Trump Press Secretary Lashes Out at Reporter in Bizarre Tariff Defense

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt threw a tantrum Wednesday, as she floundered trying to explain Donald Trump’s tariffs.

During a press conference, Leavitt attempted to use the issue of fentanyl smuggling over America’s northern border to justify the president’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, but her explanation quickly fell apart.

“There’s been more than a 2,000 percent increase in illegal fentanyl seizure at the northern border. Why? Because Canada is allowing that fentanyl to come to the United States,” Leavitt said.

She added that the president sought “repercussions” for the deaths of American citizens who died of fentanyl overdoses.

“But Karoline, respectfully, it’s just 43 pounds that were found last year—that’s less than a carry-on suitcase,” said NBC News’s senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. “Is that a lot of fentanyl compared to, say, Mexico? The vast majority of the fentanyl is brought in through Mexico, not Canada. So what else does Canada need to do?”

In 2024, a total of 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border, while a whopping 21,100 pounds were seized over the southern border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. By comparison, only two pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border in 2023, the 2,000 percent increase to which Leavitt referred.

While technically both Gutierrez and Leavitt were right, the president’s propagandist appeared to become agitated when confronted with the actual numbers behind her supposedly frightening statistic.

“Well, I just told you, last year alone there was a 2,000 percent increase in illegal fentanyl—” Leavitt said.

“But it’s only 43 pounds, Karoline—” Gutierrez interjected.

“You’re asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It’s not up to you. You’re not the president, Gabe!” Leavitt snapped.

“And frankly, I think it’s a little bit disrespect-ul [sic] to the families in this country that have lost loved ones at the hands of this deadly poison,” Leavitt continued.

Not only did Trump’s chief communicator fail to offer a plausible explanation for why the U.S. needs to levy steep tariffs against its neighbors to the north, but earlier this week she failed to explain why exactly the tariffs would be good for Americans, merely citing “facts” without offering actual evidence.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a one-month exception to U.S. automobile companies from the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada after speaking with CEOs of Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Leavitt read a statement from Trump claiming to have told the auto executives to relocate their production to the U.S.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had a cheeky take on Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

“We won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country 2,700 to 525—on a map that reads almost completely red for Republican,” Trump told both chambers Tuesday night, using his win to claim that he had been given a “mandate” by the country to radically reimagine the federal government.

But the former South Bend mayor couldn’t help himself from adding a dash of spice to Trump’s reminder, offering to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that the president may have won, but only by a historically tiny margin.

“Despite what you heard tonight, he came in with just under 50 percent of the vote,” Buttigieg said. “He won, I’m not disputing that. But it was the smallest popular vote margin since Nixon.

“I wonder how he feels about something that important being that small in his case,” Buttigieg mused with a smirk. “And he has lost support from there.”

“To be smaller than Tricky Dick is, uh—gives one pause, I would say,” Colbert quipped back.

A CNN Poll released this week found that just 39 percent of Americans felt the country was moving in the right direction, as opposed to 45 percent who believed it was moving in the wrong direction.

Even Republicans don’t seem to believe in the “mandate” decree coming from the White House. In Tennessee over the weekend, an angry town hall before Representative Diana Harshbarger screamed, “No!” when the Republican lawmaker asked if there had been a “mandate to the president from the American people,” who she claimed “overwhelmingly” voted Trump in.

“We’re giving the billionaires tax cuts!” a man shouted at Harshbarger.

Donald Trump is already backing off some of his tariffs only one day after they went into effect.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a one-month exception to U.S. automobile companies from the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. The change came after the president spoke with CEOs of the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Trump reportedly told the auto executives that they should move their production to the United States, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“We spoke with the Big Three auto dealers,” Trump said in a statement read by Leavitt. “We are going to give a one-month exemption on any autos coming through USMCA,” he added, referring to the free trade agreement between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Leavitt told reporters that Trump is open to additional exemptions, although none are planned at this time.

Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China on Tuesday, prompting the stock market to plummet and Mexican, Canadian, and Chinese leaders to announce retaliatory tariffs. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, told the Associated Press that the auto industry in Canada and the U.S. could only last 10 days before assembly lines would start to shut down.

“People are going to lose their jobs,” Doug Ford said.

The exemption follows remarks by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Wednesday morning on Bloomberg Television that Trump would update his tariff plans later in the day.

“There are going to be tariffs, let’s be clear,” Lutnick said. “But what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that can maybe—maybe—he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2.”

Trump’s tariffs are expected to raise the prices of numerous goods in the U.S. aside from automobiles, including groceries, electronics, and farm equipment. They also will cause negative ripple effects for the American public, including higher utility bills, partly due to Ford’s threats to cut off electricity to the United States.

It remains to be seen if there will be more carve-outs for Trump’s tariffs, although a rapidly worsening economy could force the president’s hand. What Trump’s endgame is for his very unwise economic plans is not clear, but in the meantime, the American taxpayer will bear the brunt of his folly.

In just a handful of weeks, Donald Trump’s nationalist policies and aggressive tariffs have rattled Canada’s economy, the American stock market, and, with it, the two nations’ long-standing alliance.

