White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is happy with her glittery diamond cross. It’s been a staple round her neck for months now throughout her White Home press briefings. So, it was uncommon when it was immediately and noticeably lacking throughout a briefing earlier this month.
Leavitt, the youngest White Home press secretary in historical past at simply 27, was the butt of a Jon Stewart joke on “The Each day Present” on June 3 when he quipped that, “I believe that the extra she lies, the larger her cross will get. Is that potential? It’s like some type of bizarre Pinocchio cross.”
The award-winning comic additionally jested that Leavitt is prone to be “the one one” who will be capable to depart the administration “unscathed … As a result of I don’t suppose she has any rules left in there to die.
He added that it doesn’t even upset him, “as a result of simply rolling with the punches is clearly the one technique for happiness while you’re working for Trump.”
“Trump’s very open secret has all the time been: He doesn’t consider in or care about any coverage concern in any respect,” Stewart continued. “He needs consideration, he needs his ego stroked, and he needs cash. He needs f***wads and f***wads of cash.”
Viewers have been satisfied Stewart’s pummeling was the power behind Leavitt’s choice to cease sporting her diamond cross. The clip garnered almost 2 million views on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel because it was posted on June 3. One individual quipped, “She stopped sporting her cross the day after this was aired.”
Leavitt makes the jokes too simple for comedians like Stewart as she repeatedly toes the road for Donald Trump.
In only one an instance of her duplicity, with out proof she’s constantly stated that Maryland father Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador earlier this yr with out due course of, was related to a 2023 rape and homicide at the same time as one other suspect was convicted within the case. Critics have additionally pointed to her continuous statements about Abrego Garcia’s gang membership as realizing falsehoods.
Andy Levy known as her out on the gang accusations in his “New Irregular” podcast.
“She will get up there, and, with a cross round her neck, she lies. She violates the ninth commandment about not bearing false witness,” he stated.
“She sits up there and says time and again that Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. She takes it a step additional, and he or she says that this was a discovering of an immigration courtroom. It completely was not,” Levy added.
But she hammers the press often within the briefing room, accusing media retailers of spinning false narratives and vowing that the White Home will struggle again.
“I used to be very up entrance in my briefing on Day One which, if we really feel that there are lies being pushed by retailers on this room, we’re going to maintain these lies accountable.”
Opponents have repeatedly branded her a “pretend Christian.”
However she advised the Christian Broadcasting Community earlier this yr, “My religion is extremely vital to me, I’d argue, now greater than ever, being in a job that may be very demanding and at occasions controversial, and there’s lots of public stress and dialogue on-line about who you’re and your loved ones.”
Social media had so much to say about Leavitt’s religion. There have been hundreds of feedback on a narrative about her lacking cross on Yahoo.
“It has been my expertise that when somebody tells you that they’re Christian, it’s as a result of they’re on the brink of do or say one thing that’s the antithesis of Christianity.” one reader posted.
One other reader expressed disappointment with Leavitt, “You’ve gotta love the truth that all these Republicans wish to proclaim their Christian religion, and but they dwell and function thus far out from actual Christianity that it blows the thoughts.”
However simply weeks after the viral takedown and public hypothesis about her sudden shift, Leavitt’s diamond cross necklace made a quiet return—and viewers instantly seen.
Throughout a June 25 look on Fox Information, Leavitt wore the necklace once more whereas defending Trump’s Iran technique in glowing phrases.
“No different president in historical past may have ever dreamed of so successful,” she claimed, accusing the media of working to “demean and undermine the president,” and blaming the CNN reporter who Trump acknowledged must be “thrown out like a canine” for her reporting.
The second reignited the identical firestorm of criticism she appeared to be attempting to keep away from.
One X consumer wrote, “Karoline Leavitt lies a lot that it’s a marvel that the cross necklace she wears in a ploy to look like Christian doesn’t burn proper by her pores and skin!!!!”
One other added, “Karoline Leavitt’s cross necklace is a sacrilege; she is a mendacity, cold-hearted bh … identical to DJT holding the Bible the wrong way up at St. John’s.“
A 3rd individual in contrast her rhetoric to Trump’s bombast: “It’s fascinating the way in which Leavitt has turned herself right into a mini-Trump, speaking about him in probably the most grandiose phrases conceivable, whereas denigrating each president who got here earlier than him… ‘No different president in historical past may have dreamed of such success’—pure shamelessness.”
To many, the return of the cross was greater than only a piece of jewellery. It signaled a renewed embrace of the identical contradictions she’s lengthy been criticized for, invoking Christianity whereas defending energy by distortion.
