As we’ve reported here at PJ Media, the mainstream media thought they finally had a scandal to pin on the Trump administration this week, but like so many times before, their scheme imploded.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt put CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in her place during the White House press briefing during a heated exchange over “Signalgate.” When pressed repeatedly on the non-story, Leavitt delivered a knockout response that left Collins scrambling.
Collins pressed Leavitt on whether President Trump felt misled by his national security advisors after reviewing recently released chat messages. She specifically pointed to a message from Pete Hegseth stating, “14, 15 strike drones on target,” followed by an all-caps declaration: “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.”
Related: Another 'Signalgate' Narrative Just Crashed and Burned
Leavitt wasn’t having it. “I’ve now been asked and answered this question three times by the both of you, and I’ve given you my answer,” she shot back. “The president feels the same today as he did yesterday. Philip.”
Undeterred, Collins attempted to push forward. “And I might. ... Sorry, I might follow up on what you had just said,” she said.
Leavitt shut her down immediately and called on another reporter, but Collins still tried to interject. “I have a fol— I have a quick—”
Leavitt didn’t let her finish. “Kaitlan, I’m not taking your follow-up.”
It was a clear and decisive moment. Leavitt wasn’t about to let Collins hijack the briefing with the same tired question about a non-scandal that the left is desperately trying to exploit because they lost their favorite talking point about egg prices.
The left-wing media went into full spin mode on Monday after Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic reported that he was mistakenly added to a Signal chat with senior Trump administration officials. While no one disputes that Goldberg was added to the chat by mistake, the real issue is how that happened.
Goldberg, a left-wing fake news peddler with a history of publishing bogus hit pieces on Trump, claimed that officials revealed classified “war plans” in the chat. They didn’t, as multiple officials in the administration have pointed out. He initially refused to release the full chats.
Related: Jeffrey Goldberg Accidentally Proved His ‘Signalgate’ Narrative Is a Hoax
“I have a pretty clear standard in my own behavior of what I consider… information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it’s technically classified or not,” he claimed during a podcast interview on Tuesday.
Goldberg reversed course on Wednesday and released the full conversation, insisting that doing so somehow proved the Trump administration was mischaracterizing the sensitivity of the discussion. But in reality, all he did was expose his own deception.
If the chat contained classified or top-secret information, his supposed journalistic integrity would have kept him from publishing it. By releasing it, he proved the entire controversy was a manufactured hoax. And the public could see for itself how much of a nothingburger the chat conversation turned out to be.
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