White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, on Wednesday during the press briefing, accused CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins of raising “chaos and distrust” within President Trump’s cabinet.
In addition, Leavitt told Collins that her efforts would not work.
Along with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Leavitt detailed numerous findings by a congressional report laying out actions that had been taken by the Obama administration and the intelligence community.
The report had been released just hours before the presser.
Although numerous reports said that Russia did, in fact, try to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, Leavitt stated that, according to evidence, the Obama administration pushed false information from the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Steele Dossier.
The dossier had suggested that the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to win the presidency.
“And [Rubio] also said at that time we discovered deeply troubling actions taken by the FBI, under [Director James] Comey, particularly their acceptance and willingness to rely on the Steele Dossier without verifying its methodology,” Leavitt continued.
Much of the media took the Steele Dossier’s information as fact without looking into whether that information was true, Leavitt said.
In response to Collins’ question as to whether Gabbard was releasing the Russiagate documents in order to gain favor with Trump, Leavitt responded that “[T]he only people who are suggesting that the Director of National Intelligence would release evidence to try to boost her standing with the president are the people in this room, who constantly try to sow distrust and chaos amongst the president’s cabinet — and it is NOT working.”
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.@PressSec shuts down CNN: "The only people who are suggesting that @DNIGabbard would release evidence to try to boost her standing with @POTUS are the people in this room, who constantly try to sow distrust and chaos amongst @POTUS' Cabinet—and it is NOT working." pic.twitter.com/L64pCDil6s
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 23, 2025
“I am with the president of the United States every day. He has the utmost confidence in Director Gabbard. He always has. He continues to and that is true of his entire cabinet, who is all working as one team to deliver on the promises this president made,” Leavitt continued.
Meghan McCain later suggested that the administration ban Collins from covering the White House.
“Kaitlan Collins is an absolute imbecile and a pure partisan hack. Have some respect for the two women standing in front of you who are exposing lies, deep corruption and keeping the country safe. The White House should pull her credentials,” McCain wrote.
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