WH’s Karoline Leavitt Opens New Era of Press Briefings, Calls on 20 Different Outlets

Curtis Houck
January 28th, 2025 6:52 PM

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In the first the first White House press briefing of President Donald Trump’s second term, Press Secretary Karoline Levaitt made clear from the onset of the 46-minute-and-36-second briefing things would be different inside the Brady Briefing Room. Along with the opening and closing statements made famous by Kayleigh McEnany, Leavitt announced seats for new media and called on 21 different reporters from 20 outlets.

Overall, Leavitt was declarative in her answers, firm in her interactions with reporters (even though there were no scintillating duels), and substantive to the point it felt like a firehose. In other words, a total opposite of the bumbling, sometimes incoherent partisan mumbling by Karine Jean-Pierre.

She even conducted the briefing without a thick binder of notes (opting instead for only a few pieces of paper), nearly going full Amy Coney Barrett.

It started with a lengthy opening statement about cabinet nominees, a recap of President Trump’s first week in office, and graphic details about the criminal records of just a small sampling of illegal immigrants captured in Immigration Customs & Enforcement (ICE) raids:

Leavitt then delivered her first pieces of news at the podium by revealing she would be using seats up front usually reserved for deputy press secretaries for new media (and that any independent journalist could apply for credentials) after reminding the press of Trump’s remarkable accessibility and the industry’s porous approval ratings (click “expand”):

 

 

Before I take your questions, I would like to point out to all of you once again, have access to the most transparent and accessible President in American history. There has never been a President who communicates with the American people and the American press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th President of the United States. This past week, President Trump has held multiple news conferences, gaggled on Air Force One multiple times and sat down for a two-part interview on Fox News, which aired last week. As Politico summed it up best, Trump is everywhere again, and that's because President Trump has a great story to tell about the legendary American revival that is well underway. And in keeping with this revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign. The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room because according, according to recent polling from Gallup, Americans trust in mass media has fallen to a record low. Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media, and other independent outlets. It's essential to our team that we share President Trump's message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025. To do this, I'm excited to announce the following changes will be made to this historic James S. Brady Briefing room where Mister Brady's legacy will endure. This White House believes strongly in the First Amendment. So it's why our team will work diligently to restore the press passes of the 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration. We're also opening up this briefing room to new media voices who produced news-related content and whose outlet is not already represented by one of the seats in this room. We welcome independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers and content creators to apply for credentials to cover this White House, and you can apply now on our new website, Whitehouse.gov/newmedia. Starting today, this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary's staff will be called the new media seat. My team will review the applications and give credentials to new media applicants who meet our criteria in past United States Secret Service requirements to enter the White House complex. So, in light of these announcements, our first questions for today's briefing will go to these new media members whose outlets, despite being some of the most viewed news websites in the country, have not been given seats in this room.

Following a statement about last year’s concerning rash of drones over the Mid-Atlantic, Leavitt put her promise to call on newer media outlets into action with Axios co-founder Mike Allen:

Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle occupied the other new seat:

A Boyle follow-up later, only then did Leavitt go to the Associated Press seat, which has been traditionally called on first as the chief wire service for legacy media outlets around the globe.

But, by waiting a few minutes, the world didn’t end. The AP’s Zeke Miller asked the traditional eye-roller asked of her predecessors:

Miller also asked about the Office of Management and Budget directive to freeze federal grants and loans (with exceptions for direct programs to Americans), asking Leavitt to “help us clear up some of the confusion, give some certainty to folks, and also is that uncertainty — how does that uncertainty service the President’s voters.”

CBS’s Nancy Cordes continued on this thread with two respectful questions, but the third wondering about Meals on Wheels or Head Start is the kind of strategy the left will deploy in the hours and days and months to come in painting conservatives as heartlessly creating poverty.

This went into another substantive question about legality from Cordes’s CBS colleague Jennifer Jacobs, one from Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice (RAV) about the one-day stand-off with the Colombian President over deportations, and then the great Diane Glebova of the New York Post concerning pro-Hamas college students:

 

 

The most tense exchanges came next with NBC’s Peter Alexander expressing concern for illegal immigrants and Leavitt having to explain to him all who’ve crossed the border without going through proper channels have indeed broken the law. Having been crushed there, he shifted to wondering if poor Americans will go without heat by Trump’s moves to cut spending:

ABC’s Mary Bruce — the room’s chief Biden apple polisher — deployed the sympathy narrative:

Leavitt let Bruce ask her long-winded question and answered it, but that wasn’t enough as Bruce stepped on Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich (click “expand”):

BRUCE: But indirect assistance, Karoline —

HEINRICH: Thank you, Karoline.

BRUCE: — if it’s going to another organization then trickling down!

LEAVITT: Direct assistance that is in the hands of the American people will not be impacted. Again, as I said to Peter, we will continue to provide that list as it comes to fruition, but OMB right now is focused on analyzing the federal government’s spending, which is exactly what the American people elected President Trump to do.

HEINRICH: Thank you, Karoline, and —

BRUCE: And one question on immigration, Karoline!

HEINRICH: — thank you.

BRUCE: — of the 3,500 arrests ICE has made so far since President Trump came back into office, can you just tell us the numbers? How many have a criminal record versus those who are just in the country illegally?

LEAVITT: All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws and therefore they are criminals as far as this administration goes. I know the last administration didn’t see it that way, so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that’s exactly what they are.

HEINRICH: [INAUDIBLE] On tariffs — on tariffs —

BRUCE: [inaudible] the worst first. They all have a criminal record?

HEINRICH: And welcome to the Briefing Room.

LEAVITT: If they broke our nation’s laws, yes, they are criminal.

Heinrich eventually got her chance, and respectfully grilled her on the administration revoking security details for Trump critics who remain under threat of Iranian assassination plots:

In another welcome change, our friend Reagan Reese of the Daily Caller remarkable was called out by name with Leavitt acknowledging the last administration’s lack of (consistent) attention to the back rows:

Reese had a follow-up about refugee vetting and whether Trump has “considered yet which countries might fall into” consideration for “an outright ban for countries that have deficient screening processes.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins — who worked for the Caller before becoming a CNN liberal and has returned to the White House beat (unlike Jim Acosta) — came next with a series of questions, including this one:

After one from Klal Yisroel’s Jake Turx about the Houthis and five process questions from Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove about tariffs, the great Philip Wegmann of Real Clear Politics had what he called a “programming note” question about the frequency of briefings (followed by one about tax cuts):

Following her pattern of calling on everyone, she even gave The New York Times’s David Sanger, Gray TV’s Jon Decker, The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf (even though he penned a snotty anti-Trump book), and even frequent Trump 1.0 sparring partner April Ryan the time of day.

But instead of stopping there, she continued going to alternative media, like Monica Paige Luisi from One America News Network (OANN):

The briefing ended with the Washington Examiner’s Christian Datoc, who somehow (and shamefully) had the only question about the soaring costs of eggs:

Fox News Channel host Jimmy Failla had it right in reviewing Leavitt’s performance. Roughly 30 minutes in, he quipped Leavitt didn’t seem to have “looked up a single answer” where as Jean-Pierre “would have gone through three binders and a Magic 8 Ball by now,” thus showing “why people wanna ditch DEI for Meritocracy.”

To see the relevant transcript of the January 28 briefing, click here.

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