White House: “BBC Is a Leftist Propaganda Machine” | Leavitt on Trump Lawsuit Threat

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed suggestions that President Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC has strained his relationship with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling the broadcaster a “leftist propaganda machine.”

Speaking at the daily press briefing, Leavitt said the president’s position on the BBC is not personal but principled — rooted in concerns about “media bias and manipulation.”

“The President has made very clear that this is a leftist propaganda machine,” Leavitt told reporters. “He has no issue with Prime Minister Starmer or the people of the United Kingdom. This is about holding global media institutions accountable for spreading misinformation.”

The remarks come after Trump’s legal team hinted at possible defamation action against the BBC, following its recent reporting on financial documents linked to the president.

#KarolineLeavitt #DonaldTrump #BBC #KeirStarmer #WhiteHouse #TrumpNews #MediaFreedom #PressBriefing #UKPolitics #USUKRelations #BreakingNews #PoliticalNews #APT #TrumpBBC #FakeNews

Transcript

00:00Caroline, so the clock is ticking on the Friday deadline by which the BBC must retract and

00:05apologize for their malicious edits of the president in the documentary shown last year.

00:11The recently resigned director general of the BBC yesterday described the organization as the

00:16very best of society and blamed the enemies of the BBC for this outcome. Also yesterday,

00:23a senior government minister launched a fierce defense of the channel in the House of Commons

00:28saying that the broadcaster remains a light on the hill for people all over the world. So does

00:35the president feel that the network is taking this situation seriously? Does he believe that

00:40they've shown sufficient regret? Does this strain the relationship between the president and the

00:46prime minister? And given that the organization is publicly funded, is the president prepared to

00:52bankrupt the BBC in his pursuit of truth and justice? Well, thank you, Bev. There's a lot of

00:57questions in one there. I will say I know the president has a very good relationship with

01:01Prime Minister Starmer. You have been there. You've seen them in their interactions. You've questioned

01:05both leaders in your time joining us when we've gone to the United Kingdom a few different times now.

01:12However, he has always been very frank when he disagrees with leaders, even whom he has a good

01:17relationship with. And the BBC, being a fair news organization, is definitely an outlet. I think

01:22these two leaders would disagree. The president has made it very clear that this is a leftist

01:27propaganda machine that is unfortunately subsidized by British taxpayers. And he thinks that's extremely

01:33unfortunate for the great people of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. And I think that the

01:38president was deeply concerned by the editing, the purposeful and dishonest editing of his speech

01:45that was so clearly fake news. And he rightfully dubbed that term many years ago. And this is a

01:51classic example of that. We see it in the United States all the time. We see it now in the United

01:55Kingdom. As you know, the president's external legal counsel has filed a lawsuit against the BBC.

02:01We expect that to continue. And whether they apologize or not is up to them. Thanks for being here,

02:06Bev. Ouija. Thank you, Caroline. Sure.

02:08I have your statement about the new Epstein emails that have been released by House Democrats.

02:16Separate from why you believe the emails were made public, can you address their substance?

02:22Did the president ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house with a victim?

02:26These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.

02:32And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein.

02:38Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out

02:42because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep. And this email you refer to with the name

02:49of a victim that was unredacted now and has since been reported on in this room. So I will go ahead

02:55and say it. Virginia Guffrey. And it was CBS's own reporting Ouija that recently wrote that Miss Guffrey

03:00maintained, and God rest her soul, that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate she ever

03:06witnessed, that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her.

03:11And so I think it's a question worth asking the Democrat Party, and you should all go ask them

03:15after this briefing, of why they chose to redact that name of a victim who has already publicly

03:20made statements about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and is unfortunately no longer with us.

03:25Mary.

03:26Thank you, Kelly. Two questions on this. In the interest of transparency, why not just go ahead,

03:30release the full files on Epstein, get this all over with?

03:34We have, this administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey

03:39Epstein than any administration ever. In fact, this administration, the Department of Justice,

03:45has turned over tens of thousands of documents to the American people. We are cooperating and showing

03:51support for the House Oversight Committee. That's part of the reason you are seeing these documents

03:56that were released today, because of the House Oversight Committees and Republicans' efforts

04:00to get these out to the public. This administration also moved, the Department of Justice also moved

04:05to unseal grand jury testimony, which we know, unfortunately, a judge declined those requests.

