Trump’s Press Secretary Once Opposed Election Denialism

Karoline Leavitt, who Donald Trump has chosen as his White House press secretary, once criticized the Capitol insurrection and reposted praise for then–Vice President Mike Pence certifying the 2020 presidential election, before later deleting the social media posts.

CNN reports that Leavitt made two posts on X (formerly Twitter) after the January 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol: one video of Pence calling the attacks “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol” as he presided over the election’s certification in Congress, and another post calling a Capitol police officer who led rioters away from members of Congress “a hero.”

At the time, Leavitt, then 23, had just left Trump’s White House press office and accepted a job working for Representative Elise Stefanik. Later, despite her criticism of the January 6 riots, she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022, denying that Trump lost the presidential election.

In two separate interviews in 2021, one with OANN and one with New Hampshire talk radio, Leavitt denied that Trump lost the 2020 election.

“I do believe that if we were to audit all 50 states in this country, there is absolutely no way we would find Joe Biden legitimately won 81 million votes,” Leavitt told New Hampshire’s WKXL. “I fundamentally do not believe that, and I will tell you the majority of voters on the Republican side do not believe that either. We feel as though this election was taken away from us.”

After her 2022 loss, Leavitt went on to work for Trump’s PAC and later his presidential campaign, becoming its national press secretary. At 27, she’ll be the youngest White House press secretary ever, but far from the only Republican (and Trump staffer) to go from criticizing the Capitol insurrection to denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. But that won’t matter to Trump, who sees immediate loyalty as the most important thing. As long as Leavitt does what Trump wants in her new role, she will have his approval.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, could face many different and serious conflicts with his business interests if he is confirmed to run the agency.

The Washington Post reports that Oz, who has a long history of promoting questionable medical cures and diet solutions, also has business ties to pharmaceutical companies such as Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic. If Oz is confirmed to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, his decisions would have considerable effects on these businesses.

Oz founded Sharecare, a digital health and media company, with Oprah Winfrey and WebMD founder Jeff Arnold in 2009. Novo Nordisk was a client of Sharecare. Being in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, two taxpayer-funded health care programs, would call into question whether he’d be affected by lobbying efforts from Big Pharma, particularly over weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.

Oz has repeatedly touted the benefits of Ozempic on his TV show as well as his website. He has also promoted Wegovy, another similar drug. Both are manufactured by Novo Nordisk, and the company has been lobbying the federal government to cover the drugs through Medicare and Medicaid.

The Biden administration proposed covering the weight-loss drugs last week, which raises the question of whether the incoming Trump administration will do the same. Such a move would raise a conflict within the administration between Oz and Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has attacked pharmaceutical companies for selling drugs like Ozempic.

“They’re counting on selling it to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs,” Kennedy told Fox News in October.

There’s also Oz’s long history of touting questionable medical cures and diet solutions, which undercuts his medical credibility and even resulted in a congressional hearing. Will Oz’s quackery, as well as his business interests, affect his confirmation? In the Trump administration, after all, conflicts of interest are routinely ignored when money is involved.

It seems that Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to transform the FBI into the president’s billy club, hasn’t quite won over all of the president-elect’s allies, according to MSNBC.

Patel, who held intelligence and defense roles during Trump’s first term, is considered one of his most dangerous picks yet—and not everyone is happy about the president-elect’s choice.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Jonathan Lemire discussed reports Monday of unease in Trump’s inner circle around Patel’s nomination.

“Kash Patel is not just controversial among media outlets or Democrats, he is not just controversial among Republican senators,” Scarborough said. “He is controversial inside Trump’s own orbit.

“You go inside Trump’s own orbit and it is split down the middle with half the people thinking he is going to be a disaster for any Donald Trump administration, and they never wanted this nomination to see the light of day because—again—that divide goes straight through MAGAworld for those around Donald Trump.”

Lemire explained that Patel, with his penchant for “deep state” conspiracy theories and threatening journalists, is a pick designed to please far-right extremists.

