Trump Press Sec Erupts in Fury at Media over ICE as Polls Spiral Again

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After fielding a perfectly legitimate question about ICE abuses on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost her temper. She smeared the reporter as a “left-wing hack.” She then broadened her indictment to the whole “fake” media. She also angrily ridiculed another journalist for asking why Trump recently “joked” that we shouldn’t have midterm elections. That Leavitt was triggered by questions about ICE again shows the White House is refusing to admit error of any kind. This comes as one new poll has Trump’s disapproval on immigration soaring to 61 percent, and another one finds a majority thinks ICE is making our cities less safe. We talked to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council, which has a great new report on Trump’s migrant detention system. We discuss the heartening public rejection of Trump, ICE’s coming explosion in recruitment, and why the refusal to change course means ICE is set to wage a Forever War on the American people. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:43.8	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
1:01.6	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
1:07.5	At a press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt repeatedly lost her temper with reporters.
1:18.7	It's no accident that what triggered Levitt were perfectly legitimate questions about ISIS' extraordinary abuses of late.
1:26.6	Tellingly, White House officials aren't even trying to
1:29.6	reassure anyone that they recognize that things are less than perfect. This comes as a new report
1:35.2	suggests ICE is violating its own protocols pretty seriously and as polling is diving again
1:41.6	for Trump on immigration. Which all raises a question, where does Trump world see all this going?
1:48.4	With ICE recruitment set to explode, did they see ice waging and ever-growing forever war against Americans?
1:55.7	Today we're talking about the Longview with Aaron Reiklin Melnick, a senior fellow at the American
2:00.6	Immigration Council,
	...

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