Karoline Leavitt Accused of Throwing Trump ‘Under the Bus’

​White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is facing backlash after offering contradictory statements about President Donald Trump’s use of the social media platform Truth Social.

​Just days earlier, Trump shared a video on the platform depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, later blaming staff members after being called out.

​During a press briefing on February 18, Leavitt appeared to backtrack on her earlier statements, telling reporters that anything on Trump’s social media site is “straight from the horse’s mouth.”

When asked by a reporter about the discrepancy between the State Department’s support for the United Kingdom's transfer of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and Trump’s Truth Social post calling it a “big mistake,” Leavitt was definitive.

​“The post should be taken as the policy of the Trump administration,” the 28-year-old stated. “It’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth. When you see it on Truth Social, it is directly from Trump. That’s the beauty of the President and his transparency. He relays his administration’s policies in front of all of you and the rest of the world.”

Earlier, Leavitt was surprised after CBS News asked for examples of Trump being “falsely called racist” in recent years. “You’re kidding, right?” she said.

“I will pull you a plethora of examples. I’m going to get my team in that room to start going through the internet of radical Democrats throughout the years who have accused this president falsely of being a racist,” she said.

​Leavitt’s statements contrast with earlier remarks by White House officials and Trump about the Truth Social video showing the Obamas as apes.

The video drew criticism from people, including some of Trump’s loyal supporters in Congress. A White House official then told The Independent that a staff member — not Trump himself — had “erroneously made the post.”

​Even as calls mounted to fire the unnamed staffer, no one at the White House has been ousted over the incident. “I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t,” Trump said aboard Air Force One soon after the post was taken down.

Several public figures weighed in on the incident. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer shared on X, “And now @PressSec confirms: Donald Trump posted the racist video of the Obamas.”

“Unless it’s racist. Then suddenly a staffer grabbed his phone,” a post from the official account for the press office of Governor Gavin Newsom said.

British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan said, “You know it's directly from President Trump. So the Obamas as apes? Directly from President Trump. She said it.”

More recently, on a podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama brushed it off, saying there is a “sort of clown show that’s happening on social media and on television.”