The White House press office turned a routine press inquiry into a full-blown playground moment Friday when HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte asked why President Donald Trump had chosen Hungary as the site for his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back with the unexpected: “Your mom did.”
Minutes later, Communications Director Steven Cheung echoed Leavitt when asked the same question, replying simply: “Your mom.”
From there, it got worse. When HuffPost followed up to ask whether her response was intended as a joke, Leavitt doubled down like “Mean Girls.”
“It’s funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journal [sic]. You are a far left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the media, they just don’t tell you that to your face. Stop texting me your disingenuous, biased, and bullsh-t questions.”
HuffPost first declined to respond further, though one editor dryly noted that the outlet is “fearful of asking any more questions — let alone escalating with ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue.’”
The abrasive exchange quickly ricocheted across social media.
One commenter wrote, “The maturity level of this administration is that of a spoiled 5-year-old.”
Another added, “They didn’t ‘go back’ to middle school—they never left it.”
Others accused the Trump White House of obfuscating to distract from an unremarkable phone call with Putin. One critic posted, “I smell a big nothing burger again here.”
Leavitt then doubled down on her response on Monday, sharing her sentiments on social media.
“For context, S.V. Dáte of the Huffington Post is not a journalist interested in the facts. He is a left-wing hack who has consistently attacked President Trump for years and constantly bombards my phone with Democrat talking points,” she wrote.
“Just take a look at @svdate’s feed, it reads like an anti-Trump personal diary. Here is my full response to his “inquiry.” Activists who masquerade as real reporters do a disservice to the profession,” she added.
Leavitt’s response drew even more backlash online.
“Somewhere in the Constitution, buried beneath the ink and parchment, there’s a faint whisper that says, “maybe don’t say ‘your mom’ on behalf of the United States,” one X user responded.
“America once defined the modern press conference. Now we’re testing the boundaries of surrealism. This is not the golden age of communication; it’s a bad improv set in the Situation Room,” the user continued.
Dáte even took to social media himself to respond to Leavitt directly.
“Feel better now? Now can you answer the question? Please and thank you,” he wrote.
The dust-up stems from a lengthy Truth Social post from Trump touting his latest phone call with Putin on Thursday:
“I have just concluded my telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, and it was a very productive one… We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over… President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end… I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.”
Trump’s team announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a group of senior officials would lead initial meetings before the two presidents convene in Budapest.
HuffPost’s Dáte explained why the question mattered: Budapest was the site of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine agreed to give up thousands of nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union. In exchange, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity — a promise Putin broke with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, his military aggression in Donbas, and his full-scale invasion in 2022.
Putin’s ongoing attacks on Ukrainian civilians have made Budapest a loaded symbol of broken promises.
Leavitt’s fiasco is just the latest flashpoint in Trump’s combative relationship with the media. Last week, Trump berated an ABC News reporter after host George Stephanopoulos cut off Sen. JD Vance mid-spin. Critics say the administration is doing more than mocking journalists—it’s eroding the public’s right to know.
One commenter put it bluntly: “Can we go back to having a government run by adults?”
By nightfall, hashtags like #YourMomGate and #WhiteHouseDaycare were trending.
The Biden-era memes had nothing on this.
Leavitt and Cheung haven’t walked back their comments, and the White House press office has gone silent since the incident. But online, the verdict was already in.
“The White House adult daycare is alive and well,” one critic wrote.
