White House Press Secretary shuts down CNN reporter over #SignalGate

We have covered #SignalGate pretty extensively today, but there is one more issue that needs to be addressed, that being how White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is handling the heat.

She got into a heated exchange with a CNN reporter, eventually shutting it down, acting much like Karine Jean-Pierre did during the Biden administration, and I was really hoping she would be better than this.

A Mistake

The most honest take I have heard from anyone about this incident was from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

When Rubio finally spoke about it, he stated, "Obviously, someone made a mistake. Someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists. But you ain't supposed to be on that thing.

"I contributed to it twice. I identified my point of contact, which is my chief of staff, and then later on, I think three hours after the White House's official announcements had been made, I congratulated the members of the team.”

I think if everyone had taken this approach, admitted it was a mistake, vowed to find who did it and fire them, then made sure it never happened again, this would have all gone away. Unfortunately, that is not what they did.

Trump Starts Spinning

I think Trump started out okay, saying the leak likely came from someone inside Mike Waltz’s office, the National Security Adviser. I would have added that we were trying to determine if it was an accident or a purposeful leak, but that was all Trump stated at the time.

Trump then changed tactics, going down the road of his communications director, Steven Cheung, calling it a “hoax.” It got even better, with Trump then saying that Signal could be the issue, which is utterly ridiculous.

Trump stated, “I don’t know that Signal works. I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you. It could be a defective platform, and we’re gonna have to find that answer.”

Signal was approved as a method of communication by government officials by the Biden administration, but this was clearly something that should not have been on that channel.

Attacking the Journalist

Since then, the administration has launched a full-fledged assault against Jeffrey Goldberg, the left-wing writer who broke the story. Now, I don’t like Goldberg, but he is not to blame for being added to this text group.

With all the different narratives being pitched, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “Does the president feel that he was misled by his national security advisers, whoever it was that told him there was no classified information in there now that he’s seen these messages?”

Leavitt responded, “I have now been asked and answered this question three times by the both of you. And I have given you my answer. The president feels the same as he did yesterday.” When Collins tried to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt shut her down, responding, “Kaitlan, I am not taking your follow-up.”

In all honesty, before Trump ever commented on the report, he should have demanded to see the full-text chain so he knew exactly what he was dealing with. As far as Leavitt is concerned, she needs to stay composed and simply tell the truth rather than spin this. In my opinion, the administration has handled this very poorly, turning something that could have been out of the news cycle in a day or two into a “thing” that is now dominating the news cycle and even has conservative pundits calling out the administration.