Karoline Leavitt Lashes Out Over Question on Trump’s Morality

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt threw one of her patented tantrums Wednesday in her first appearance since Donald Trump’s deranged threat to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” if they did not agree to his terms.

Andrew Feinberg, a journalist with The Independent, asked Leavitt how Trump could claim the U.S. was fighting a just war after such extreme rhetoric.

“When the U.S. Invaded Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush said in a message to the Iraqi people that the military campaign was directed ‘against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you,’” Feinberg said. “Yesterday, the president threatened to destroy Iran’s civilization.… Not the Iranian government, but the Iranian civilization. The Iranian people. The U.S. has been a moral leader for most of its history by fighting wars against other governments, not against civilizations. How can the president claim that America can ever have the moral high ground if he’s threatening to destroy civilizations?”

Leavitt shot back, using all the jingoism she could muster: “Andrew, I think you should take a look at the actions of this president over the course of the past six weeks, and the actions of the brave men and women in the United States military.… The president absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime, and for you to even suggest otherwise is frankly insulting.”

Leavitt then called on a different reporter over Feinberg’s protestations. Feinberg could be heard saying, “With all due respect, Karoline …” a handful of times before giving up, as it became clear that Leavitt wasn’t going to let him speak again.

Leavitt received a similar question later in the conference when a reporter asked what her understanding of Trump’s “a whole civilization will die tonight” post was.

“I think it was a very, very strong threat from the president that led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” Leavitt replied.

“It was a very strong threat that led to results. And as the secretary of war stated at the Pentagon this morning, it was not an empty threat by any means. The Pentagon had a target list that they were ready to hit go on at 8 p.m. last night, if the Iranian regime had not agreed to open the Strait, which they did. I think that’s something we should all be grateful for.”

“Does he see the United States as a moral leader in the world given that he’s—” the reporter pressed before Leavitt cut her off.

“I was asked this exact same question by your colleague … and I think again, the insinuation by anyone in this room that Iran somehow has the moral high ground over the United States of America is insulting,” Leavitt said.

In addition to Leavitt misrepresenting some facts here—the Strait of Hormuz is again closed after Israel attacked Lebanon Wednesday morning, per Iranian reporting—the fact that the White House is actually praising the president’s threat to exterminate an entire nation is as cruel as it gets. But would you expect anything less from such a bloodthirsty regime?

Recent reporting from the Financial Times reveals it was President Trump, not the Iranian government, who was begging for a ceasefire.

FT reports that the Trump administration had been privately pushing for a ceasefire for weeks to alleviate the economic strain caused by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and depending on Pakistan for mediation. Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir was communicating with Iranian officials, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Vice President JD Vance, and Trump himself even after the president threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization on Tuesday.

According to the five people familiar with the diplomatic back channel, Trump had been asking for a ceasefire since as early as March 21, when he first threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants.

This contradicts virtually everything the Trump administration has claimed about Iran—that Trump’s constant bombings and threats of extinction caused a wounded, demoralized Iranian regime to limp to the negotiating table, desperate for a deal with the U.S.

“They are begging to make a deal, not me. They’re begging to make a deal,” Trump said less than two weeks ago. “And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they wanna make a deal.... They are begging to work out a deal.”

Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran are expected to take place in Islamabad on Friday, although the speaker of Iran’s parliament has claimed the U.S and Israel have already broken the parameters of the already fragile ceasefire.

Iran expects to make even more money off of a potential peace deal with the White House.

Beyond the 10-point peace plan that Donald Trump already signalled he was open to, Iran additionally expects countries to pay $1 per barrel of oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, reported the Financial Times Wednesday. Tehran demanded that the fee be paid in cryptocurrency, and that importers notify Iranian authorities about the content of their ships ahead of their arrival.

“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” Hamid Hosseini, a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, told FT.

The email requirement is a preventative measure to thwart the influx of weapons into the country, according to Hosseini.

