Among the most visible members of any presidential administration is the White House press secretary, and President Donald Trump has already selected the person he wants to serve in that role when his second term begins next year.
Political aide Karoline Leavitt is poised to become the youngest person to ever fill the position, and she’s wasting no time setting some clear expectations for how she plans to engage with White House media correspondents.
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According to The Hill:
“They have pushed lies and hoaxes about him for eight years,” Leavitt said of mainstream news outlets during an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. “They consistently take his words out of context. This election taught us a lot of things, but one of those things is that the American people are no longer buying the lies from the legacy media.”
Asked if she was prepared to take hostile questions from reporters at leading news organizations like The New York Times, NBC and other outlets, Leavitt said “we hope there will be decorum, certainly, and we will try to instill that.”
“But we’re not shy of the hostile media,” she said. “We have dealt with that now in the campaign for the last year. Nobody does it better than President Trump. And, again, it’s our goal to get our message, his message, his America first message, and the historic policies that he will be delivering upon, in the most effective way to the American people.”
Leavitt has attracted some praise from Trump supporters since the announcement was made:
Karoline Leavitt is the worst possible Press Secretary choice… For The Fake News Media!
It will be a pleasure to watch her dismantle the press from the White House Briefing Room!
Drop a❤🇺🇸 if you support Karoline Leavitt your next White House Press Secretary!
Meet Our New Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ! This Administration is on FIRE 🔥 She is a Badass!
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Trump himself has also made some promises about how his administration will engage with the news media.
As Fox News reported following Trump’s meeting with the co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all,” Trump said. “The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future.”
Trump added, “I expect this will take place with others in the media, even those that have been extremely hostile.”
The president-elect said he feels he has “an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press.”
“If not treated fairly, however, that will end,” Trump said. “The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”