"Late last week, after President Donald Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte reached out to the White House with a straightforward question: Who picked Budapest? In 1994, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia met in Budapest, where Ukraine agreed to give up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for Russia's promise to respect its sovereignty"
"White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, but not with an explanation. Instead, she replied: "Your mom did." She later posted a screenshot of the exchange on X, called Dáte "a left-wing hack" and said he masquerades as a real reporter. It's another breach of the professionalism that once defined interactions between reporters and the White House, even in moments of tension."
President Donald Trump announced plans to meet Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, prompting a reporter to ask who selected Budapest. Budapest was the site of a 1994 meeting where Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from Russia, making the choice politically sensitive. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt answered the reporter with a personal insult, later labeling him a 'left-wing hack' and posting the exchange on X. The incident accompanies a pattern of increased control over press pools, censored pool reports, reassigned briefing questions and restricted access for journalists.
Read at Poynter
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]