CNN's Kaitlan Collins clashed with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday during a press briefing when Leavitt denied Collins a chance to ask a followup question.
Earlier this week, a bombshell report in The Atlantic alleged that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared secret war plans in a Signal chat while inadvertently revealing them to a reporter who had been errantly added to the group.
The administration responded by denying any classified information was transmitted through the chats and The Atlantic responded Tuesday by publishing messages showing that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed the precise times that American missiles were scheduled to strike at Houthi rebel groups inside Yemen.
Collins asked Leavitt if she stood by the administration's claims that there had been no classified information in the messages given what she now knows.
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Leavitt complained she'd been "asked and answered the same question" several times and noted that the president "feels the same today as he did yesterday."
Collins asked for a follow-up and spoke while Leavitt called on someone else.
"I'm not taking your follow-up," snapped Leavitt.
"I have a follow-up on something you just said, Karoline," said Collins.
"Kaitlin, I'm not taking your follow-up. Philip, go ahead," Leavitt said
After the briefing, host Boris Sanchez noted that the White House might be trying to do counter-programming to get people off of talking about the Signal scandal by announcing possible auto tariffs. The Dow Jones immediately began falling, Sanchez said.
"We're being told by our reporters that markets started trending downward. Yes, it appears that the White House is trying to counterprogram this story. And I want to go to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who's in the room now. Caitlin, I found it interesting, first, that she rejected your question and said that she had already answered it, even though she didn't directly address the substance of what you were asking. And then that she rejected your follow-up, which is atypical."
Collins reported that Republicans on Capitol Hill see the White House as trying to twist itself into knots trying to say that the Signal chat contents weren't classified when it is overwhelmingly likely that they were given that they revealed the precise timing of military strikes.
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