For anyone who’s trying to keep up with the endless twists and turns in our This Is Not A Forever War, there’s been another development. No, I’m not talking about the mass evacuations or the six dead American service members (there’ll be more probably, says Donald Trump, but hey, to quote the man himself, “that’s the way it is” when there’s a war. So get used to it!).
Nor am I referencing Israel invading Lebanon or Donald Trump having a big tantrum about Europeans not following him into a war the UN says is completely illegal (Keir Starmer is “no Winston Churchill,” Trump fumed yesterday, before threatening to cut off all trade with Spain if they wouldn’t allow America to use their bases in the region.)
No, this development is more homeland-facing: the appearance, finally, of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after a five-day absence while Trump launched a war in the Middle East. Leavitt opened her presser today with strident energy — like Trump and Hegseth before her, she began with a hundred-mile-per-hour history lesson on every single bad thing Iran has ever done to America, going back five decades. The Iranian regime, she added, is now “paying for their crimes against America and they are paying in blood.”
Then came the usual stuff, which was wheeled out about 30 minutes before she completely lost her mind during questions: her insults aimed at former presidents (such as “Barack Hussein Obama” and Joe Biden, who were “weak and ineffective”) in service of the current dear leader (President Trump is a “man of action”!). Gaslighty claims followed about how the war Trump started wasn’t actually started by Trump, because Iran started it first by funding terrorist groups in the ‘90s or something, along with lip service about how Trump is a man of peace and how he’s ended a zillion global conflicts and how his hand was forced, how everything ultimately comes back to him, a wonderful man, a “courageous” man, a thoughtful man, the best president of all time forever, and also “when President Trump makes a threat… President Trump does not bluff.”
And, of course, the requisite warnings about “fake news” and how Americans shouldn’t listen to journalists, because all they need are the official state-sponsored words of the government.
But then, asked about whether a phone call with Netanyahu where the Israeli leader shared where Ayatollah Khameini was situated had anything to do with the US strike, Leavitt stumbled over her words for a second before snapping back into character: that may have affected the “timing” of the strike, she said, but actually, Trump started the war because he had a “good feeling” that Iran might strike US service members first. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence at all that there was anything behind that “good feeling,” but if you can’t trust the petulant whims of one man, then what can you trust?
The moment when the mask really slipped during the Leavitt briefing, however, was when a question came from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about the six slain US service members in the Middle East.
“There is not — we’ve never had a Secretary of Defense who cares more when tragic things happen,” Leavitt snapped. As there was murmuring in the room, she continued: “Listen to me — especially you!… You and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad. That is an objective fact!”
It was a standout moment from Leavitt, who had spent the presser looking a little more flustered than she usually is — and she usually never looks flustered. Leavitt is precise and buttoned-up, hardly ever mixes up her words or deviates from a well-worn script. She is one of the most dependable members of the Trump administration: polished, self-assured and, in her way, completely ruthless.
Today, she stopped a couple of times to reword her sentences. She made a few awkward pauses. Then, eventually, she let her badly contained frustration tip over from ‘righteous defender’ to ‘backed into a corner and baring her teeth’. It was a subtle show of what might be happening behind the scenes. Because yelling at people to “listen to me!” doesn’t project strength, no matter which way you slice it.
And Leavitt’s got a tough job, tougher than most of her compatriots. It’s hard to sell Americans on what is now unmistakably an expanding war with Iran — though, in keeping with the administration’s preferred branding, we are still meant to understand it as something limited, controlled, and, above all, necessary. It’s hard when affordability is the biggest issue in the polls and when your party’s foreign policy is getting rated worse by the day by your own voters. It’s hard to answer the questions from the press that represent these truths, hard to keep pretending that these little concerns about gas prices and groceries and dead people are the purview of media elites rather than the anxieties of Americans across the country.
And yes, she’s the one who has to worry about actually being asked, in a public forum, about what everyone’s now calling “Operation Epstein Fury”.
There were two questions Leavitt didn’t directly answer today: one about the spiking price of oil and how it might affect the US economy, and another about regime change in Iran. Oil should probably become cheaper now Iran isn’t controlling the Strait of Hormuz, she said. And no, there’s no plan for what should happen inside Iran (what?) but Trump is “actively considering” and “discussing” that with advisers.
The whole thing has started to feel very Fyre Festival: if you all could stop being so goddamn negative all the time, then maybe we could turn this into a great success!!!!
Americans across the Middle East are now being told how to evacuate, with the administration “rapidly chartering flights free of charge” — a detail presented as evidence of competence rather than a tacit admission of how quickly the situation is spiraling. And as for the Iranian people, bombed and then thrown into conflict from above? Well, their future rests in their hands, Leavitt told everyone with a smile. Good luck out there in the mess we didn’t create!