But Trump’s most recent approach to negotiating with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid the spontaneous trade war has taken a hard turn, more closely resembling catty high school gossip than legitimate foreign policy.

“Justin Trudeau, of Canada, called me to ask what could be done about Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday. “I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped.”

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner!” Trump continued. “He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!”

That lackadaisical response came on the heels of a harrowing address given Tuesday by Trudeau, in which the Canadian leader accused Trump of attempting to undermine Canada’s economy in order to “annex” it as America’s fifty-first state. He also urged Americans to look in the mirror and consider if they’re comfortable tossing the nation’s strongest Western alliances to effectively become Russia’s puppet.

Trump “feels strongly that it would be very beneficial for the Canadian people to be the fifty-first state of the United States. They wouldn’t be paying for these tariffs, and they’d have much lower taxes if they became a part of our great country,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday.

The president’s controversial tariffs went into effect first thing Tuesday, imposing 25 percent levies on Canada and Mexico as well as a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods. In return, Canada and China slapped the U.S. with equal tariffs, while Mexico promised to do the same, with further details to come Sunday. Meanwhile, the spontaneously unpaused levies immediately followed reports that Trump had directed administration officials to draft a proposal that would lift sanctions on Russia.

“I can tell you that every country is very, very aware that if the American government is willing to do this to their own closest ally, neighbor, and friend,” Trudeau said Tuesday. “Then everyone is vulnerable to a trade war.”

Less than a day after the tariffs went into effect, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox Business that they could be undone as soon as Thursday.

“Both the Canadians and Mexicans were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick told the network, with regard to fentanyl flows into the U.S. “So I think [Trump] is going to work something out with them.”

The Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the federal workforce is disproportionately hurting veterans, and the damage is only going to get worse.

According to a March 4 memo first obtained by Government Executive, the Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to lay off as many as 83,000 employees. The Trump administration wants the department to get its workforce back to 2019 levels, when the VA employed 399,957 people and before millions of veterans became eligible for greater care. More than one in four VA employees are veterans.

The “aggressive” cuts will “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure,” VA chief of staff Christopher Syrek wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees on Tuesday.

The department is expected to deliver its plans to “increase workforce efficiency” to the Office of Personnel Management by April 14.

Employment at the VA increased significantly under Biden with the passing of the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxins and was the result of years’ worth of advocacy from various veteran organizations.

DOGE couldn’t care less. The pseudo-agency’s plan to fire 17 percent of the VA’s workforce is just the latest move in its assault on veterans and, more broadly, the federal government. Last month, DOGE laid off 2,400 VA employees and more than 6,000 veterans from other federal agencies.

DOGE also sought to terminate 875 affected contracts at the VA, which would significantly harm veterans’ access to health care services. The cuts have been temporarily suspended, but will likely resurface.

Florida’s attorney general has launched an “active criminal investigation” into manosphere bigot Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, who arrived in the country just last week at Donald Trump’s behest.

The brothers returned to the U.S. from Romania, where they still face rape and human trafficking charges, after the Trump administration sought the return of their passports, opposing a court order requiring them to remain in the European nation while the investigation continued.

Now that the dual British-American citizens have returned stateside, they’ve found themselves the subject of yet another criminal investigation for alleged sex crimes.

“These guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday.

“Many of these victims are coming forward, some of them minors—people can spin or defend however they want, but in Florida, this type of behavior is viewed as atrocious. We’re not going to accept it,” Uthmeier said. “They chose to come here and set their feet down in this state, and we’re going to pursue every tool we have within our legal authority to hold them accountable.”

Uthemeier announced the investigation in a post on X Tuesday, saying his office had conducted a “preliminary inquiry” into the brothers. “Based on a thorough review of the evidence, I’ve directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the now-active criminal investigation into the Tate brothers,” he wrote.

Andrew Tate posted on X dozens of times between Tuesday and Wednesday, claiming his innocence and attacking Uthmeier and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appointed the attorney general.

“This isn’t the America I know. This is a sad sad day for America,” Tate wrote in one post Tuesday, describing the investigation as “absolute communism.”

Last week, Andrew Tate denied all wrongdoing. “We’ve no criminal record anywhere on the planet ever,” he said.

That claim is still pending, however, as the brothers remain under investigation in Romania. Last year, a Romanian court ruled that after those court proceedings finished, the brothers could then be extradited to the U.K. to face additional charges of sex crimes.

Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and professional misogynist, is a central figure in the manosphere of contemptible internet chauvinists, a group of right-wing shills Trump utilized in his run for the presidency—and now intends to thank in kind.

Elon Musk may be getting another handout from the federal government. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the tech mogul’s satellite internet company, Starlink, could soon make up to $20 billion thanks to a Commerce Department overhaul of a Biden-era program to expand broadband internet access to rural areas. 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has told staff that he wants to make grants under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program “technology neutral,” which would give states the ability to allocate more funds to satellite internet providers like Starlink instead of companies using fiber-optic cable technology to connect rural areas.

