White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, 28, has found herself at the center of a fresh controversy, this time following a series of remarks from her 79-year-old boss, President Donald Trump, regarding her physical appearance. The comments, delivered during a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, December 9, have been widely condemned by critics as inappropriate and “disgusting.”
The incident follows weeks of renewed scrutiny over President Trump’s conduct toward women in the press corps, including a recent incident in November where he told a Bloomberg White House correspondent to “Quiet, piggy,” and days later, aimed fresh insults at a female CNN reporter, calling her “nasty” and “stupid.”
Now, the focus has shifted to his own staff.
The ‘Machine Gun’ Metaphor
Speaking to thousands of supporters at the Pennsylvania rally, Trump paused his speech to introduce his press secretary, calling her their “superstar.”
“We even brought our superstar today, Karoline,” he told the crowd, adding, “Isn’t Karoline great?”
Trump then veered into commentary regarding her physical appearance and speaking style, according to several news outlets: “You know, when she goes on television, Fox, like I mean, they dominate, they dominate when she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don’t stop-op-op-op, like a little machine gun.”
The President then attempted to connect her confidence and communication style to the administration’s policies: “She’s got no fear… because we have the right policy. We don’t have men in women’s sports… we don’t have to sell transgender to everybody, we don’t have to sell open borders where the world is allowed to come into our country from prisons and everywhere else – so she’s got a little bit [of an] easier job.”
Outrage Over Gendered Commentary
Reactions to Trump’s comments about Leavitt were swift and overwhelmingly negative, particularly on social media. The focus centered on the perceived objectification and gendered nature of the remarks from a boss to a female subordinate.
Activist groups and individual users quickly expressed outrage. @CalltoActivism tweeted: “BREAKING: Trump points out Karoline Leavitt’s beautiful face and her lips ‘that don’t stop pappaap paapaaap paaap like a machine gun.’ Trump is a disgusting fool.”
Other users amplified the criticism:
-
“Who says *** like this about a female that works for him? It’s beyond creepy and gross,” wrote one X user.
-
“Disgusting. Who talks like that? She should feel cheap and disrespected. Gross,” added another.
-
One commenter noted the predictable nature of the behavior: “Trump reducing a woman to her looks and the sound of her lips is grotesque, juvenile, and horrifyingly predictable.”
-
Another summarized the emotional impact: “Gross. I’d be mortified if my boss spoke about me like that.”
A Pattern of Public Comments
This is not the first instance where President Trump, 79, has publicly commented on his 28-year-old press secretary’s appearance, nor the first time he has faced backlash for doing so.
Just two months earlier, in October, the President similarly gushed about Leavitt’s lips during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One. The impromptu commentary occurred while he was speaking with reporters following a major diplomatic trip. Despite the context being a discussion about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump abruptly shifted the conversation to his press secretary’s looks.
“How’s Karoline doing? Is she doing good?” Trump asked reporters, seemingly unprompted. “Should Karoline be replaced?” he added. When a reporter deferred, Trump remarked, “It’ll never happen. That face…and those lips. They move like a machine gun, right?”
A similar comment was recorded in August during an interview with Newsmax, where Trump declared: “She’s become a star. It’s that face. It’s that brain. It’s those lips, the way they move. They move like she’s a machine gun.”
Leavitt herself has not directly addressed the latest public remarks from the President but appears unfazed, sharing multiple posts on X about the success of Tuesday’s event. Leavitt has previously spoken publicly about her personal life, including an age-gap relationship with her husband, who is 32 years her senior. When asked on the Pod Force One with Miranda Devine show if she couldn’t find men her own age who were as mature, Leavitt replied, “Honestly, no, if you want to know the truth.”
