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).
In response to a question from Hearst’s Kalyn Norwood about whether the administration would “share what other assessments are currently underway to get to the bottom of just how effective these strikes were,” Leavitt cited Bertrand’s past of peddling lies and this time “push[ing] a fake narrative to try to undermine the President of the United States, and more importantly the brave fighter pilots”:
Fox’s Aishah Hasnie wondered if the administration will find the leaker(s) who sided with Bertrand (and then other news outlets):
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 (click “expand”):
OLOHAN: Before the strikes on Iran, we saw a number of other leaks about Tulsi Gabbard, about Vice President Vance. Is there an effort to divide the President’s team when it comes to leaks and which reporters they choose?
LEAVITT: I do believe there’s an effort on the outside of this building to try to divide the President’s team on the inside and sometimes you have to look at these headlines and laugh because I have been in meetings where I know these things are absolutely not true, and again, we do our best here, I believe, to try to push back and correct the record with all of you, but there is fake reporting. That’s just the reality of this country, unfortunately, but I can assure you the President’s team is strong, especially the national security team. Everyone is very proud of the President’s [sic], of our commander in chief, and of our military for the successful operation that took place on Saturday night.
Thankfully, there were plenty of White House reporters who asked about a slew of other topics, ranging from the Big, Beautiful bill to oil reserves to trade to Ukraine.
Representing our friends at the Daily Signal, Elizabeth Mitchell brought up a disgusting smear job by the far-left Miami Herald that claimed the Trump administration is attacking foster children:
Later, World magazine’s Carolina Lumetta was the only reporter to ask Leavitt about a monumental Supreme Court ruling that could lead to Planned Parenthood losing access to Medicaid funding:
Earlier in the briefing, Leavitt went first in the Q&A to the new media seat, occupied Thursday by the outstanding Washington Free Beacon:
To see the relevant transcript from the June 26 briefing, click here.
