Hakeem Jeffries torched White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday, calling her “sick”, “demented,” and a “stone cold liar” over her attacks on Democrats during the government shutdown.
The House Minority Leader’s broadside came after Leavitt, 28, claimed that the Democrats’ base is made up of “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”
Jeffries said that rhetoric, delivered from outside the White House while federal workers go unpaid, crossed a line.
“We’ve already seen a rise in political violence and hatred in America,” the 55-year-old New York Rep. told reporters. “And then you’ve got swastikas apparently appearing in the offices of Republican members of Congress.”
Jeffries was referring to Rep. Dave Taylor, a Trump ally since 2016, who had launched an investigation after a swastika flag was seen inside his office.
“You’ve got young Republicans engaging in the most anti-Semitic and racist speech possible, like this is apparently who many of these people are,” Jeffries said in reference to the explosive leak of thousands of racist and antisemitic messages in a Young Republicans group chat.
Jeffries turned his ire to Donald Trump’s press secretary, saying, “And then you got Karoline Leavitt, who’s sick. She’s outta control. And I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.”
Leavitt—who became the youngest White House press secretary in January—often draws scrutiny for her combative briefings.
On this occasion, Jeffries was responding to her on-air claim about Democrats’ supporters, which came during a Fox appearance on Thursday.
Jeffries’ comments come during a government shutdown that began on October 1 and looks likely to stretch into a fourth week, with Congress still at odds over spending and policy riders.
The shutdown has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or working without pay, while the administration works to keep some law enforcement paychecks flowing.
But Jeffries linked Leavitt’s rhetoric to a darker trend on the right. “They are ripping the sheets off in plain view of the American people—their words, their actions revealing themselves in so many different ways,” he said, alluding to the GOP message leaks.
“But the notion that an official White House spokesperson would say that the Democratic Party consists of terrorist violent criminals and undocumented immigrants—this makes no sense,” Jeffries said.
He concluded: “This is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration in the middle of a shutdown.
“So their actions continue to speak for themselves, which is why they’re on the wrong side of public sentiment.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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