‘I Don’t Even Really Know What To Say’: Tapper Rips Leavitt for Claiming the Media Reported Troop Deaths to Damage Trump

CNN anchor Jake Tapper slammed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt over her claim that media coverage of the U.S. troops’ deaths in Iran was meant to make President Donald Trump “look bad,” calling her response “the height of solipsism and narcissism.”

Colleague Kaitlan Collins joined Tapper on Wednesday’s edition of The Lead to discuss the six American service members killed in Iran since the start of President Donald Trump’s ongoing U.S. military operation on Saturday.

Tapper first reiterated his criticism of similar comments made by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday. The CNN host responded to Hegseth in a video posted to social media, calling the secretary’s outlook a “warped way of looking at the world” – a characterization he repeated on air.

He then asked Collins about Levitt’s comments, made in response to a question from Collins herself at Wednesday’s press briefing.

“Jake, I think it obviously goes without saying, as you just noted there, that covering the deaths of these service members has nothing to do with President Trump himself personally, just as it didn’t with other presidents,” she said.

Tapper agreed with Collins, calling out the administration for their attacks on the media’s coverage of the deaths and claiming he was “utterly shocked” by Hegseth and Levitt’s comments.

“It really is the height of solipsism and narcissism to think that our coverage of fallen warriors has anything to do with our– how we cover a president,” he said. “I’m just utterly shocked that Hegseth and now Karoline Leavitt are saying it.”

He went on to say that the administration was insulting the families of the fallen service members, calling the remarks “offensive.”

“It’s just, it’s– I don’t even really know what to say. It’s so offensive. And not– I don’t care what they think about us. It’s so offensive to the families who deserve coverage,” he said. “There’s one thing that you can say about the news media, like or just this country, we don’t pay enough attention as a nation to fallen veterans. Like, there should be more coverage, whoever’s in the building behind you.”

Watch above via CNN.

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