WH Correspondent's Take on the New WH Press Secretary

WH Correspondent's Take on the New WH Press Secretary

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
White House correspondent John Decker joins us and John, you've
been through seventeen of these people, right, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yeah, good morning. That's right. Caroline Levitt is the seventeenth
White House Press secretary that I work with, and I
thought she did a commendable job her first day in
the briefing room, forty seven minute long briefing. She took
questions from a variety of news organizations. She took two
questions from me yesterday at her first White House Press briefing.

(00:28):
Caroline is not a stranger to the White House. She
worked in the first Trump administration, and you may know this.
She also ran for Congress from her native state of
New Hampshire in twenty twenty two. Lost that race, But
I think things worked out pretty well for her in
the sense that she is now the youngest White House
Press secretary in US history at the age of twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
It looks to me, I mean, you talk about a
stark difference between her style and that of Karee John Pierre.
It looks to me, John, like she's going to be
I don't know if fianda is the right word, but
she's going to be very much out there in terms
of supporting the Trump agenda.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, I think that she struck the right tone. I
don't think, you know, there's a difference between being adversarial
and you know, standing up for a position, and I
don't think that she struck an adversarial tone at all yesterday.
And that's a good thing, you know, it shouldn't always
be like that. She represents the point of view of

(01:29):
Donald Trump, of President Trump, of the administration, and she
will advocate for that position. That's her job every day.
You may have noticed also that unlike Karing Jean Pierre,
unlike Jen Saki, unlike Kaylee mcanenny former press secretaries, she
did not come armed with a briefing book into the
briefing room. Really just relied on her homework, you know,

(01:51):
on the things that she knows. In terms of answering
all the questions that were posed of her yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, she was better in front of the camera of
Vettie pressek vers CJ. Craig. Now, there was an issue
involving the condoms, and you might speak to this because
she said fifty million in condoms was sent to Gaza. Well,
according to a comprehensive report in September by the US
Agency for International Development. None of that money and contraceptive

(02:18):
and condom shipments funded by the US went to Gaza.
In fact, the accounting shows there were no condoms sent
to any part of the Middle East, and just one
small shipment of about forty five thousand in oral and
injectable contraceptives was sent into the region and it all
went to Jordan. So she got up there and lectured
the reporters about telling the truth. You're always going to

(02:39):
get the truth from this podium, but that didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, So you know, it's important that you can make
your point without exaggerations, without anything that's inaccurate. And that's
an important point that I think any press secretary needs
to understand. You don't need to resort to information that
turns out to be false to make the points that
you wish to make. And you know, Caroline Levitt first

(03:02):
day on the job, she'll learn that in due course
that she can make the points that she wants to
in terms of advocating for Donald Trump's positions without putting
information out there that turns out to be inaccurate.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, she's going to have to have a little chat
with her staff about where that came from. John, Thank you,
great to have you on.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Thank you, there we go.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
John Ducker, twenty four to seven News, White House Correspondent,