President Donald Trump has a staffing problem as more MAGA moms are doing what he had requested them to do — have more babies, according to a Wednesday report from The Swamp, The Daily Beast's Substack.
The timing is difficult for the Trump administration, with key midterm races just six months away.
"Donald Trump’s plea to MAGA moms to bear more children is causing a crisis at the White House and Pentagon at a crucial time," The Swamp reported.
"Trump called himself the 'fertilization president' and urged a procreation push to uphold a long tradition of autocrats who seek to build a society in their own image. But the policy is backfiring, with key administration staffers taking maternity leave in the lead-up to the Republican Party’s make-or-break midterm elections," according to The Swamp.
Karoline Leavitt has stepped away for her maternity leave as she prepares to have a second child any day. Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson has also started her maternity leave. These absences have prompted Secretary of State Marco Rubio — and other Trump cabinet members — to fill in for important press briefings, with Rubio taking fiery questions from a room full of shouting reporters on Tuesday, quipping, "This is chaos, guys."
Leavitt spoke to reporters during a press briefing, blaming Democrats and members of the media for what led to suspect Cole Allen allegedly shooting a Secret Service agent.
"The president's calm in the face of chaos while yet another individual was trying to take his life was really remarkable to witness, and it's something I will never forget. President Trump is fearless. He is willing to put his own life on the line," Leavitt said.
Social media users questioned her claims.
"Frankly, it looked more like he had no idea anything was going on until the Secret Service yanked him out of his chair," author Sherry Knowlton wrote on X.
"Trump stumbled and struggled getting up,' progressive political commentator Vince Wilson wrote on X.
"Fearless, eh? What does his military record look like?" College instructor and author Anthony M. Hopper wrote on X.
"Really he wasn't so calm when he was asked [about Epstein]," Tracey Gallagher, attorney and former Judge Pro Tem, wrote on X.
"She knows this sort of propaganda is not helping the discourse, right?" English teacher and former announcer Professor George Werner wrote on X.
Leavitt: "The president's calm in the face of chaos while yet another individual was trying to take his life was really remarkable to witness, and it's something I will never forget. President Trump is fearless. He is willing to put his own life on the line." pic.twitter.com/UjwWaAGa9f — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 27, 2026
President Donald Trump has signaled he is likely to retreat from the ongoing Iran war, a former White House insider said on Tuesday.
Bill Kristol, conservative analyst and editor-at-large for The Bulwark, shared what he thinks Trump and his administration will do next as the war now reaches the fifth week.
"Where he’s heading is toward the exits," Kristol wrote.
Kristol also suggested that Trump could be backing off on his demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, citing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's vague comment with reporters on Monday that the administration was "working toward" establishing operations again in the crucial waterway.
He also referenced a Wall Street Journal report early Tuesday that indicated the end could be near.
"President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. . . . He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade," The Journal reported. "If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said."
It's unclear what Trump will do next, but the signs have pointed to withdrawing, Kristol wrote.
"And if that wasn’t enough of a tell, Trump seemed to all but confirm the reporting this morning when he posted that other countries were going to have to figure out how to get oil through the strait themselves. '[T]he U.S.A won’t be there to help you anymore,' he added," Kristol explained.
"All in all, it seems more likely than not that Trump plans on walking away rather than escalating," Kristol added. "I think this would be a less bad outcome of this reckless and feckless 'excursion' than introducing ground troops. But it will still be a bad outcome for the United States and the world. And I’m afraid it won’t be the last bad outcome we’ll experience from having an unbelievably irresponsible individual as our president."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was the latest person in the Trump administration to demand photographers remove a photo she deemed unflattering, according to reports on Tuesday.
Leavitt was apparently unhappy with an image of herself, a turkey and her son around Thanksgiving and disliked it so much that she reached out to the agency that captured it, The New Republic reported. Since then, the image has been removed from Agence France-Presse's collection and also scrubbed from Getty's archive.
"The photo, taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Andrew Caballero-Reynolds at a very low angle, is pointed up at Leavitt, who is smiling in a manner that gives her a double chin, while she is holding her son. A turkey they were looking down at, 'Waddle,' is also featured in frame very prominently," according to The New Republic.
This isn't the only time the White House has found a photo problematic. Leavitt's request comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also apparently had an issue with recent photos of himself.
