Karoline Leavitt is leaving her role as White House Press Secretary at the end of August, and something remarkable happened on her way out the door: Reporters who cover this administration for a living actually lined up to say nice things about her. Naturally, that was too much for Fox News’s Jessica Tarlov to handle.
Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who also serves as president of the White House Correspondents' Association, pointed out that Leavitt is "the youngest press secretary in history, huge achievement in and of itself, and was a very effective messenger for this administration." Heinrich also called her "very accessible and in the room with the president," drawing a pointed contrast with Joe Biden's press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. "Often it was apparent that she wasn't as close to the decision-makers and able to give us valuable information, as Karoline has been in her time here," Heinrich said. "So, this is going to be a big loss for this White House."
NBC News correspondent Garrett Haake wrote on X that "it's impossible to overstate how much of an inner-circle figure Leavitt is in this White House, and how much the President trusts her as an advisor on any issue." Other anonymous reporters described her as playing fair while getting "very aggressive" toward questions "framed duplicitously or maliciously." One called her simply "the best press secretary I've ever worked with, and there have been many," crediting her success to the time she has spent studying Trump's reasoning up close. That same reporter had less patience for Biden's team, saying Jean-Pierre "didn't do either" of the things that made Leavitt effective, and that Jen Psaki looked at the press "with disdain."
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All that praise really triggered Tarlov on the latest episode of The Five.
To her credit, when discussing the timing of Leavitt's exit, Tarlov waved off any suspicion. Then she immediately undercut herself, arguing Trump kept Leavitt around because she has proven herself to be someone who "does his bidding very well." "You know, she dodges, she attacks, she obfuscates," Tarlov said.
Tarlov then ran through what she claimed was a list of mistruths from the podium.
“I did want to review some of the mistruths, lies, whatever it was from the podium,” she began. “U.S. spending $50 million on condoms for Gaza, the Epstein files are a Democratic hoax. There are no war plans sent in the Signal Chat with Jeffrey Goldberg. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a gang member, producing no evidence of it. America is becoming more affordable under Trump, and that the federal aid freeze won't affect any individuals.”
Karoline Leavitt is getting glowing reviews of her performance as press secretary when she dodged, attacked, and obfuscated for the most part. A few examples of the lies we heard: claiming the US spent $50M on condoms for Gaza, calling the Epstein files a 'hoax,' denying war… pic.twitter.com/0RM3GYZctJ
— Jessica Tarlov (@JessicaTarlov) August 13, 2026
I know Tarlov has her talking points courtesy of the DNC, and she’s grossly misrepresenting the truth here, but the fact is that reporters who were in the room with Leavitt, including some who did not love her, still walked away respecting the job she did.
Leavitt leaves the podium having earned praise from an ideologically mixed press corps for being sharp and prepared. She was a breath of fresh air after enduring Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre under Joe Biden, and even the press corps knows it.
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