Trump Spox Gets Snippy At NBC Reporter Over FEMA Chief’s Hurricane Season ‘Joke’

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt got testy when NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell pressed her on acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson’s purported joke about hurricane season.

Several FEMA sources told Reuters they weren’t sure if Richardson was joking when he said he didn’t know Hurricane season was a thing, a remark that the Trump administration confirmed Richardson made but insisted was a joke.

At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Leavitt responded to O’Donnell’s first question by repeating the word “serious” a lot, assuring her that these are “serious people who are taking this issue seriously” — seconds after admitting Richardson told the joke.

When O’Donnell followed up, Leavitt refused to “engage” because “serious”:

KELLY O’DONNELL: Good afternoon. We’re now in the hurricane season. And obviously, there is great concern every year about the potential for that. Can you speak to how the president is planning to have the level of support, should it be needed, to be as it has been with a reduction in the workforce?

And is he still comfortable with Administrator Richardson, who had talked, whether joking or not, about not being aware of a hurricane season for this country?

What is the President’s level of briefings on what may be required? If you could give us kind of an overall update on that.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: Well, of course, we know that we are into hurricane season now and I know FEMA is taking this seriously, seriously, contrary to some of the reporting we have seen based on jokes that were made and leaks from meetings.

But Secretary Kristi Noem and the FEMA leadership are all over this. They are committed to ensuring that federal resources and tax dollars are there for Americans in need.

And the president continues to review requests for emergency aid and carefully considering them.

However, this president has made it clear we’re not going to enable states to make bad decisions with federal tax dollars and then have the federal government later have to bail these states out. We want to see states be responsible with their tax dollars to do as much as they possibly can and then the president will deeply and thoughtfully consider any requests for federal aid that come to his desk.

And I think some of the media reporting we’ve seen on this is frankly sloppy and irresponsible. There are serious people who are taking this issue seriously–.

Starting with the president himself who, as you know, on his first domestic trip back in office, visited both North Carolina and California, both of which were of course hit by natural disasters when he wasn’t even president, but he took ownership of that and visited those places and those people immediately. Brian.

KELLY O’DONNELL: Is a joke about hurricane season appropriate, though, now that we’re– this is serious business, as you talked about it.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: It’s serious business, Kelly, and I’m not going to engage in such fodder with a question like that.

Watch above via Fox News.