“Iran needs to monitor what goes in and out of the strait to ensure these two weeks aren’t used for transferring weapons,” said Hosseini. “Everything can pass through, but the procedure will take time for each vessel, and Iran is not in a rush.”

But Iran is no stranger to cryptocurrency. The country has built a $10 billion internal crypto economy in recent years, relying on the digital assets as a means to circumvent international sanctions, according to a Yahoo! Finance report published last month.

The price of Brent crude, a global oil benchmark, fell to $96 dollars per barrel in the wake of the fragile ceasefire arrangement, a staggering drop from its high of nearly $112 on Tuesday.

Iran’s 10-point peace plan includes various demands for an immediate end to the regional violence, including proposals for a permanent end to the war, guarantees that Iran and its allies would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a halt to all regional attacks.

The multi-point deal also seeks the lifting of all U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, and the imposition of a new $2 million toll per ship through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil tradeway situated between Iran and Oman.

Trump claimed Wednesday that he planned to turn the Hormuz toll into a “joint venture” that the U.S. would jointly benefit from. It is not clear if Iran is open to that possibility.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that the strait could be reopened as soon as Thursday or Friday—so long as it is “limited” and “under ‌Iran’s ⁠control.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Wednesday that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement is “not the end of the campaign,” as he launched the largest wave of attacks in Lebanon since the start of the war.

“Let me be clear: We still have objectives to complete, and we will achieve them—either through agreement or through renewed fighting,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement. “We are prepared to return to combat at any moment required. Our finger remains on the trigger. This is not the end of the campaign, but a step along the way to achieving all our objectives.”

His statement is sure to assuage the fears of warmongers complaining that the ceasefire will prevent the U.S. from killing more innocent Iranians.

This comes amid Iranian media reports of Iranian air defense activity and explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, and Kerman. Israel also launched an unprecedented wave of attacks in Lebanon, with 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes, injuring nearly 300 people.

“The conditions for a ceasefire between Iran and the United States are clear and explicit: America must choose either a ceasefire or the continuation of war through Israel; both cannot coexist,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on Telegram. “The world is witnessing the killings in Lebanon. Now the ball is in America’s court, and global public opinion is watching to see whether this country will fulfill its commitments or not.”

The White House didn’t have an answer Wednesday to apparent violations of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.

At a press conference, Trevor Hunnicutt, White House correspondent for Reuters, pointed out to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that air defenses in Iran had been activated, with explosions reported in cities across the country, including Isfahan, despite the ceasefire.

“Who is bombing Iran right now?” Hunnicutt asked Leavitt. Caught off guard, she initially stumbled before responding, asking if those reports were “as of a few minutes ago.” Hunnicutt said yes.

“Obviously, I’ll have to go back and check with the national security team. I’m standing out here with all of you. But I will do that, and we will get you an answer, OK?” Leavitt said, adding that while she couldn’t verify those reports, she wanted to check with the experts in the White House.

“I would just say, and I would echo what the vice president said this morning, this is a fragile truce; ceasefires are fragile by nature. We’ve seen this with respect to the 12-day war with Iran and Israel last year,” Leavitt continued, referring to JD Vance’s comments in Hungary earlier in the day. “It takes time sometimes for these ceasefires to be fully effectuated, and one of the results of Operation Epic Fury is that we completely dismantled Iran’s command and control center, which makes it difficult for them to pass messages up and down the chain, and so we understand that.”

But Hunnicut wasn’t asking about Iranian strikes, but rather bombings in Iran, making Leavitt’s point about the Iranian chain of command moot. Israeli and American commanders certainly shouldn’t have communication issues, and the fact that Iran is still being bombed despite a ceasefire raises questions about who is violating it.

Israel continued to bomb Lebanon Wednesday, claiming that the country was not part of the deal (eventually with Trump’s acquiescence) despite Iran and mediator Pakistan saying otherwise. Is Israel still attacking Iran despite the deal, or is Trump promising one thing while doing another?

Official Iranian accounts are taking a victory lap in the wake of Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal.

After Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday evening—one hour before his self-imposed deadline to destroy the country’s “whole civilization”—the details of a 10-point peace plan that the U.S. president called “workable” were revealed.

The peace plan included concessions that some saw as mighty kind to the Islamic regime that Trump has been verbally accosting for years. It includes a provision to lift economic sanctions on the country—not just by the U.S., but worldwide—and a $2 million toll to be imposed by Iran for each ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. One version of the agreement distributed in Farsi even allows for Iran to continue enriching uranium. It all begs the question of why the hell the U.S. got involved in the expensive and deadly conflict in the first place.

Some of Iran’s foreign embassies took the time to boast about the favorable terms after the peace plan was revealed.

“Say hello to the new world superpower,” the Iranian Embassy in South Africa wrote on X.

“Bow down to the Iranian civilization,” the Iranian Embassy in India added, along with an AI-generated picture of Trump kneeling in front of a stone wall displaying heroes from Iran’s past.

Even some of Trump’s closest allies, such as war hawk Lindsey Graham and conservative commentator Laura Loomer, took to social media to criticize the deal.

“We didn’t really get anything out of it and the terrorists in Iran are celebrating,” Loomer fumed.

Trump’s mishandling of Iran is one for the history books. After the president was bamboozled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into striking a country that American intelligence officials said posed no threat to us, Trump declared multiple times that the war would be easily won. He also reportedly believed that Iran would not have the military capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Instead, Iran shut down the strait immediately after the U.S. began launching missiles in February, leading to the crippling of global trade and a deadly boondoggle that, despite Trump’s peacocking, will only lead to more unrest and death in the Middle East.

Donald Trump is not happy as a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is on the verge of collapsing.

On Truth Social Wednesday afternoon, Trump expressed frustration that “Numerous Agreements, Lists, and Letters are being sent out by people that have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S.A. / Iran Negotiation, in many cases, they are total Fraudsters, Charlatans, and WORSE.”

“There is only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States, and we will be discussing them behind closed doors during these Negotiations,” Trump continued. “These are the POINTS that are the basis on which we agreed to a CEASEFIRE. It is something that is reasonable, and can easily be dispensed with.”

Meanwhile, Iran announced that it is once again closing the Strait of Hormuz due to Israel continuing to bomb Lebanon, and its Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the country would withdraw from the ceasefire if the bombings continue.

Lebanon is a point of contention in the ceasefire, as Iran and mediator Pakistan say that it is included in the deal while Israel and Trump both say otherwise. Israel on Wednesday launched its largest wave of airstrikes on Lebanon since the war began, reportedly killing hundreds of people, even as Hezbollah announced it was halting attacks.

Iran has also included “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program in the Farsi version of the ceasefire deal, but not in its English versions. Trump declared on Truth Social Wednesday morning that there “will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust.’”

All of this threatens to derail negotiations between Iran and the U.S., which are scheduled to begin in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday. Israel’s relentless bombing in spite of a ceasefire is not new; they have bombed Gaza at least 2,073 times since a ceasefire was declared for the territory in October. Will Trump, against his own nature, offer some clarity on this ceasefire deal and prevent Israel from sabotaging it?

Up north, Wisconsin Democrats increased their state Supreme Court majority to 5–2 and won a mayoral race in the typically Republican city of Waukesha.

Down south, a Georgia Democrat narrowly lost a house district Donald Trump carried by 34 points in 2024.

In all, Tuesday was an election night that bodes well for Democrats come midterm season.

In Wisconsin—a swing state that Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2024—liberal judge Chris Taylor crushed her GOP-backed opponent, Maria Lazar, by 20 points. It was about double the margin of victory that Susan Crawford, another liberal judge, had attained in a Wisconsin Supreme Court election last year.

Lest one think the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a nothingburger of a political entity, that 2025 race became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history after Elon Musk funneled millions into backing the GOP candidate, Brad Schimel, in an attempt to flip what was at the time a 4–3 liberal lean. After Musk’s candidate lost, he quietly moved on to his other passions, such as being racist on social media and tax evasion.

