Thursday afternoon, enough had leaked out about Trump’s planned primetime speech potentially involving the Justice Department, past elections and claims of interference from foreign governments in the one Trump lost, for reporters to be peppering her for specifics. Surely the president wasn’t going to lay the groundwork for dismissing the midterm results in November?!
Well, if what she said about the speech — and what it implies about the upcoming midterms — is anything to go by, Leavitt is going to have a rough ride to November; maybe all the way up to 2028 if she stays on.
Leavitt opened with mention of the “major address to the nation on protecting the integrity of our elections,” then moved swiftly into a bizarre advertisement for goods at Walmart before answering a softball question about — yes, really — how “women who want to have it all.” If you’re wondering how she juggles two kids and a demanding government job, she has a mood board full of italicized cliches for you: You just have to “show up every day”; you need “a village”; it helps to remember you’re “blessed”; and “there’s nothing better than being a mother.” Truly, parenthood is a beautiful and sacred thing.
Asked about the past week’s ICE shootings a few questions later, there was no regret expressed about Joan Sebastian Guerrero, the young father killed by federal agents in front of his 3-year-old daughter while she sat in the back of their car in her Bluey pajamas.
These juxtapositions are always the weirdest parts of Leavitt press conferences. She is prone to saccharine pronouncements and prayers; she grins and laughs about how she wishes she’d asked the president whether he’s supporting Argentina or Spain in the World Cup final.
“We are a kind people, we are a hardworking people,” she said Thursday, adding that she’s glad tourists following the tournament saw firsthand “how lovely and enjoyable the United States is,” since “we don't get enough credit from the international media.”
Perhaps it’s the shootings, perhaps it’s the warmongering, perhaps it’s the government figures openly threatening bloodshed — but whatever it is, those foreigners really got the wrong impression!
So what’s on the agenda for the big Thursday night speech? At first, it seemed like Leavitt wouldn’t reveal anything; she kept simply stating that all Americans should watch it for themselves. But eventually, we got a little more information, when a reporter in the room asked why the president can’t let the 2020 election go.
“Everyone should tune in tonight,” Leavitt said, to hear about “the findings” being announced by Trump because “it will shock you”. Steely-eyed, she added that it’s clear “we need to make some adjustments moving forward”.
“Adjustments” seem to imply election laws, though whether she means the SAVE America Act — Trump’s latest pet legislation currently making its way through Congress, aimed at mandating that all voters show photo ID at the polls — or something else is unclear. What does seem clear is that the groundwork has already been laid for disputing the midterms, presumably because Trump’s approval rating remains underwater and his supposedly short, extremely unpopular war with Iran just started up again.
Will the president accept the results of the November elections, Leavitt was asked later? It should be an easy answer, especially if Trump is supposedly already taking actions to remedy issues. It should also be easy to answer because the election results are theoretical, and surely Trump should believe his party can conduct and win an election.
But Leavitt did not say yes. Instead, she said the extremely unreassuring and very Trumpian: “You should tune in.”
Pushed on the content of the speech a few minutes later, Leavitt said that whatever the big election issue is, Trump “hasn’t revealed it yet, he hasn’t declassified the documents yet.” Will there be charges filed against people, then? Leavitt refused to answer: “You’ll have to ask the Justice Department.”
It was, all in all, an alarming taster for what is to come later — not just later tonight or this week, but for the rest of the president’s term.
What would the president say to Republicans who wish he’d focus on affordability and the economy — more obvious vote-winners — instead of on spreading suspicion about democratic elections, came another question?
“You guys have not heard the speech yet,” was the answer.
Most presidents embroiled in an ongoing war and conducting strikes in Iran would do a speech about that issue — will Trump even mention it tonight? Leavitt smiled. “It’s very possible” he might at the beginning, she said.
Notable, also, was the insight into the psyche of the president that Leavitt provided when she answered an unconnected question about Iran. Asked by a Sky News reporter about the strike on a girls’ school early in the conflict that killed over 100 children, Leavitt became irritated.
“Well, that’s the president’s opinion,” she said, when she was asked why Trump doesn’t believe investigators, including from inside the military, who have said the strike was a US-led tragic mistake. She then tried to deflect to the Department of War, but the reporter kept pressing.
“The president feels that way because he knows our military always acts in good faith,” Leavitt then stated, which of course means nothing at all. A person can act in good faith and still make tragic, terrible mistakes. A person can act in good faith and still be wrong.
But of course, not in Trumpland. How the president “feels” and what his “opinion” is trumps everything now, even in warfare. He feels like if he loses an election, it can’t be right, so it isn’t right, and it won’t be right if it happens in future. And if that’s what he says, then his supporters will nod and smile and laugh and defend it.
Perhaps Leavitt’s boss should pay more attention to one of his most vocal sometime-supporters, the far-right commentator Ben Shapiro, who coined a phrase increasingly relevant to this administration and one that everyone should bear in mind when they do tune in tonight: Facts don’t care about your feelings.
