Leavitt Responds To Question Regarding Trump's Phone With Putin
Sometimes a press briefing gives us a moment so absurd you almost wonder if it was scripted for satire. That’s what happened Tuesday when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was forced to field what could very well be the dumbest question ever asked from the press pool.
The question came from New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh, who earnestly inquired:
“If the point is to get everybody on the same page, why wouldn’t Trump just take the call from Putin while the other leaders were in the room? He said it would be disrespectful to do that — but why is it disrespectful?”
The air seemed to leave the room. The collective IQ dropped ten points. And Leavitt, keeping her composure, delivered a withering rebuttal.
“With all due respect, only a reporter from The New York Times would ask a question like that, Shawn,” she fired back.
Leavitt then explained in painstaking detail what anyone with a shred of geopolitical sense should have already grasped: President Trump had just met with Vladimir Putin on American soil 48 hours earlier. He then hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a lineup of Europe’s top leaders at the White House immediately after that sit-down, sharing readouts and progress updates that impressed even the skeptics.
New York Times reporter asks why Trump didn't have the phone call with Putin in front of the European leaders at the summit.
Karoline Leavitt slaps him down.
"With all due respect, only a reporter from The New York Times would ask a question like that." pic.twitter.com/bv6GwiKT0q
— Hotep Jeffiziah Charles (@jeffcharlesjr) August 19, 2025
She rattled off their own words. Zelensky: “It was a very good conversation. We spoke about very sensitive points.” NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte: “It was the president — only because of the president — that this deadlock was broken with President Putin by starting a dialogue.”
The facts speak for themselves. European leaders didn’t just nod politely — they jumped on planes and flew to Washington, eager to follow Trump’s lead. That doesn’t happen when diplomacy is faltering.
Trump himself noted that his meeting with Putin opened the door to arranging a potential direct sit-down between Putin and Zelensky, with Trump as the third party in what he called a “Trilat.” If it happens, it could be the first real breakthrough in years of bloodshed.
And yet, instead of acknowledging the possibility of peace — an end to a war that has claimed over 250,000 Russian soldiers, up to 100,000 Ukrainians, and more than 12,000 civilians, including 500 children — the reporter chose to nitpick the “optics” of Trump taking a phone call alone.