Without a majority on the line this year, it was a less extravagant affair: $6.5 million was spent on advertising, compared to $85 million in 2025. (It should also be noted that Taylor greatly outspent Lazar.) Nonetheless, the margin of victory was surprisingly one-sided. Taylor even won the reliably Republican Ozaukee County.

In Waukesha, after a Republican mayor who declared himself an independent in 2024 decided not to run for reelection, Democrat Alicia Halvensleben bested Republican Scott Allen in a race decided by 2.4 percentage points. Trump had won the city by six points in 2024.

In Georgia, Shawn Harris was not as lucky as those up north; the Democrat lost by 12 points to Republican Clay Fuller for the House seat vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene. But in some ways, Harris’s performance was the most impressive of all. Trump won rural Chattooga County by 37 points in 2024, meaning Harris shifted the district a stunning 25 points to the left.

“The takeaway is this: If Democrats, independents, and Republicans can do this in a ruby-red district, the Democrats can win anywhere,” Harris said in his concession speech. “Nobody ever thought that we would ever be this close.”

Republicans may let former Attorney General Pam Bondi out of her subpoena to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the committee said, “The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General. The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”

Five Republicans voted with every Democrat on the committee to issue the subpoena last month, only for President Trump to fire Bondi last week. Now her testimony before Congress seems to be in jeopardy. House Oversight Chair James Comer has remained silent on the issue, as others on the committee try to pressure him to still hold Bondi accountable.

“Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify before the Oversight Committee about the Epstein files and the White House cover-up,” said Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking member, in a statement. “She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress.”

In a statement Wednesday, Republican Representative Nancy Mace said that Bondi was still required to testify.

“The subpoena requires Pam Bondi to appear for a sworn deposition regarding the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates and compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Bondi’s removal as Attorney General doesn’t erase her obligation to testify and does not end Congressional oversight,” Mace posted on X.

Mace and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna sent a letter to Comer Tuesday urging him to reaffirm Bondi’s obligation to testify. But if the statement from the committee’s spokesperson is any indication, Bondi won’t have to answer under oath for how she has handled various scandals within the Department of Justice, including her handling of the Epstein files, the mass resignations, and how the DOJ repeatedly ignored court orders.

On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance declared that it would be “scandalous,” “preposterous,” and “unacceptable” to threaten the leadership of an allied nation—something President Trump has done multiple times in his second term.

Vance was commenting on a flippant remark last month by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy—who is currently beefing with Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—who suggested Ukrainian soldiers could show up at Orbán’s home to “communicate with him in his own language.”

“I wasn’t even aware that Zelenskiy said that he was gonna send private soldiers to the prime minister’s residence until yesterday.… Almost couldn’t believe it’s true, but it’s true. It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said while speaking at a panel at a Hungarian university as part of his diplomatic support tour for Orbán. “You should never have a foreign ‌head ⁠of government … threatening the head of government of an allied nation.”

This comment is “preposterous.” Trump spent the first months of his second term doing exactly what Vance is warning about, threatening to fold the entire country of Canada—perhaps the closest U.S. ally—into the “fifty-first state.” This threat was so widely detested in Canada that it helped propel current Prime Minister Mark Carney to an election victory off pure spite.

Trump also threatened to annex Greenland for no real reason other than classic Manifest Destiny–style greed, and threatened to both bomb and invade Mexico against the will of President Claudia Sheinbaum, another crucial ally. And both Vance and Trump have threatened Zelenskiy on multiple occasions, even as he fends off an invasion from Russian President Vladimir Putin, an obvious foe.

Orbán, a longtime ally of Trump and the MAGA movement, is also a staunch opponent of Ukraine and Zelenskiy. Orbán is currently blocking a $105 billion European Union loan for Ukraine in response to what it claims was a targeted shutdown of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Hungary and the rest of Europe. That opposition led Zelenskiy to make the private soldiers comment.

Both Orbán and Trump have made much more detestable statements toward allies than Zelenskiy. The vice president is trying to gaslight you.