What to Know
Social media users roasted White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after she labeled President Donald Trump the “most well-read person” in any room.
Leavitt heaped praise on Trump while speaking to Erika Kirk, the widow of late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, during a Turning Point USA event at George Washington University. Her comments drew immediate ridicule online, with many social media users mocking her for repeatedly flattering Trump.
“My advice would be to encourage everyone this in this room, to try to be the most well-read person in every room that you’re in. That was a piece of advice one of my predecessors, Dana Perino, gave to me before I took this job. She said, ‘You always want to be the most well-read person in the room,’” Leavitt said on Thursday.
“And I try to be every day. But Donald Trump always is. That man does not miss a story,” she added.
She said Trump was “always reading the papers and watching the TV “doesn’t miss anything anyone says in the whole world.” She then urged the students to read pieces of news from different sources.
“I don’t know how he does it, and consumes it all, and it’s a lot. And you know, you guys are busy, right? You’re students, you’re working, you’re in school. You want to have fun, you want to live lives,” she said.
“You can’t consume every piece of news, but before you get really hot and bothered about something, or maybe angry, or even really encouraged by something, check other sources and then use your best judgment to balance what the truth is,” she added.
Social media users questioned whether Trump is the “most well-read” person in any room.
“Karoline Leavitt has said many ridiculous things since she became press secretary, but ‘Donald Trump is always the most well-read person in the room’ is unquestionably the most ridiculous,” James Surowiecki, a contributor for The Atlantic, wrote on X.
Political scientist Brenden Nyhan wrote: “Officials in authoritarian regimes signal their loyalty to the leader by making obviously false claims in public.”
One X user said: “If you and Donald Trump are in an enclosed space and you somehow reach the conclusion that he is the most well-read person in the room, the two of you are characters in a riddle where you are a cat.”
“Had I been drinking anything I would have spit it out from laughing… Leavitt is beyond hope,” said former professional tennis player Martina Navratilova.
Newsletter writer Richard Hanania said Trump’s allies’ “praise of him gets more ridiculous.”
“Now they’re all talking about him reading everything and having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East. He’ll be solving unsolved math problems by the end of his term,” Hanania said on X.
Democratic activist Melanie D’Arrigo said this “shameless ass-kissing is even more pathetic since Trump was quoted as saying, ‘I always like to hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.’”
Lauren Sforza | NJ.com; nj.com; (TNS) | ©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit nj.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
