Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt clashed with a CNN star in the White House briefing room Wednesday, twice denying her a question regarding the Signal group chat scandal.
Leavitt, 27, dismissed an initial question from Kaitlan Collins—by claiming it had already been answered—and audibly changed her tone toward the CNN reporter when Collins tried to ask a follow-up question about The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
“Kaitlan, I am not taking your follow-up,” Leavitt said, cutting off the reporter.
Collins, 32, tried to ask her question again, but Leavitt cut her off. This time Leavitt said more sternly, “Kaitlan, I am not taking your follow-up.”
The press secretary moved on to another reporter and told him to speak when called on—likely so Collins could not continue to squeeze her follow-up question in.
“Phillip, go ahead, I am calling on you.” Leavitt said. “Thank you.”
Collins appeared to shoot daggers in Leavitt’s direction after she was rebuffed, but overall kept her composure.
The tense exchange began with Collins’ initial question: “Does the President feel that he was misled by his national security advisors—whoever it was that told him there was no classified information in there—now that he’s seen these messages?”
Leavitt said earlier in the briefing that the president’s view of the scandal had not changed after The Atlantic published additional texts from the chat on Wednesday.
“I’ve now been asked and answered this question three times by the both of you, and I’ve given you my answer,” Leavitt told Collins. “The president feels the same today as he did yesterday.”
The group chat fiasco was the main topic in Wednesday’s briefing. Leavitt came out swinging against Goldberg—the journalist who was mistakenly added to a group chat with top Trump Administration officials discussing a strike on Houthi targets in Yemen—in her opening remarks.
“This administration is working hard on behalf of the American public every day, but the mainstream media continues to be focused on a sensationalized story from the failing Atlantic magazine that is falling apart by the hour,” Leavitt said.
She went on to personally attack Goldberg and described him as an “anti-Trump hater” with personal ties to Democrats.
“If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well, and there’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg,” Leavitt said.
Republicans have for two days downplayed the severity of mistakenly adding a reporter to a group chat discussing sensitive topics. Trump said it was “not serious” and the man suspected of being behind the gaffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, has claimed he does not know Goldberg or how his number got in his phone.
Leavitt continued this trend Wednesday, claiming that the incident—details of which she and others in the White House have confirmed as legitimate—is now somehow a “hoax.”
