White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced her departure from the role, effective at the end of August. The official reason is to spend more time with her family, which may be true considering Leavitt is the mother of a toddler and a newborn.
Before President Trump could laud Leavitt on Truth Social, media pundits were already sizing up Leavitt’s legacy, which outside the MAGA-sphere is judged to be built on lies and misinformation. Leavitt deserves the criticism, but she was only following the model of first-term press secretary-turned-Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Here is a comparison of the top 5 lies and gaffes during the tenure of each. You decided who wore it worse.
Karoline Leavitt | Sarah Huckabee Sanders | ||
1-29-25 | Condoms for Gaza Leavitt claimed that $50 million in USAID was paying for condoms in the war-torn area of Gaza. Multiple fact checks proved this claim to be false. | 5-10-17 | FBI agents wanted James Comey fired Sanders said she had been told by many agents that they were glad Comey was fired. But under oath in the Mueller investigation admitted she had misspoke. |
5-9-25 | Trump lost money as President A recent report by The Washington Post found that Trump’s income was $600 million before January of 2025 and is now $1.6 billion. | 5-4-18 | Trump, Jr. meeting with Russian lawyer Sanders said Trump did not dictate the misleading statement issued while on Air Force One about the meeting between Don Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya. Trump lawyers later admitted that, in fact, Trump had dictated the statement. |
9-9-25 | Epstein Narrative a Hoax by Democrats Leavitt claimed that the desire to release and review all the files was coming from opportunistic Democrats like Ro Khanna (She forgot Republican Thomas Massie) and that Dems had done nothing about pedophiles and child rapists, though it was the Biden DOJ that secured a conviction against Ghislaine Maxwell. Leavitt then suggested that the hand-drawn birthday card from Trump to Epstein was forged. | 8-22-18 | Trump had no knowledge of hush payments to Stormy Daniels Trump eventually capitulated and admitted to knowing about the payments. |
2-6-26 | Video of Obamas as Apes Leavitt said criticism of the President and the video was “fake outrage,” but African American Republican Senator Tim Scott said, “…it is the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” | 8-14-18 | Trump created more jobs for African Americans in 18 months than Obama did in 4 years Independent fact-checkers found that President Obama’s administration created 4 times more jobs for African Americans than Trump had. |
3-12-25 | Tariffs are a Tax Cut for Americans Leavitt argued that Trump’s massive and punitive tariffs were a tax cut for Americans despite economists on both the left and right saying the costs would be paid by importers and passed on to consumers. | 6-29-17 | Trump has never promoted violence At that point, Trump had encouraged rally-goers to “knock the hell out of…” protestors and that he would pay the legal fees. He mused out loud about “Second Amendment people” taking care of liberal judges. |
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Regardless of who you choose as the worst liar among Trump’s most prominent White House press secretaries, it’s clear neither were “West Wing” fans. Otherwise, they might have heeded these quotes by fictional White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg,
"The public has a right to expect a certain standard of conduct from the people who work here."
And
"We don't define the truth by what people want to hear."