Fact-checking Leavitt’s key moments as WH press secretary

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving President Donald Trump’s administration at the end of August to spend more time with her family after the birth of her second child.

This story was originally published on PolitiFact.com.

In an Aug. 12 Truth Social post announcing her departure, Trump called Leavitt a “a real leader in the White House” and “one of the best” press secretaries in history. Trump said she would remain one of his top outside advisers.

Leavitt called the job “the honor and adventure of a lifetime.”

Leavitt, 28, is the youngest White House press secretary in U.S. history and has served in the role since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Leavitt echoed many of his talking points as she responded to White House reporters’ questions about economic legislation and federal spending cuts. Sometimes her statements needed fact-checking.

Leavitt said Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ wouldn’t add to the deficit. It does.

In May 2025, as congressional Republicans worked to advance Trump’s signature tax and spending cuts legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, Leavitt downplayed its expected federal deficit impact.

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” she told reporters. “In fact, according to the Council of Economic Advisors, this bill will save $1.6 trillion.”

We rated that False. A deficit is the annual amount by which spending exceeds revenues; the accumulation of all past annual deficits, minus any annual surpluses, is called the federal debt.

Numerous independent analyses projected the legislation would add significantly to the federal deficit — about $3 to $4 trillion over the next decade. That’s because its tax cuts reduce incoming federal revenue by more than it restricts spending.

Leavitt’s “$1.6 trillion” of savings referred only to the bill’s spending cuts, without factoring in the lost tax revenue that will increase the annual deficit and the federal government’s cumulative debt, experts said.

Leavitt said tariffs are a ‘tax cut’ for Americans, but consumers take on the burden

As Trump started announcing his tariffs in early 2025, Leavitt said something that left economists’ head spinning: “Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.”

That’s False.

Virtually all economists, citing years of data and analysis, characterize tariffs as tax hikes rather than tax cuts, because much of the additional cost of the tariff is passed on to consumers through higher prices.

Most studies of Trump’s first-term tariffs showed consumers were worse off financially, and the second-term tariffs he’s proposed are more far-reaching. Analyses have since estimated that Trump’s tariffs — some struck down by the Supreme Court — cost average U.S. households between $1,000 and $1,700 in 2025.

Leavitt’s False statement about U.S. spending $50 million to fund condoms in Gaza

Leavitt defended the Trump administration’s freeze on U.S. foreign development assistance in early 2025, saying Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency “found that there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”

That’s False. There’s no evidence that the U.S. had earmarked or spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza.

A State Department spokesperson said the freeze stopped $100 million in funding to Gaza, which included funding for contraception. But the emergency relief group that would have received that aid told PolitiFact it didn’t use U.S. funding for condoms.

There is a U.S. program that provides contraceptives internationally — and it spent $60 million worldwide in one year — but the people of Gaza were not among the recipients.

In height of egg shortage, Leavitt exaggerated by shifting all blame to former President Joe Biden

When a reporter asked Leavitt about egg prices continuing to rise after Trump’s first week in office, she pointed the blame back to former President Joe Biden.

Leavitt said the Biden administration and the U.S. Agriculture Department “directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens,” which she said led to the shortage.

We rated that Half True.

By January 2025, about 108 million commercial egg-laying chickens died since an avian influenza outbreak began in 2022, either from the virus or culling, data shows.

Depopulation of a farm’s chickens, most of which would die anyway, takes place to prevent the virus’ spread. Depopulation is not a new strategy unique to former Biden’s administration. It also was USDA policy during Trump’s first term.

This story was originally published on PolitiFact.com.

It is republished here as part of a reporting and fact-checking partnership between PolitiFact and Hearst Television.