04:12So this administration has done more than any. And it just shows how this is truly a manufactured

04:17hoax by the Democrat Party for now they're talking about it all of a sudden because President Trump

04:23is in the Oval Office. But when Joe Biden was sitting in there, the Democrats never brought

04:27this up. This wasn't an issue that they cared about because they actually don't care about the

04:31victims in these cases. They care about trying to score political points against President Trump,

04:35as we have, of course, seen with this government shutdown. And this entire thing, again,

04:40it's not a coincidence to the American people at home. There are no coincidences in Washington,

04:45D.C. And it is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news

04:50this morning ahead of Republicans reopening the government. This is another distraction campaign

04:56by the Democrat and the liberal media. And it's why I'm being asked questions about Epstein instead

05:01of the government reopening because of Republicans and President Trump. Reagan.

05:04But given your interest in transparency, Caroline, why are White House officials then

05:08meeting with Representative Boebert in an effort to try and get her to not sign this petition

05:13calling for the release of the files? Doesn't it show transparency that members of the Trump

05:18administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please? Doesn't that show

05:23our level of transparency? Doesn't that show the level of transparency when we are willing

05:27to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns? That is

05:31that's a defining factor of transparency. Having discussions, having discussions with members of

05:37Congress about various issues. And I'm not going to detail conversations that took place

05:40in the situation room, in the press briefing room. Reagan.

05:43I have a question about the government shutdown.

05:45Thank you. I'm glad someone does.

05:47First, on the government shutdown, the shutdown deal reverses the administration's rents,

05:53and it also prohibits more from happening until the end of January. I'm wondering if the

05:57President had input on this element of the deal, and if he's at all disappointed that's

06:01going to reverse the downsizing of the federal government that they did during the shutdown?

06:05I mean, look, I think it's about 6,000 workers total. When you look at that in comparison

06:09to the reduction in the federal workforce that this administration has done since January

06:14to get rid of the waste, the fraud, the abuse, and to reduce the size of our federal bureaucracy,

06:20we've done a lot of great work on that front, and we will continue to. But obviously the

06:25President's main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to

06:29work, and that's what this deal accomplishes.

06:31On the Middle Eastern line, there's been reports in Israeli media that the U.S. is considering

06:36building a temporary military base on the Gaza border. Can you confirm these reports here?

06:41So I had a conversation directly with the reporter who wrote this article, and this article was based

06:46on a single piece of paper, an inquiry that somebody in the Department of Navy made about an idea that

06:54may happen in the future. And this reporter deemed that as an official plan and ran with a story that the United States is

07:01looking into it. I checked with the highest levels of the United States federal government. This is not

07:06something the United States is interested in being engaged in. It's not something we are currently

07:10involved in right now that we will be funding. And the President has been very clear he doesn't want

07:14to see boots on the ground with respect to what's happening in the Middle East. We've made great peace.

07:18We've made great progress with the peace plan in Gaza, and we want to continue to see that move forward. But

07:24I put a comment in that story for a reason. And sometimes we see reporters take a piece of paper like this and

07:30just deem it as official policy. And sometimes that misleads people a little bit. Sure. Sure.

07:35There's been a question about UK intelligence sharing regarding the drunk interdictions

07:43involving non-times militants. How will that affect the gross military operation? There's been a lot of

07:50discussion about the high caliber of the intelligence that has been provided before any of these military

07:58actions that have taken place. I've seen that report. Oh, hello. I've seen that report. I'm

08:05familiar with the reporting, but we don't comment on intelligence matters, classified intelligence

08:09matters, as you know. As for the Trump administration's position on our narco-terrorist campaign in the

08:14Caribbean, it is going to continue. And the President has made it very clear he's not going to allow

08:20terrorists to bring illegal drugs that kill American citizens into our great country.

White House: “BBC Is a Leftist Propaganda Machine” | Leavitt on Trump Lawsuit Threat | APT

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