The Pentagon apparently shut out photographers from attending press briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war in Iran after Hegseth's staff decided recent photos of him were "unflattering," The Washington Post reported. The images from the March 2 briefing came after Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed during a joint U.S.-Israeli military strike on Feb. 28. It was the first time Hegseth had appeared in the briefing room and spoken to press since June 26.
AFP has denied that there was a formal request to remove the image of Leavitt, who made it clear she did not like it.
“While we were made aware that White House staff found the photo unflattering, we want to be clear that there was no formal request to remove it, nor was there any external pressure involved,” AFP’s director of brand and communications Grégoire Lemarchand told The Daily Beast.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was irritated on Wednesday after a reporter mentioned Joe Kent — the top Trump intelligence official who resigned after claiming President Donald Trump changed his story on the Iran war.
Leavitt was responding to a reporter's question during a White House press briefing and had a sharp reaction to the comments from Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and close MAGA ally who stepped down last week from his role. Kent has said that Iran "posed no imminent threat to our nation" and that the president acted under "pressure from Israel."
"Joe Kent said that the president's red line shifted from 'Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon' to 'Iran cannot pursue nuclear enrichment.' What is the administration's response to that criticism?" the reporter asked.
Leavitt had a strong response to Kent's comments.
"I think the president and I have both strongly responded to the criticism by Mr. Kent, who unfortunately resigned in disgrace and accused the president of basically being controlled by foreign countries and foreign manipulation, which is a ridiculous and laughable assertion," Leavitt said. "So his accusations have zero credibility as far as this White House is concerned."
The reporter pressed further, "the question of the red line shifting from no nuclear weapon to no nuclear enrichment, is there any substance to that argument?"
Leavitt pushed back on the question.
"I think the president has been quite clear on what he wants to see from the Iranian regime, which is why he chose to launch Operation Epic Fury in the first place," Leavitt said.
Q: Joe Kent said the president's red line shifted from 'Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon' to 'Iran cannot pursue nuclear enrichment.' What is the president's response?
LEAVITT: Mr Kent resigned in disgrace. He has 0 credibility
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reversed her tune on Tuesday after previously saying there was "no imminent threat" from Iran — then five days later saying the complete opposite.
Leavitt wrote a lengthy response on X to Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the first administration official to speak out against the war and exit his role. Kent was a longtime MAGA ally of President Donald Trump, who appointed him to the job, and early Tuesday shared his decision on X. He described why he would not support the ongoing conflict, saying, "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.""There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that 'Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,'" Leavitt wrote in rebuttal. "This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over."MeidasTouch podcaster Adam Mockler pointed out Leavitt's words and how they had changed from days ago in an X post on Tuesday."You literally just said there was no threat," Mockler wrote, highlighting Leavitt's own words from March 12.
Last week, Leavitt was critical of an ABC News report in a separate post on X, blaming the outlet for "providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people."
"TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did," she wrote.
The Trump administration was raging on Tuesday, dropping a bizarre comeback after it was called out over previous claims involving the Iran war.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reversed her comments from last week, when she was critical of an ABC News report and blamed the outlet in a post on X for "providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people."
"TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did," Leavitt wrote.
But the White House was furious after people started noting the apparent change in tune from the Trump administration and clapped back with a surprising response on X.
"No such threat to our homeland of Iran launching a drone offensive on our West Coast, dumba----. The nuclear threat of the psychotic, murderous Iranian regime is very real, however. Thank God we finally have a President who's doing something about it," the White House Rapid Response account on X wrote.
Leavitt earlier Tuesday had responded on X with a lengthy post pointing to a public statement from U.S. intelligence official Joe Kent. Kent had resigned publicly via X and, in his letter to President Donald Trump, cited his reasons for leaving his position that Trump appointed him to, insisting that Iran had not posed an imminent threat.
"There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that 'Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,'" Leavitt wrote in rebuttal to Kent's resignation letter. "This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over."
The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday sued the Trump administration to force it to give up its election plans, according to The New York Times.
The Trump administration has not denied whether armed federal agents or military personnel would be stationed at polling places or election offices in the United States, The Times reported. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., outlines how multiple Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security in October have not yet received any responses.
“To ensure that the American people obtain timely knowledge of potential threats to free and fair elections and to enable the D.N.C. to take appropriate action to ensure voting rights are protected, the D.N.C. now seeks this Court’s aid to enforce” Freedom of Information Act requirements stated in the requests, according to the lawsuit.
