As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt found out the hard way, ‘actually’ isn’t always the best way to start a correction—especially when you end up confirming the very thing you’re denying! After trying to fact-check Fox News’s coverage of the newly mediated peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, the 28-year-old press secretary, who reclaimed her West Wing office (with fireplace and proximity to President Donald Trump), ended up at the center of a social media frenzy.
Spoiler alert: things didn’t play out as expected.
Like everything involving Trump’s foreign policy, it began naively. U.S. troops were “headed to Israel to support [a] historic peace deal,” according to a post made by Fox News on X (formerly Twitter). Karoline Leavitt then goes into a “this is NOT true” rebuttal, in all caps, of course. After claiming that Fox’s reporting was “taken out of context,” she gave her own point of view:
“To be clear: up to 200 U.S. personnel, who are already stationed at CENTCOM, will be (…) monitoring the peace agreement in Israel.”
We are sure you can guess what came next! Users on X jumped in a matter of minutes. “You just said the same thing as the headline, just with more words,” someone said, clearly conveying everyone’s confusion. “Then it is true, and you just provided more details,” said another. To put it another way, Leavitt’s correction was more “yes, and” than “gotcha.” To make matters worse for the White House press secretary, Fox News published a follow-up about forty-five minutes later that—ironically—confirmed what she had said. Citing a senior official, the network explained that the ceasefire mission would be backed by “up to 200 U.S. troops already in the Middle East.”
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “I can confirm that Special Envoy Witkoff and the President submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed and supported. Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas.”
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 29, 2025
Days after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement thanks to the Trump administration, which put an end to a two-year “war,” an odd exchange took place. The administration called for a truce, which took effect at noon on Friday. The first phase calls for the release of Israeli hostages taken during 2023 in return for Palestinian hostages. While Israel released a list of 250 prisoners due for release, President Trump told reporters that he expects the first ones by “Monday or Tuesday.”
Of the 48 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, 20 are believed to be alive.
Sure enough, Hamas officials publicly thanked Donald Trump for his “personal interference” in finally achieving the ceasefire. But for Karoline Leavitt, the real conflict was on the internet, not in Gaza. Her attempt to sound authoritative turned into a meme-worthy faux pas that elaborated the fine line between contradiction and clarification. The fact that she had just made headlines for her return to the prime press secretary’s office in the West Wing didn’t help either.
She recently got back to the large, fireplace-adorned suite that was previously used by Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Sean Spicer, a living example of press-room power, according to CBS News. Now, a crowd armed with sarcasm and screenshots is testing that power. For the press secretary in charge of directing the Trump administration’s messaging, even the most minor grammatical error could become popular in 2025. Sometimes, keeping it brief is the key to building trust, right?
NEXT UP: Tension at Mar-a-Lago? Donald Trump Fumes at Karoline Leavitt Over Health Update
