The recently appointed White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has begun her tenure combatively, aggressively defending the Trump administration’s policies and, at times, mimicking Donald Trump’s methods of dealing with the mainstream news media.
Faced recently with a legitimate question by an Associated Press (AP) reporter who challenged Trump’s introduction of tariffs against several countries, she accused the reporter of doubting her knowledge of economics. She then dismissed him, saying: “I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press.”
AP is one of the key media organisations reporting on the White House. The largest news agency in the US, its stories are carried by news groups around the world. But recently, AP was ejected from the “press pool” that covers White House business