It’s not easy being Donald Trump’s press secretary.
Karoline Leavitt, 28, is being pilloried after insisting that the president’s erratic and widely criticized speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was actually a hit.
During his roughly 70-minute address, Trump went on a rambling rant about why the U.S. needs Greenland for its so-called Golden Dome, complained that NATO countries cannot support themselves, and appeared to repeatedly mix up Greenland—the semi-autonomous Danish territory—and Iceland, a separate country, on the world stage.
The reception, however, was far from warm.
The BBC summed up the European reception as: “Many people – from Brussels to Berlin to Paris – will have found [Trump’s] speech to be insulting, overbearing and inaccurate.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was in attendance for Trump’s Davos speech, called the president’s performance “insignificant in its insignificance.”
Still, Leavitt told Fox News on Wednesday that the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.
“I was in the room… it has rave reviews, because the President just tells it like it is,” she said.
“He came here with his ‘America First’ vision on full display: how the American economy is booming once again, through massive deregulation, an energy boom, the president fulfilling his promise to drill, baby, drill,” Leavitt asserted on FOX.
“All of these thing coming together to put together a really exceptional American economy, and I think he’s really inspiring leaders in Europe to take that same approach.”
She went on to claim that European policies are “failing these great countries,” adding, “The president really struck an inspirational tone with all of them today, but of course, it has yet to be seen if they will act accordingly.”
Leavitt also denied that Trump mixed up Greenland and Iceland, claiming he was instead referring to Greenland as a “piece of ice.”
The White House backed up Leavitt’s claims in a statement to the Daily Beast.
“President Trump delivered a historic speech in Davos laying out America’s compelling national security interests involving Greenland,“ spokesperson Taylor Rogers wrote. ”Mere hours afterward, President Trump announced the framework for a future deal with respect to Greenland. President Trump continues to deliver results while the failing, liberal media melts down.”
But the press secretary’s spin quickly drew ridicule.
“No, Karoline…the reviews said he was raving. There’s a difference,” political consultant Rick Wilson wrote to his 1.6 million followers on X.
Independent journalist Brian Allen followed suit.
“Karo-lying Leavitt strikes again,” he wrote to his roughly 200,000 followers.
“Trump said ‘Iceland’ instead of ‘Greenland’ at least four times at Davos, not once, not a slip, four separate times. The receipts don’t lie, even if the White House Press Secretary does.”
Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor struck a more sympathetic note.
“It must genuinely suck to be Trump’s flak and feel obligated to lie about the dumbest sh–t all the time,” he said. “Just yesterday, Trump went to the press briefing room and complained that Leavitt her team suck at their jobs. Now she has to deny reality.”
Vietor was referring to another lengthy Trump speech from Tuesday, during which the president marked his first year back in office by complaining that his administration’s economic message was not breaking through—and suggested his own staff might be to blame.
“We’ve had the best stock market in history, the best 401Ks in history. And we inherited a mess,” Trump said. “The numbers that we inherited were way up. And now we brought them, almost all of them, way down. I mean, I’m not getting—maybe I have bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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