Did Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, say, "Jesus Christ didn't have electricity either and he did just fine" while explaining President Donald Trump's tariff policies? No, that's not true: None of Leavitt's press briefings before the purported quote appeared online included that remark. There is evidence that the supposed quote comes from a meme.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Threads on February 1, 2025. The post read:
When asked about the tariff war between Canada and the United States after the prime minister of Canada said he would consider cutting off electricity to America if Donald Trump continues to impose tariffs, she referenced Jesus Christ.
'They want you to panic, but President Trump wants you to remember Jesus didn't have electricity either and he did just fine,' Leavitt said.
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This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 16:10:04 2025 UTC)
The post included a link to an article (archived here) to substantiate its claim. That article cites the Irish Star, which revised its original article and headline about the purported quote and now states that it was fabricated (archived here). The Irish Star did not explain the changes in its story; it merely revised its previously published version.
Lead Stories searched official press briefings from Leavitt in her role as press secretary before February 1, 2025, the date the claim was posted. We reviewed a video (archived here) and a transcript (archived here) of Leavitt's first White House press briefing on January 28, 2025; two videos (here [archived here] and here [archived here]) of brief remarks from Leavitt on January 29, 2025; and a video (archived here) of another press briefing from Leavitt held on January 31, 2025. Leavitt did not mention Jesus in any of these instances.
Lead Stories also used keywords to search for the supposed quote via Google News (archived here), in case she made the statement in another press appearance. We did not find any credible sources that confirmed the claim but saw several fact checks that debunked the quote.
The claim seemed to originate from a meme (archived here) posted on Reddit on January 29, 2025. The user who made the post indicated that Leavitt did not actually make that statement. A screenshot of the user's comment is included below:
(Source: Reddit screenshot taken on Wed Feb 12 18:30:30 2025 UTC)
At the time this was written, Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to Karoline Leavitt can be found here.
