In recent video from 5:28, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt used her Monday briefing to deliver a forceful condemnation of Congress over what she described as a dereliction of legislative duty, asserting that the failure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for 73 consecutive days had placed the Secret Service in an untenable operational position — a reality that Saturday night’s assassination attempt had thrown into sharp relief.
Leavitt opened that portion of her remarks by noting that the events of Saturday evening, in which an armed individual attempted to kill President Donald Trump and numerous senior administration officials at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, had underscored the critical importance of ensuring adequate and uninterrupted federal funding for the nation’s security infrastructure.
She stated plainly: “It is shameful that the United States Congress has kept this vital agency defunded for 73 days — the longest shutdown of a federal agency in United States history.” Leavitt then characterized the situation as nothing short of a national scandal, demanding that the issue receive the same level of sustained press scrutiny it would command if the political roles were reversed. “If Republicans defunded DHS and we saw another attempted assassination on a Democrat president,” she said, “I would hope that the media coverage would be relentless and unforgiving. And I hope that it continues to be now.”
Leavitt acknowledged the heroism displayed by Secret Service personnel on Saturday evening, describing an agent who physically placed his body between the gunman and the president without knowing the origin of the shots or the precise location of the threat. She characterized such agents as heroes who perform their duties daily in service of the country, despite, in her words, the political turmoil surrounding their agency.
The press secretary argued that the Democratic Party’s resistance to funding DHS was not only politically motivated but operationally dangerous, particularly given the volume of major national events on the horizon. She cited the upcoming FIFA World Cup, the 250th anniversary of American independence, the 2028 Summer Olympics, and a future presidential election as events that would demand a fully resourced and operationally sound Secret Service.
Leavitt called on every member of Congress to set aside partisan calculations and act in the national interest. “There should be no further debate about this,” she stated. “Democrats need to do what President Trump has been calling on them to do for 73 days in a row and fund the Department of Homeland Security. Period.”
She characterized the situation as a national emergency and urged immediate legislative resolution, warning that further delay was not a political abstraction but a tangible risk to human life — a risk that the events of Saturday evening had demonstrated in the most immediate and visceral terms possible…Read_More…