White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is proud of her glittery diamond cross. It’s been a staple around her neck for months now during her White House press briefings. So, it was unusual when it was suddenly and noticeably missing during a briefing earlier this month.
Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary in history at just 27, was the butt of a Jon Stewart joke on “The Daily Show” on June 3 when he quipped that, “I think that the more she lies, the bigger her cross gets. Is that possible? It’s like some sort of weird Pinocchio cross.”
The award-winning comedian also jested that Leavitt is likely to be “the only one” who will be able to leave the administration “unscathed … Because I don’t think she has any principles left in there to die.
He added that it doesn’t even upset him, “because just rolling with the punches is clearly the only strategy for happiness when you’re working for Trump.”
“Trump’s very open secret has always been: He doesn’t believe in or care about any policy issue at all,” Stewart continued. “He wants attention, he wants his ego stroked, and he wants money. He wants f***wads and f***wads of money.”
Viewers were convinced Stewart’s pummeling was the force behind Leavitt’s decision to stop wearing her diamond cross. The clip garnered nearly 2 million views on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel since it was posted on June 3. One person quipped, “She stopped wearing her cross the day after this was aired.”
Leavitt makes the jokes too easy for comedians like Stewart as she repeatedly toes the line for Donald Trump.
In just one an example of her duplicity, without proof she’s consistently said that Maryland father Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador earlier this year without due process, was connected to a 2023 rape and murder even as another suspect was convicted in the case. Critics have also pointed to her continual statements about Abrego Garcia’s gang membership as knowing falsehoods.
Andy Levy called her out on the gang accusations in his “New Abnormal” podcast.
“She gets up there, and, with a cross around her neck, she lies. She violates the ninth commandment about not bearing false witness,” he said.
“She sits up there and says over and over again that Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. She takes it a step further, and she says that this was a finding of an immigration court. It absolutely was not,” Levy added.
Yet she hammers the press regularly in the briefing room, accusing media outlets of spinning false narratives and vowing that the White House will fight back.
“I was very up front in my briefing on Day One that, if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.”
Opponents have repeatedly branded her a “fake Christian.”
But she told the Christian Broadcasting Network earlier this year, “My faith is incredibly important to me, I would argue, now more than ever, being in a role that is very demanding and at times controversial, and there’s a lot of public pressure and discussion online about who you are and your family.”
Social media had a lot to say about Leavitt’s faith. There were thousands of comments on a story about her missing cross on Yahoo.
“It has been my experience that when someone tells you that they are Christian, it’s because they are getting ready to do or say something that is the antithesis of Christianity.” one reader posted.
Another reader expressed disappointment with Leavitt, “You’ve gotta love the fact that all these Republicans like to proclaim their Christian faith, and yet they live and operate so far out from real Christianity that it blows the mind.”
But just weeks after the viral takedown and public speculation about her sudden shift, Leavitt’s diamond cross necklace made a quiet return—and viewers immediately noticed.
During a June 25 appearance on Fox News, Leavitt wore the necklace again while defending Trump’s Iran strategy in glowing terms.
“No other president in history could have ever dreamed of such a success,” she claimed, accusing the media of working to “demean and undermine the president,” and blaming the CNN reporter who Trump stated should be “thrown out like a dog” for her reporting.
The moment reignited the same firestorm of criticism she seemed to be trying to avoid.
One X user wrote, “Karoline Leavitt lies so much that it’s a wonder that the cross necklace she wears in a ploy to appear to be Christian doesn’t burn right through her skin!!!!”
Another added, “Karoline Leavitt’s cross necklace is a sacrilege; she is a lying, cold-hearted bh … just like DJT holding the Bible upside down at St. John’s.“
A third person compared her rhetoric to Trump’s bombast: “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.”
To many, the return of the cross was more than just a piece of jewelry. It signaled a renewed embrace of the same contradictions she’s long been criticized for, invoking Christianity while defending power through distortion.
