WH’s Leavitt Lambasts Pro-Trans Media, Grilled by NBC and Wegmann Over Gaza

Curtis Houck
February 5th, 2025 7:45 PM

Text to Speech

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On Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s third press briefing mostly centered around two wildly different issues of transgenderism and the future of the Gaza Strip (especially in light of President Trump’s Tuesday claim the U.S. would take it over). And, as she’s done, called on a wide swath of reporters from legacy liberal networks to our friends in conservative media.

The “new media” seat went to podcaster and former longtime ESPN anchor Sage Steele, who was on-hand for Trump’s signing of an executive order ensuring only women and girls can safely compete in sports without fear of having to face transgender individuals.

Steele’s question correctly noted the executive order could be undone at any time whereas something passed by Congress would have the weight of law:

NBC’s Garrett Haake made his Briefing Room debut in the Trump era by pressing Leavitt on the shocking Gaza pronouncement:

Fox’s Peter Doocy was next and was the only reporter to invoke the incendiary rhetoric from congressional Democrats on Tuesday against President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Not surprisingly, Leavitt shredded them and cited the obvious about Musk and DOGE having been a campaign pledge (click “expand”):

 

 

DOOCY: Are any officials here preparing to fight Democratic lawmakers in the streets?

LEAVITT: Absolutely not.

DOOCY: So — so these —

LEAVITT: And thanks for the question.

DOOCY: — some elected Democrats are so steamed about DOGE, Congresswoman Lamonica McIver says we are at war. Ilhan Omar says we might actually see somebody get killed and Chris Van Hollen says we have to fight this in the Congress. We have to fight this in the streets. So what now?

LEAVITT: And may I just point out, if you heard that type of violent enticing rhetoric from our side of the aisle from Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, I think there would be a lot more outrage in this room today. It’s unacceptable, the comments that have been made by these Democrat leaders and frankly, they don’t even know what they’re talking about because President Trump was an elected — with a mandate from the American people to make this government more efficient. He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency, and the two of them with a great team around them, we’re going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure it’s accountable to American taxpayers. That’s all that is happening here and for Democrat officials to incite violence and encourage Americans to take to the streets is incredibly alarming, and they should be held accountable for that rhetoric.

Doocy also invoked disturbing reporting from NBC that “some of the illegal immigrants that we’ve seen rounded up and arrested are not being deported,” which Leavitt explained there were “461 illegal alien” out “of the more than 8,000 that have been arrested since President Trump was inaugurated,” which was due to “a lack of significant likelihood of removal in the foreseeable future, lack of detention availability,” and a detainee’s medical state.

ABC’s Mary Bruce went back to the Gaza issue, demanding to know if Americans should be “prepared to remove Palestinians from Gaza by force” as well as “see U.S. military on the ground fighting a ground war against Hamas.”

To both, Leavitt said the President hasn’t “committed” servicemen and women to anything “yet.

Following CNN’s Jeff Zeleny restating Bruce’s questions and Politico’s Dasha Burns wondering if this Gaza plan had put into written, our friend Mary Margaret Olohan at the Daily Wire tied the transgenderism executive order to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles:

She followed up with this zinger about the way other journalists in the room treat transgenderism (which we discussed with her last summer):

OLOHAN: On media coverage of this executive order and the topic in general, What’s the White House’s view of framing that calls men transgender females are similar rhetoric coming from organizations like the ACLU and GLAAD?

LEAVITT: Well, it’s been very clear. The policy of this administration is that there are only two sexes, male and female. Pretty simple. 

Until Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn did so after Olohan, no one had asked Leavitt about the reports of Politico Pro subscriptions being purchased inside agencies like USAID with our tax dollars:

Another friend of ours in Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese brought up a headline from earlier this week with the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) — helmed this year by Eugene Daniels of Politico — selected far-left comedienne Amber Ruffin for its insufferable dinner. Leavitt charitably called the pick “an interesting choice”:

Leavitt has not only kept her word to call on conservative reporters in the back rows, but others representing legacy media. For example, she took questions from Kalyn Norwood, who works for local TV station syndicate Hearst:

As right-of-center reporters showed in the other two briefings of Leavitt’s tenure, they’re not only there to exactly lob softballs, but rather ask difficult questions that, instead of being gotcha statements, represent concerns of their audiences.

This bore itself out in a blunt questions from Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence on cost of living and then Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann on Gaza:

One America News Network’s Daniel Baldwin closed out the briefing by noticing Trump’s busy schedule also included new conversations with Governors Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA):

To see the relevant transcript from the February 5 briefing (including even more questions about military recruitments surging in the last two months), click here.

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