CV NEWS FEED // White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, a devout Catholic and the youngest presidential spokesperson in U.S. history, fielded questions from reporters Tuesday afternoon in the first official press conference of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Here are the top moments from the press conference of particular interest to Catholics.
“President Trump is back and the golden age of America has most definitely begun,” Leavitt declared at the opening of the press conference, echoing a remark Trump made in his inauguration speech last week.
“Since taking the oath of office, President Trump has taken more than 300 executive actions,” Leavitt said, “secured nearly one trillion dollars in U.S. investments, deported illegal alien rapists, gang members, and suspected terrorists from our homeland, and restored common sense to the federal government.”
Leavitt called Trump “the hardest-working man in politics,” stating that he did more in the first 100 hours of his second term than Biden did in his first 100 days in office.
The press secretary said the media should expect that “Trump will continue to work at this breakneck speed, so I hope you’re all ready to work very hard. I know that we are.”
“On day one, President Trump declared a national emergency at our southern border,” Leavitt said. “By using every lever of his federal power, President Trump has sent a loud and clear message to the entire world: America will no longer tolerate illegal immigration.”
Leavitt further noted that Trump “expects that every nation on this planet will cooperate with the repatriation of their citizens – as proven by this weekend, when President Trump swiftly directed his team to issue harsh and effective sanctions and tariffs on the Colombian government upon hearing they … denied a U.S. military aircraft full of their own citizens who were deported by this administration.”
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“Within hours, the Colombian government agreed to all of President Trump’s demands, proving America is once again respected on the world stage,” Leavitt recounted.
“So, for foreign nationals who are thinking about illegally trying to enter the United States, think again,” the press secretary warned. “Under this president, you will be detained and you will be deported.”
Leavitt said that “Americans are safer” thanks to the administration’s swift removal of violent criminal migrants from communities.
She went on to name several instances over the past week of such migrants being detained by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the leadership of Trump and his border czar Tom Homan across the country.
Just three days after Trump began his second term, “ICE New York arrested a Turkish national for entry without inspection who was a known or suspected terrorist,” Leavitt said.
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The same day, “ICE San Francisco arrested a citizen of Mexico unlawfully present in the United States who has been convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child aged 14 years or younger,” she continued.
Leavitt named a few more cases, including one in Boston, where Trump’s ICE recently arrested a Dominican national “who has a criminal conviction for second-degree murder.”
“This criminal was convicted of murder for beating his pregnant wife to death in front of her five-year-old son,” Leavitt reported. “These are the heinous individuals that this administration is removing from American communities every single day.”
Immediately before she took reporters’ questions, Leavitt called Trump “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 openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th President of the United States,” she said.
Just over the past week, she continued, Trump “has held multiple news conferences, gaggled on Air Force One multiple times, and sat down for a two-part interview on FOX News.”
“As POLITICO summed it up best, ‘Trump is everywhere again,’” she said. “And that’s because President Trump has a great story to tell – about the legendary American revival that is well underway.”
Leavitt declared that the new Trump administration is “opening up this briefing room to new media voices who produce 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, content creators to apply for credentials to cover this White House,” she said, encouraging individuals to apply for press credentials on the Trump White House’s website.
The press secretary pointed to a seat in the front of the room and said that starting on that day, the seat, “which is usually occupied by the Press Secretary’s staff, will be called the new media seat.”
Additionally, Leavitt emphasized that the first questions for the day’s press conference were reserved for “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.”
Later on in the briefing, one of these new media reporters – Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle – thanked Leavitt and Trump “for actually giving voices to new media outlets that represented millions and millions of Americans.”
Boyle then asked Leavitt what steps the administration plans to take “to bring more voices, not less … into this room where they rightly belong.”
“It is a priority of this White House to honor the First Amendment,” Leavitt assured him, emphasizing the need to “share the president’s message with as many Americans as possible.”
Leavitt shared an update from Trump himself regarding the hundreds of drones that were spotted flying over the state of New Jersey over the last several months.
“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] for research and various other reasons,” the press secretary said. The FAA was under the control of the Biden administration at the time.
“Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy,” Leavitt added.
As CatholicVote reported: “The revelation comes after Biden officials denied any knowledge of the drones despite mounting public fears and numerous calls for increased transparency from elected officials.”
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The Associated Press (AP)’s Zeke Miller asked Leavitt, “When you’re up here in this briefing room speaking to the American public, do you view yourself and your role as … advocating on behalf of the president or providing the unvarnished truth – not to lie, not to obfuscate – to the American people?”
Miller noted that this is a question “we’ve asked your predecessors of both parties in this job.”
Leavitt replied, “I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day. I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States, that’s my job.”
“And I will say it’s very easy to speak truth from this podium when you have a president who is implementing policies that are wildly popular with the American people,” she added.
The press secretary emphasized that the Trump administration is “correcting the lies and the wrongs of the past four years, many of the lies that have been told to your faces in this very briefing room.”
Moreover, Leavitt also stressed that speaking the truth during White House press conferences should be a two-way street, and called on the reporters in the room to “hold yourselves to that same standard.”
“We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family,” Leavitt said. “And we will not accept that.”