Nicolai Haugsted
Karoline Leavitt gets an unexpected MAGA backlash after revealing what Trump said behind closed doors.
Karoline Leavitt spent her White House career fiercely defending Donald Trump from reporters eager to know what was happening behind closed doors.
Less than a month after leaving the podium, she has discovered that telling those stories herself can create a completely different headache.
Newsmax host Greg Kelly has publicly torn into Trump’s former press secretary after she shared details from a private lunch between the president and former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Kelly accused Leavitt of “gossiping” about confidential conversations and called her decision to recount the episode a “breach of trust.”
The criticism is particularly notable because it came from inside Trump’s own media universe rather than from one of Leavitt’s traditional opponents.
Leavitt tells the story from inside the room
Leavitt appeared on Sean Hannity’s podcast this week and offered listeners a glimpse of Trump’s approach to foreign leaders away from cameras.
Her story concerned a lunch with Starmer in Britain, where Leavitt said Trump abandoned the diplomatic niceties and directly attacked the British leader’s policies.
“We’re sitting around the table, and we’re all enjoying lunch, and we’re in this beautiful place, and the president just starts ripping into him for his policies,” Leavitt said.
According to her account, immigration quickly became Trump’s target.
“‘Your policies here are so stupid, you need to close your borders,'” Leavitt recalled Trump telling Starmer. “‘You need to deport these people you have in your country. I know your country and I know your people, they hate what you’re doing.'”
Fox News separately reported Leavitt’s account of the meeting as part of a wider interview in which she discussed Trump’s private interactions with world leaders including Starmer, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Even Leavitt apparently knew where things were heading
Trump’s bluntness apparently caught the attention of two people who knew his style particularly well.
Leavitt recalled exchanging a glance with Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s most influential policy advisers, as the president continued criticizing his host.
“Starmer’s just sitting there…this is in his house, in his country,” she said. “We’re not even at the White House, we’re not even on our own territory, and he’s just…I remember Stephen Miller and I looking at each other like, ‘Oh boy, here we go.'”
Leavitt presented the anecdote as an example of Trump’s willingness to speak privately with the same bluntness he displays publicly.
Greg Kelly heard something else entirely.
A MAGA-friendly host is not amused
Kelly, a prominent Newsmax personality, responded with an unusually fierce attack on Leavitt.
His objection was not primarily about Trump’s reported remarks to Starmer. Instead, he questioned why a former senior White House official was publicly recounting a private presidential conversation at all.
“Unbelievable. So now that she’s an Ex press secretary, Karoline (with a K) Leavitt GOSSIPS about PRIVATE meetings the President had with world leaders?” Kelly wrote on X.
Timing also featured heavily in his complaint, with the midterm elections approaching.
“We’re in the middle of MIDTERM MADNESS and Karoline (with a K) ‘dishes’ Without a Care In the World,” he continued. “A BREACH of Trust: The President’s, and the Nation’s. So IMMATURE!!!!”
Click to display external content from x,
- You can always enable and disable third-party content.
You agree to display external third-party content. Personal data may be sent to the provider of the content and other third-party services.
Kelly’s post represents his own criticism of Leavitt and does not establish that she violated any legal or formal confidentiality requirement.
Still, the attack creates an unusual role reversal for someone who spent much of her tenure sparring with journalists on Trump’s behalf.
Leavitt left the White House at the end of August after becoming the youngest press secretary in US history.
Family was the stated reason.
She had recently returned from maternity leave following the birth of her second child and decided to step away from the demanding daily role. Trump announced that she would remain one of his top outside advisers and continue playing a role in Republican politics ahead of the midterms.