“People I talked to say this pick was a nod to the extreme right-wing portions of Trump base, the Steve Bannon, ultra-MAGA sector here who had been disappointed by Trump’s picks like treasury secretary and secretary of state,” Lemire explained, referring to billionaire money manager Scott Bessent and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, respectively.

“This is Trump throwing them red meat because he knows he needs to keep them happy, but other people in Trumpworld are deeply worried about this pick; that Patel is not only not qualified but dangerous, that he will not think twice or hesitate in carrying out whatever Trump wants, people say, even for people breaking the law.”

It’s hard to believe Trump hasn’t already satisfied the more extreme among his base with his slate of far-right conspiracy theorists, autocrat apologists, and alleged sexual predators. At a certain point, so many “nods” to the far right aren’t really just nods anymore, as Trump’s loyalist picks for intelligence and law enforcement constitute the makings of an increasingly accelerating authoritarian takeover.

An unelected federal bureaucrat spent his weekend complaining about how much he hates unelected federal bureaucrats.  

Former presidential candidate and Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy offered a pretty oblivious take on X on Sunday. Chiming in on a discussion between Elon Musk and Stephen Miller about the deep state, Ramaswamy responded, “The real ‘threat to our democracy’ is the unelected federal bureaucracy.” 

This stunning lack of self-awareness—or unabashed hypocrisy—was quickly ridiculed. 

“You have already launched and are reportedly staffing a department of the United States government that has never actually been created or authorized by any statute enacted by the democratically elected Congress of the United States,” former Bernie Sanders adviser David Sirota wrote.

“Vivek is literally an unelected federal bureaucrat,” said MSNBC contributor Brian Tyler Cohen.

“That’s you, IDIOT,” said talk show host Roland Martin.

Even still, Ramaswamy and Musk are set to be equipped with power to radically change the federal government apparatus, or “deep state” as they like to call it—especially after their recent victory in the Loper Bright v. Raimondo Supreme Court case.

Donald Trump’s next term will benefit from a Republican trifecta at the upper echelons of government—but the party’s inner divisions and its tiny, two-seat majority in the House might stand in the way of some of his bigger policy goals.

With Congress winding down its 118th session, it’s clear that the divisions flaming both parties in both chambers have disrupted the legislature’s typical productivity. For scale: The branch’s last session, which also faced criticism for its lack of productivity, enacted 362 public laws. The 118th, by contrast, has passed just 136 laws, according to legislative data from LegiScan.

That’s partially thanks to rampant chaos in the House, which wasted months of the first half of its session unable to pick a leader, whether it was via Kevin McCarthy falling to the caucus’s far-right members last year or Speaker Mike Johnson, a relative unknown, almost accidentally acquiring the House’s highest position.

Meanwhile, Republicans, divided between traditional party values and Trump’s MAGA infusion, have continued to torpedo their own initiatives. Up next on the docket for the confused party is advancing Trump’s tax goals, which include extending his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and delaying the end of $3.3 trillion in tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy (they’re currently set to expire in 2025).

Senior Republicans had hoped that the extension would give the president-elect the tools to expand border enforcement and begin his “mass deportations,” but even the party’s political advantages aren’t enough for a clear path forward on the issue.

“It’ll be super challenging. And the reason for that is you have razors at margins, and we’re obviously not going to get any Democrat votes. The key is going to be addressing all these coalitions that are likely going to threaten an insufficient number of votes unless they get their priorities,” Senator Thom Tillis told NBC News Sunday. “It’s infinitely more complex to get a reconciliation outcome in this cycle out of the House than the Senate.”

But the extreme nativist effort has doubly spelled out to Democrats that conservatives aren’t looking to bipartisanship to advance their policies.

“Republicans are trying to take actions that will benefit the most fortunate and grow the debt for future generations,” Representative Brad Schneider, the newly elected chair of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, told NBC. “They’ve made it very clear they’re not going to look to find any compromise. They’re going to have to work within their own caucus, this very narrow majority.”