The move comes after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt commented during a press briefing with reporters last month that the Trump administration had not excluded stationing federal law enforcement at polling locations.
“I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November — that’s frankly a very silly hypothetical question,” Leavitt said. “But what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that “there are no plans to have ICE officers at our polling locations” during a heated hearing with lawmakers last week. She did not deny or confirm whether the Trump administration has decided to "rule out" the decision.
Another Trump official, Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security, reportedly said that there would be no federal agents involved in polling locations.
“There will be no ICE presence at polling locations for this election,” Honey said, according to a Times source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"The Democrats’ lawsuit suggests they are not convinced — and won’t be until they receive more concrete confirmation that no plans or discussions are underway," The Times reported.
The internet erupted Tuesday after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped at CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes and insisted President Donald Trump wasn't "making anything up" when it came to the ongoing war with Iran.
Cordes had asked Leavitt to clarify Trump's decision to launch military strikes with Israel on Iran.
"There are no U.S. leaders or Israeli leaders who are making those same claims. So is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war?" Cordes said.
Leavitt wasn't happy with the reporter's question.
"The president is not making anything up," Leavitt fired back. "Iran wanted to attack the U.S., and the president was not going to allow that to happen, and everyone in this room should be grateful for it."
Social media users responded to Leavitt's claims.
"Leavitt keeps lying, and the media keeps letting her," technologist and geographer Linda Stevens wrote on X.
"There was no threat. It was all in Trump delusional mind," nurse Ellen Hanley wrote on X.
"That’s all the president does is make crap up," retired educator Ben Adler wrote on X.
"Imagine if Jen Psaki had said nonsense like this on behalf of Biden or Robert Gibbs had said this on behalf of Obama? Insane the kinda crap they get away with saying to the media. He had a 'feeling' about launching an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression," Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, wrote on X.
"Trump is bombing Iran based on his feelings," PatriotTakes, an X account that self-describes as dedicated to researching and exposing right-wing extremism and other threats to democracy, wrote on the platform.
"HAHAHAHAHA Every time he speaks he lies!!" Vince Wilson, liberal political commentator, wrote on X.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt directly attacked CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday during the first press briefing since the United States and its ally Israel launched military strikes against Iran.
Leavitt had made several comments criticizing media coverage of the Trump administration and went after reporters at the White House, specifically Collins and CNN.
The Trump administration has presented several different objectives since launching its military operation five days ago — with Cabinet members and even President Donald Trump giving conflicting information over what prompted the attacks and led to the regional conflict that has now left six American troops dead.
"Is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. service members?" Collins asked Leavitt.
"No, it's the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across this country should report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room," Leavitt said. "If the Iranian regime had their choice, they would kill every single person in this room, and so we can all be very grateful that we have an administration, that we have men and women in our armed forces who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the rest of us in this room and for every American across the country, and for every troop that is based in the Middle East."
Collins pushed back on what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said earlier Wednesday. When Leavitt started to clash with her, things became personal.
"But Secretary Hegseth was complaining that it was front-page news about these six service members who were killed," Collins said.
"That's not what the secretary said, and that's not what he meant, and you know it!" Leavitt said, appearing visibly upset by Collins' statement. "You are being disingenuous. There is not — we've never had a secretary of defense who cares more..."
Collins then interjected and read the statement directly from Hegseth, who had claimed that the press had purposefully tried to speak badly about Trump.
"The press only wants to make the president look bad," Leavitt said. As you know, the press, the deaths of U.S. service members under every president. The press does only want to make the president look bad. That's a fact. Especially, you know, listen to me, especially you, and especially CNN, and the secretary of defense cares deeply about our warfighters and our men and women in uniform. He travels all across this country to meet with them, to connect with them. And your network has hardly ever probably reported on that."
Collins responded again to Leavitt's attacks — pointing out that covering the slain military members was not an attempt to attack Trump.
"That's not making the president look bad, that's showcasing that," Collins said.
"And I just told you that the president of the United States will be attending their dignified transfer. So please. So, please," Leavitt said. "We expect you to cover that as you should, Kaitlan. But you and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad. That is an objective fact."
Collins pushed back again.
"I don't think covering troop deaths is trying to make the president look bad," Collins said.
"If you're trying to argue right now that CNN's overwhelming coverage is not negative of President Donald Trump, I think the American people would tend to agree, and your ratings would tend to disagree with that as well," Leavitt said.
