On Tuesday’s installment of the White Home press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the modifications proprietor Jeff Bezos is making at The Washington Publish, gave the “new media” seat to Saagar Enjeti of Breaking Factors, and confronted robust questions from throughout the spectrum on the economic system from Fox Information, CNN, Politico, and even the Related Press.
“I wish to commend The Washington Publish…Based on a brand new report from Axios, The Washington Publish is overhauling their newsroom construction. It seems that the mainstream media, together with The Publish, is lastly studying that having disdain for greater than half of the nation who helps this President doesn’t show you how to promote newspapers. It’s not an excellent enterprise mannequin,” she acknowledged on the finish of her opening monologue.
After Leavitt’s introduction noting Enjeti was a White Home correspondent and now the host of the wildly profitable Breaking Factors, Enjeti began with the information of the day, blowing holes within the notion that this “new media” seat is reserved for softball pitchers:
Enjeti adopted with two extra topical questions, together with one urgent from the precise (click on “develop”):
So, President Trump got here out right this moment in a major problem in opposition to Congressman Thomas Massie. Congressman Massie has been a supporter of DOGE and been a supporter of Make America Wholesome Once more. What sort of message is that this White Home sending in opposition to a congressman who’s sticking up for rules that he’s lengthy held within the chamber and voting in opposition to persevering with decision and spending?
(….)
Simply the final query right here on Mahmoud Khalil. Does the administration imagine that it must cost a inexperienced card holder with a criminal offense to be eligible for deportation?
Doocy got here second and in between a joking query about whether or not anybody within the administration is shorting the Dow given its speedy drops and President Trump Teslas, he delivered a hardball that, like Enjeti, defeated the thought right-leaning retailers are pure sycophants: “[I]s there any concern right here that it’s going to be more durable to ask sure federal staff to retire in the event that they have a look at their retirement accounts they usually’re getting rocked on daily basis?”
A reporter in direction of the again chimed in with a protection of the previous Columbia College grad scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a inexperienced card holder who was arrested as a frontrunner of the pro-Hamas protests on the college’s campus: “On the core of pro-Palestinian protests on faculty campuses and elsewhere is a requirement to finish the struggle in Gaza, a aim that this administration really helps and has pursued. So why did — why has not — has this not been acknowledged or highlighted even?”
Leavitt promptly dismissed this nonsense as a result of, for instance, his group “put out Hamas propaganda, the flyers which were distributed name for violence” with Hamas’s emblem.
“[Hamas is] a delegated international terrorist group, and we aren’t going to tolerate non-citizens, foreigners who come right here on a visa, participating in such habits, siding with terrorists, and the Secretary of State reserves the authority” to revoke the privilege of being in the USA, she defined.
Fox’s Edward Lawrence additionally had two questions in regards to the economic system, together with this one about how you can sustain the spirit of Individuals who’re anxious: “[H]ow do you promote to the American folks then after they’re what’s occurring within the markets this week and say that the tariff coverage long run is one thing good?”
CNN’s Alayna Treene upped the testiness by peddling the completely debunked lies in regards to the Trump administration reducing entitlements (click on “develop”):
TREENE: I needed to ask you about some feedback Elon Musk yesterday — made yesterday. He mentioned that there’s $500 to $700 billion in waste and fraud and entitlement spending. He referred to as it, “the massive one to eradicate.” Earlier this month, he additionally referred to Social Safety as a Ponzi scheme. Ought to Individuals anticipate modifications, huge modifications to Social Safety and Medicare?
LEAVITT: President Trump has been unequivocally clear on this. He’s going to guard Social Safety and Medicare advantages and Medicaid for hardworking Individuals who paid into these entitlement packages and deserve these hard-earned advantages, and sadly, the mainstream media has taken Mr. Musk out of context. I noticed a Bloomberg headline that our group really labored on getting up to date and glued as a result of it was so unsuitable and it took Mr. Musk out of textual content what he was particularly referring to reducing was the waste and the fraud and abuse that does exist in these packages. Based on an IG report from the Social Safety Administration, there’s greater than $70 billion of fraud within the Social Safety program alone that we all know of and so, the President will proceed to guard these packages for hardworking Individuals and truly reducing the waste, fraud, and abuse out of those packages will shield it for hardworking Individuals.
TREENE: However, to be sincere, respectfully, he mentioned round $500 to $700 billion. There’s no proof to say that. And in addition, if that’s the case, that may signify greater than a 3rd of what Social Safety paid out final 12 months, possibly 20 % of Social Safety and Medicare mixed.
LEAVITT: Effectively, if you happen to learn his full quote, he mentioned, we expect. So, it’s an estimate based mostly on what he’s seen. He’s not saying definitively, he’s saying that’s what DOGE suspects and thinks, and that’s precisely why DOGE was created to make sure that we’re investigating the fraudulent spending — the wasteful abuse throughout our federal authorities, and I might remind everyone on this room that 77 % of the American folks assist this effort by Elon Musk in DOGE to establish such waste, fraud, and abuse.
Regardless of the AP’s refusal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and suing Leavitt for preserving the AP out of the White Home press pool, Leavitt selected to rise above all that by calling on them. Josh Boak was within the seat on Tuesday and, as an economics man, he requested about tariffs:
When President Trump final addressed the BRT when he was on the marketing campaign path, his huge push was on tax cuts. He’s going there right this moment as he’s proposing tax hikes within the type of tariffs, and I’m curious why he’s prioritizing that over the tax cuts.
When Leavitt mentioned “[t]ariffs are a tax hike on international international locations” and “a tax reduce for the American folks,” Boak clapped again: “I’m sorry, have you ever ever paid a tariff? As a result of I’ve. They don’t get charged on international firms. They get charged on the importers.”
Leavitt roared again, calling it “insulting” for Boak “to check my information of economics, and the — the selections that this President has made. I’m now remorse giving a query to the Related Press.”
Washington Examiner’s Christian Datoc circled again as to if the notion of an Exterior Income Service will nonetheless come to fruition:
The ultimate hardball on the economic system fell to Politico’s Dasha Burns, asking “how excessive is the ache threshold for President Trump and for this White Home as you watch a few of the turbulence within the inventory markets, as you area considerations from companies that doubtlessly see a few of these approval scores drop within the short-term, how a lot is he keen to abdomen that and can he keep dedicated to his imaginative and prescient for tariffs[.]”
Leavitt replied Trump “has been working onerous each single day to alleviate the ache that was inflicted by the earlier administration by means of large deregulation, by means of drill child drill as we wish to name it, unleashing the would possibly of our vitality trade,” and making his tax cuts everlasting.
To see the related transcript from the March 11 briefing (together with questions from our associates Mike Carter of Newsmax, Mary Margaret Olohan with Day by day Wire, Lyndsay Keith of Benefit Avenue, and Day by day Caller White Home correspondent Reagan Reese), click on right here.
