White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt found herself at the center of a heated debate this week after defending President Donald Trump’s claims about U.S. strikes on Iran.
Multiple news outlets reported that the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months, contradicting Trump’s assertion that the nuclear sites were completely destroyed. The controversy began when CNN and other major news organizations reported that early intelligence assessments showed the Iranian nuclear facilities were not “obliterated” as Trump had claimed. This reporting sparked anger from the president, who spent much of the NATO summit attacking media organizations for their coverage of the strikes.
Leavitt appeared on Fox News on Wednesday to push back against the media reports. “This is truly both a DANGEROUS and INSANE lie. Because they did not obliterate anything & it allows the Iranians to quickly regroup and continue exactly what they were doing before, all because their orange-faced cult leader tells fantastical lies they need to back up endlessly,” one political account wrote on X, criticizing Leavitt’s defense of Trump’s claims.
Leavitt doubles down on disputed claims about Iran strikes
During her Fox News appearance, Leavitt argued that the media reporting was part of a coordinated effort to undermine Trump’s success. She claimed that “hostile actors within the intelligence community” were illegally leaking information to create a false narrative about the effectiveness of the strikes.
It's fascinating the way Leavitt has turned herself into a mini-Trump, talking about him in the most grandiose terms imaginable, while denigrating every president who came before him. "No other president in history could have dreamed of such success" – pure shamelessness. https://t.co/nLzdSMyZ9o
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) June 25, 2025
“No other president in history could have ever dreamed of such a success, and that’s exactly why the fake news media is now trying to demean and undermine the president,” Leavitt said during the interview. She insisted that Trump had “completely and totally obliterated the capability of Iran to produce a nuclear weapon” and that “the world is safer today because of his historic efforts.”
The press secretary’s comments drew sharp criticism on social media. New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent suggested that Leavitt was willing to make false claims because she could count on landing a job at Fox News after leaving the administration.
“A big reason Karoline Leavitt knows she can get away with towering buffooneries like claiming this is the greatest thing any American president has ever done is that she can count on getting accepted into polite DC society and given a lucrative Fox gig after all this is over,” he wrote on X. U.S. Rep. Sean Casten also questioned whether the strikes should be considered a success, noting that verification requires “eyes on the ground” and intelligence gathering that the administration seems unfamiliar with.