Musk and Starlink could draw much more funding under the new rules. Under the program’s existing restrictions, states can only fund alternatives to fiber, such as satellite, in places where laying fiber cables isn’t cost-effective or feasible. Starlink was expected to haul in around $4.1 billion under the existing rules but could rake in anywhere from $10 billion to $20 billion if Lutnick’s changes are accepted. 

Those changes could be announced this week, albeit without many details, according to unnamed sources cited by the Journal. Implementing the overhaul could take longer, as some states may decide to change the allocation of funding they’ve already received. But Musk could easily grease the wheels or complicate matters if he devotes any X posts to the issue. 

The tech mogul and fascism enthusiast has benefited immensely from the Trump administration, only adding to his government-subsidized wealth as the world’s richest man. If these changes to rural broadband funding go through, not only will Musk get richer but his power in the federal government will increase and extend to rural America. 

Elon Musk told some of his biggest investors Wednesday that he’s looking to fully take over the federal government.

In a meeting with Morgan Stanley, the tech billionaire reportedly likened his influence over the federal government to a “corporate takeover.”

“To understand the federal government, it is like a corporate takeover at scale, but one where the company is actually in much worse shape than any commercial company could ever be,” Musk said at the conference, reported CNN’s Hadas Gold.

Musk then went on to say that “logically we should prioritize anything that can reasonably be privatized,” including public services such as the postal service and Amtrak.

Last month, officials with the United States Postal Service flagged that the Trump administration was looking to dissolve the organization’s governing board and place it under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick. Experts believe doing so would likely violate federal law.

The USPS is practically as old as the country, and oversees the myriad shipping demands of the American public, supporting trillions of dollars in commerce.

It also “generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations,” according to USPS’s website.

Still, that hasn’t prevented America’s public mail system from becoming a favorite target of the president. In 2020, Trump argued that the postal service should be dismantled to prevent voting by mail.

Meanwhile, Musk’s role in hacking and slashing federal spending has come under increased legal scrutiny, forcing the Trump administration to announce last week that it was Amy Gleason, a low-profile, first-term Trump official with experience in health care tech, rather than the high-profile billionaire who was leading the Department of Government Efficiency. Meanwhile, Musk has been officially titled a “senior adviser” to Trump.

That title offers him “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself,” the administration claimed, and leaves Musk with no formal responsibilities to run DOGE as either an employee or an administrator, but as a mere employee of the White House.

However, a Freudian slip by the president during his joint session address Tuesday confirmed what DOGE employees and Justice Department attorneys had seemed to understand: that DOGE is actually “headed up by Elon Musk.”

In early February, Morgan Stanley positioned itself to offload upward of $5.5 billion of its outstanding debt in X. Musk had tapped the bank to help him acquire the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022, but the investment has since lost the bulk of its value. In 2023, Musk admitted that the site had lost 90 percent of its value under his stewardship.

China is ready to fight back in Donald Trump’s trade war, or any war for that matter.

On Tuesday, Trump spurred global financial chaos by imposing 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, and doubling tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 to 20 percent.

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the Chinese Embassy wrote, in a post on X, following the announcement.

Trump claims the tariffs will force China to stop the flow of fentanyl to the United States, but China has already retaliated with its own tariffs—kicking off a trade war guaranteed to hurt American consumers.

“Chinese officials have failed to take the actions necessary to stem the flow of precursor chemicals to known criminal cartels and shut down money laundering by transnational criminal organizations,” a fact sheet accompanying Trump’s tariff announcement reads.

Beijing immediately took retaliatory action against the United States, imposing 15 percent tariffs on U.S. agricultural imports. Canada too has imposed 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, joining China and Mexico in their hostility toward Trump.

A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Lin Jian, condemned the president’s decision at a press conference Wednesday and urged the U.S. to “return to the right track of dialogue and cooperation.”

“If the U.S. truly wants to solve the fentanyl issue, then the right thing to do is to consult with China on the basis of equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit to address each other’s concerns,” Jian said. “If the U.S. has other agenda in mind, and if harming China’s interests is what the U.S. wants, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

Democratic Representative Al Green’s protest during Donald Trump’s address to Congress Tuesday night went too far for his Republican colleagues, who are now calling for his censure. 

The far-right House Freedom Caucus posted on X Wednesday that it plans to introduce “a censure resolution against Rep. Al Green today.” Other Republicans not in the caucus, including Representatives Troy Nehls and Dan Newhouse, have also indicated that they plan to introduce a resolution to censure Green. 

The effort will likely have the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said Tuesday night that Green’s actions were “absolutely shameful. He should be censured.”

“It’s a spectacle that was not necessary. He’s made history in a terrible way, and I hope he enjoys it,” Johnson told The Hill.

Green says he plans to accept the consequences, saying that he shouted at the president “because Medicaid is so important to my constituents.”  

“If I broke the rules, then I have to be prepared to suffer the consequences. You don’t break the rules and then demand that you be treated as though nothing ever happened,” the Houston-area congressman told Axios. 

Green’s fellow Democrats in the House are backing up their colleague, with a leading House member and a centrist from the party telling Axios that they don’t expect anyone from the party to vote for the censure. Green isn’t backing down either, having already said earlier this month that he plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump. 

“Let them bring their sanctions. Bring them on,” Green said.