Trump Faces Backlash Over “Creepy” Comments About Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s Lips

Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old White House press secretary, has quickly become one of the most visible faces of the Trump administration. But this week, it’s not her sharp messaging that’s making headlines; it’s a series of off-the-cuff remarks from President Trump himself that many are calling inappropriate and “disgusting.”

It happened Tuesday night at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. Trump was in full rally mode, pointing out members of his team in the crowd. When he got to Leavitt, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“We even brought our superstar today, Karoline,” he told the cheering audience. “Isn’t she great? When she goes on TV, especially Fox, they dominate, they dominate. Beautiful face, and those lips… they don’t stop—pop-pop-pop-pop—like a little machine gun.”

He laughed, the crowd laughed, and he kept going, tying her rapid-fire delivery to the strength of his policies: “She’s got no fear because we have the right policy. No men in women’s sports, no pushing transgender stuff on kids, no open borders. So yeah, she’s got it a little easier.”

But the moment the clip hit social media, the reaction was swift and brutal.

One widely shared post put it bluntly: “Trump just pointed at his 28-year-old press secretary and bragged about her ‘beautiful face’ and lips that go ‘pappaap paapaaap like a machine gun.’ This man is 79. It’s gross.”

Others piled on:

• “Imagine your boss talking about your lips like they’re a weapon. I’d die.”
• “He reduces every woman to body parts. Every single time. It’s not a gaffe, it’s who he is.”
• “She’s literally doing the hardest job in communications and he’s up there going ‘nice lips, babe.’ Embarrassing.”

📷 Paul Morigi/Getty Images

This isn’t the first time Trump has fixated on Leavitt’s appearance in public. Back in October, on Air Force One, he randomly asked reporters, “How’s Karoline doing? Should we replace her?” When someone said that was his call, he grinned and replied, “Never happening. That face…and those lips. They move like a machine gun, right?”

He said almost the exact same thing in an August Newsmax interview, calling her a star because of “that face, that brain, and those lips—the way they move.”

Leavitt herself hasn’t commented on the latest firestorm. She’s kept posting photos and clips from the Pennsylvania trip as if nothing happened. She’s no stranger to raised eyebrows, though; earlier this year she openly talked about being married to a man 32 years older than her, joking on a podcast that she couldn’t find guys her age who were “mature enough.”

For now, the White House isn’t addressing the backlash, and Leavitt appears to be brushing it off. But the internet certainly isn’t; the clips are still circulating, and the word “creep” is trending right alongside her name.