Press secretary in the White House makes Steely and unreasonable debut

So much to respect your elders.

Karoline Leavitt, the new press secretary in the White House – at. 27, the youngest person ever to hold the job – started his first briefing on Tuesday afternoon by reminding all veteran reporters in the assembly that they had become more irrelevant than ever. “Americans’ confidence in mass media has fallen into a record low,” she said right from the top.

Twisting the knife she added: “Millions of Americans – Especially young people – Has turned from traditional TV stores and newspapers. “

The place was filled with network -TV anchors and curly newspaper reporters that had thrown questions about the cramped space since before Mrs. Leavitt learned to walk or talk (which would have been once towards the end of the Clinton Presidency). Smiling, always-so-sweet, she told the old timers that they should make room for all the flashy new bloggers, influencers, “content creators” and podcasters, she planned to invite to her orientations regularly. It was, she said, at high time, that the White House “adapts” to the “new media landscape.”

And then it was a new day in the old briefing room. Mr. Trump’s top flack wasted no time throwing Gauntlet into his first performance behind the lecturer. She was Steely, and her patience seemed to be in shortage at points. She betrayed no fear and a little ambivalence, and she seemed quite sure to talk on her boss. Which was not always the case for some of her predecessors.

“She has a fantastic relationship with President Trump, who is much deeper than I had,” said Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s first press secretary, earlier this month. Ms. Leavitt, a low-level help in the first Trump administration, spent the last year pulling it out of Mr. Trump’s page as press secretary for his campaign. She already speaks her language.

But campaign is different from the government. Her job is no longer to explain why her boss should be president. It is to explain what exactly is happening now as he is. The new administration’s attack on federal bureaucracy this first week has been in -depth, and many of the questions Mrs. Leavitt on Tuesday concerned the sudden and sweeping break with grants, loans and other forms of federal assistance ordered by the White House budget office. A reporter asked a follow-up about programs that may have been cut-with reference to meals on wheels that deliver meals to over 2 million seniors and Mrs. Leavitt seemed almost bored if not directly annoyed. “I have now been asked and answered this question four times,” she said.

There really was only a moment of hesitation. When asked if she could guarantee that no one would be cut off from Medicaid, she held a moment on a break and said, “I will check back on it and return to you.”

Otherwise, Mrs. Leavitt was unpainted and unreasonable. Wearing a plum blazer and rather conspicuous cross pendant (she is a candidate by Saint Anselm, a Catholic school in New Hampshire, where she is from), she peppers her answers with punchy, right -wing political conditions such as “transgenderism” and “wedding”, and she seemed to enjoy telling journalists, “I hope you Re all ready to work very hard.

As is usual with a new press secretary, she was asked if she saw her job as telling the truth to the public. Yes, she said, but then she turned it back on the press: “We know there have been lies that have been pushed by many older media in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that. “She did not come into detail, but in what might be a preview of many a briefing room match to come, she added that” We will call you out when we feel your reporting is wrong or that there is Incorrect information about this white house. ”

She was pressed over whether Mr. Trump had personally corrected the layoffs of the Inspectors’ general across different state agencies and prosecutors who had worked with special adviser, Jack Smith, about the cases he had brought against Mr. Trump. “Yes,” she said eventually unwanted.

A question of whether this administration would celebrate Black History Month, seemed tailor-made to mean Mrs. Leavitt as a kind of headline exchange, but she answered it cool- “We will continue to celebrate American history and the contributions that all Americans, regardless of race , religion or creed, has made our big country ” – and kept the show in motion straight.

There was a bit of the circus -like atmosphere that had defined the briefing room in Mr. Trump’s first period. Although this is early days yet.

So far, the president’s allies seem satisfied with Ms. Leavitt’s debut. “Today was incredible,” said Stephen K. Bannon, who served as a main strategy in the White House in Mr. Trump’s first period.

However, he had a great advice for her: Move the briefings out of West Wing and into the Eisenhower Executive Office building down the street. In that way, he said, James S. Brady Briefing Room could be returned to its function when John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were in office. “Turn it back to a swimming pool for the president and his family,” he advised.