Did "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart invite White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as a guest and tell her that her "brain missed makeup" on TV? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no evidence confirming such a comment. No news reports and no "Daily Show" episodes reviewed by Lead Stories contained the purported joke.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on August 17, 2025. It read:
'YOUR BRAIN MISSED MAKEUP': Jon Stewart's Savage Joke Sends Karoline Leavitt Into a Public Spiral on Live TV!
On Jon Stewart's highly-anticipated new show, a single, perfectly-timed joke shattered the atmosphere. Karoline Leavitt, the guest, was the target--and Stewart's words were as sharp as they were sudden:
'Your brain missed makeup.'
The joke landed like a bombshell, and Karoline Leavitt's reaction was immediate--flustered, incoherent, and clearly spiraling. Viewers watched in stunned silence as she struggled to regain her composure on live television, unable to recover from the unexpected burn.
What followed was one of the most awkward moments of Leavitt's career. Her response, which has now gone viral, has been described as painfully cringe-worthy. The internet has exploded, with memes and commentary flooding social media.
Karoline Leavitt's public disintegration is now being hailed as one of the most excruciatingly awkward moments ever seen on live television. What exactly happened that sent her spiraling out of control?
Details in comment👇👇
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: screenshot of a post by the Maddow-Grooves account on Facebook.com)
The comment section contained an article (archived here) published two days earlier. In its telling, the purported verbatim quote sounded a little different: "It seems like your talking points went to hair and makeup, but your brain missed the appointment."
Yet, searches across Google (archived here) and Yahoo for the keywords that included both versions of the supposed joke did not show credible news reports confirming the incident.
The same article contained a collage pointing to a different episode of "The Daily Show":
(Source: screenshot of an article on us.feji.io)
The episode containing a reference to Leavitt's cross was aired on June 2, 2025. The same footage was also uploaded to the show's YouTube channel, where the fragment mentioning the White House press secretary begins at the 18:24 mark (archived here).
A little later, at the 20:52 mark, Jon Stewart said, looking at the image of Leavitt:
I think the more she lies, the bigger her cross gets. Is that possible? It's like some sort of weird Pinocchio cross.
As Stewart proceeds to say that 'the president can't be bought,' Leavitt's cross gets digitally enlarged.
(Source: screenshot of the "Daily Show" account on YouTube.com)
A Lead Stories reporter watched that episode in its entirety and can confirm: The White House press secretary wasn't a guest on it, and the joke about her brain "missing makeup" wasn't aired on June 2, 2025.
The earliest instance of the claim's publication found by Lead Stories goes back to August 3, 2025, when it appeared on an obscure website that has since deleted the article:
(Source: screenshot of the Google search results page)
"The Daily Show" is hosted by a rotating set of comedians. As of this writing, the most recent episode anchored by Jon Stewart aired on July 28, 2025. A Lead Stories reporter watched its full version, too: Neither was Leavitt a guest on that episode, nor was the joke in question part of it -- Stewart made no mention of the White House press secretary at all.
