White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sharply criticized reporters on Tuesday, accusing them of misrepresenting President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to negotiate peace in Ukraine.
“All weekend, following those historic U.S.-Russia bilateral talks, we listened to clueless pundits on television trying, but failing, to claim that the president had failed,” Leavitt told reporters.
She blasted what she called the foreign policy “establishment,” arguing that the same experts responsible for “endless wars, trillions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and dead Americans” had no credibility when questioning Trump’s record. “President Trump has solved seven global conflicts in seven months,” she said.
Her comments came after Trump’s high-profile summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where the Russian leader received rare honors, including a red-carpet welcome and a ride in the presidential limousine. The three-hour meeting ended without the ceasefire Trump had hinted at or the “severe” sanctions he had suggested might follow.
Leavitt framed the event instead as a “listening session” meant to lay the groundwork for future negotiations. The follow-up took place the next day in Washington, where Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and leaders from France, Britain, Italy, Germany, NATO, and the EU.
Momentum quickly built in Congress. On Tuesday, Republican lawmakers Andy Ogles and Marlin Stutzman nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, praising his efforts to bring both Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table. Trump has said he hopes to broker a direct meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
Meanwhile, Russia reiterated its position that NATO involvement in Ukraine is a red line. “We reaffirm our repeatedly stated position of categorical rejection of any scenarios that envisage the appearance in Ukraine of a military contingent with NATO countries, which is fraught with an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences,” the Russian foreign ministry said Monday, per The Daily Beast.
However, Leavitt maintained that the biggest obstacle Trump faces isn’t only Russia but the U.S. media. “This is why Americans’ trust in the mass media is at a lowest point in more than five decades,” she said.
