Karoline Leavitt defended President Donald Trump’s inability to accept the 2020 election results, despite him being fine with how the 2024 election turned out.
During Leavitt’s first White House press briefing back from maternity leave, she had to weather a number of questions about the president’s Thursday night address. NBC News’ Garrett Haake point-blank asked why the president can’t seem to drop the topic of election tampering.
“The 2020 election has had dozens of recounts, lawsuits, audits,” Haake said. “2024 election widely believed to be safe and secure. There’s not really any question about that. A lot of people…”
“Because it was too big to rig,” Leavitt interrupted. “There were a massive amount of votes for this president, that’s why he’s in office.”
“No one disputes that, and there were significant amount of votes for Joe Biden, who won in 2020,” Haake replied. “I think the question is, why is the president unable to let this go?”
Leavitt again jumped in and blamed the media, while telling Haake he was jumping to conclusions on what exactly the Thursday night address will cover.
“I think part of the problem is that the media has refused to acknowledge that tens of millions of Americans across the country share the concerns of this president about the sanctity of our elections,” she said. “And the premise of your question, you’re jumping ahead to a conclusion in this speech before even hearing it yourself.”
“I think that everyone should tune in tonight – including the people in this room – and you should report on the president’s speech and the finding that he is going to reveal in this speech, with a little bit of honesty and a little bit of integrity,” Leavitt continued. “It will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president tonight. Everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence.”
That wasn’t the only tough question Leavitt fielded, though. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins made sure to ask why nobody had been charged if the president apparently has evidence of election fraud.
“He hasn’t revealed it yet,” Leavitt replied. “He hasn’t declassified the documents yet, and you will see what he says tonight and then we’ll move forward appropriately from there.”
