Amanda Marcotte (opinion): Why Karoline Leavitt is So Annoying

[allegorical oracle]

Few voices in the MAGA-sphere make me want to flip the channel more than Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Only the grating voice of Donald Trump himself can make me dive faster for the remote as I promise myself that I'll read the transcript later, because it's my job as a journalist to know today's official White House lies. I love being on Greg Sargent's New Republic podcast, but I often have to steel myself because I know what clip he'll play for me: Leavitt scolding reporters like she's the uber-Karen, dressing down a waitress for putting three ice cubes in her tea instead of the requested two.

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She's mocked for having one mode: perpetual tight-lipped outrage, as if she wants to call management on literally every person she meets.

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In the grand tradition of professional anti-feminists dating back to Phyllis Schlafly, Leavitt has found that the key to success is attacking the progressivism that allows her to have a career at all. Worse, she treats progressives as a well of outrage she can draw from, whenever the MAGA masses need evidence that Trump is triggering the liberals.

I don't want to dissuade anyone from making fun of Leavitt. First, it's fun, which needs no justification. More importantly, the mockery is working, especially as a long-term strategy. Yes, Trump voters get the sugar high of knowing they've angered some feminists. But in reading the comments sections of various social media posts where people were fighting about Leavitt, it became clear that conservative women find her embarrassing. Their defenses of her were weak and mealy-mouthed, mostly lame assertions that she's a good Christian — which is hard to square with all the lying.

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/23/why-karoline-leavitt-is-so-annoying/