An extremely animated and agitated White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went on a rant during a Fox News interview Thursday even stumbling over some of her words as she spoke.
Leavitt was practically shouting as she blamed Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown.
“We have millions of troops who are currently going without pay. We have women, children, infants who can not apply for a very important WIC program for that critical food and life assistance,” the angry Leavitt practically yelled at “America’s Newsroom” hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perrino, and she wasn’t through.
“You also look at air traffic controllers who are now having to work without pay. These are critical consequences, and it’s the Democrats’ fault, and they have a chance to reverse course, and they should,” she demanded.
As the hosts listened in, they seemingly threw a curveball her way. Perrino and Hemmer pointed out what they believed was a contradiction to Leavitt’s claims.
“Somebody earlier on our program said that Russell Vought went ahead and signed off so that every military member does get paid. But are you saying that they’re working now without?” Perrino asked.
Leavitt completely sidestepped the question, stilling raising her voice and again blaming Democrats for the shutdown, even though President Donald Trump and Republicans control the government and have refused to negotiate on a stopgap budget measure that would reopen the government.
“Well, we are certainly looking into how we can fix this problem. And look, we have zero dollars coming into the federal government right now because the Democrats shut it down. So what Russ Vought is working diligently on is examining how we can fix this mess, to ensure that critical funding continues, that we can get people paid, but the Democrats are making that very difficult,” Leavitt whined.
Vought — the co-author of the infamous Project 2025 paper — is Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Trump has threatened Democrats, saying Vought will begin firing furloughed federal workers, if Democrats don’t help pass a funding measure.
“That’s why the President put out a statement this morning saying that we’re going to start looking across the board at layoffs and at agencies that we feel do not best serve the American taxpayer that may need to be halted or temper or permanently cut,” she also threatened, toeing Trump’s line.
Leavitt’s sly pivot stood out to viewers who saw it as an opportunity to catch her in a lie. “Lyin kkkaroline,” a Threads user proclaimed.
“Why is she shouting and why won’t they negotiate,” another wondered.
This person marveled at how she obviously maneuvered around answering Perrino’s question, “She changed directions faster than Walter Payton on a third and long handoff.”
Others weren’t buying her impassion plea for women and children on government programs who will suffer during the shutdown.
“They didn’t give a f**k about women, infants, and children when they were taking away Medicaid from everybody did they?” one user wrote.
Another doubled down, “Now she’s concerned about WIC and feeding little children. How fickle can she be?”
While some viewers assumed her dodge or lack of clarity was proof she had been caught in a lie, the reality is more complicated. As The Hill reported, active-duty and reserve personnel are in fact continuing to work without pay during the shutdown because no appropriations are currently in place to cover their salaries, according to contingency planning documents drawn up by the Department of Defense.
Congress has previously acted to shield military pay during shutdowns — President Obama signed the “Pay Our Military Act” in 2013 and Trump signed a similar bill in 2018 — but so far, no such measure has been passed this time, according to The Hill.
Thousands of federal workers have been off the job since Wednesday and thousands more, who are considered essential workers, such as members of the military and air traffic controllers, are working without pay as the government shutdown drags on.
The government closed down at midnight Tuesday evening after Trump and his Republican cronies refused to negotiate with Democrats on an emergency stopgap spending measure, another highly unusual move during generally nonpartisan budget negotiations.
The Senate needs Democratic support to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government.
But Democrats are demanding that the spending bill include protections for Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversal of Medicaid cuts Trump drastically implemented when he and Republicans passed his “Big Beautiful Bill” budget package this summer without bipartisan support.
The sweeping bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and pays for other administration priorities. But it does so by cutting more than $1 trillion from health programs in the largest such federal rollback in history.
