White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is interviewed by Fox News outside the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 16, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
President Donald Trump has had five White House press secretaries altogether: four during his first presidency — Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany — and Karoline Leavitt during his second. Grisham was the least strident of the five and ended up endorsing Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Leavitt, in contrast, prides herself on being a relentless attack dog for Trump.
Leavitt draws a great deal of mockery from critics; Atlanta-based comedian Lisandra Vásquez has been mocking her over-the-top Trump adulation in a series of parody videos for YouTube and Tik Tok. Leavitt also draws frequent criticism for, critics say, failing to check her facts.
Historian/author Laura D. Beers describes Leavitt's tireless cheerleading for Trump as "Orwellian" in a biting article published by Salon on December 18.
Author George Orwell died 75 years ago in 1950, his 1940s books — including "1984" and "Animal Farm" — are still referenced in political conversations. And Beers cites Leavitt as a prime example of the types of distortions and gaslighting that Orwell warned about.
"I'm a historian who has written about the enduring legacy of George Orwell's ideas about truth and freedom," explains Beers, who teaches at American University in Washington, DC. "Listening to Leavitt assert a 'truth' so obviously discordant with people's lives, I was reminded of the repeated pronouncements from the Ministry of Plenty in Orwell's '1984.'"
The "Ministry of Plenty," Beers argues, was totally unapologetic in its use of distortion — as is Leavitt.
"The lack of transparency depicted in '1984' has an uncanny echo in our current political moment, despite Leavitt's repeated assertions that President Donald Trump is the 'most transparent president in history,'" Beers warns. "Leavitt has made that claim countless times, including in her public defense of Trump's 'Quiet, Piggy!' dismissal of Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey last month. In Leavitt's usage, 'transparency' has become a form of Orwellian 'doublespeak' — a word or phrase which, through the process of 'doublethink,' had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning."
The historian continues, "'Doublethink,' in Orwell's writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone 'to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.' Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother's authoritarian regime, to accept that 'WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.'"
Leavitt recently claimed, "This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever" — which, Beers says, was especially "Orwellian" in light of how evasive Trump has been with the Epstein files.
"All governments lie," Beers writes. "But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals."
Laura D. Beers' full article for Salon is available at this link.
