CNN Star Jake Tapper Rips Apart Karoline Leavitt After She Clashed With Kaitlan Collins

CNN anchor Jake Tapper tore into White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt after she attacked Tapper’s colleague Kaitlan Collins over her line of questioning about the military strikes in Iran.

During a White House press briefing on Tuesday, March 4, Leavitt accused Collins of being "disingenuous" after Collins questioned remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

On the Thursday, March 5 airing of his show, The Lead, Tapper defended his colleague, calling Leavitt's claims an "opinion" rather than a fact.

During her heated exchange with Collins, Leavitt reiterated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s claim that the media’s coverage of the death of U.S. troops was to make the president look bad.

“That’s a fact,” Leavitt snapped at Collins.

Tapper played a clip of the acrimonious banter on his show and corrected Leavitt’s baseless assertion.

“Actually, that’s not a fact,” Tapper said. “It’s an opinion, and it’s not particularly relevant to the question of whether we only honor fallen veterans because we wanna make Trump look bad. And by the way, Hegseth was crystal clear on what he was saying.”

Leavitt has consistently argued that mainstream media outlets, particularly CNN, are biased against the president, describing their reporting as an attempt to undermine the administration.

Tapper continued excoriating the pregnant press secretary and said, “Just in point of fact, and anybody can Google it, we have covered fallen veterans under Bush and Obama and Trump and Biden and now Trump again. And we will continue to honor troops by memorializing them and discussing their sacrifices.”

“The only difference is that Bush and Obama and Biden didn’t have secretaries of defense who would petulantly complain about our coverage of fallen warriors,” he concluded.

This conflict follows earlier clashes in 2026, including Tapper calling out Leavitt for defending a mix-up where Trump repeatedly named "Iceland" instead of "Greenland."

Tapper has a history of defending Collins, previously criticizing Trump for calling her "stupid and nasty" in late 2025.

But the recent clash between his colleague and the press secretary was the most biting thus far.

“The press does want to make the president look bad,” Leavitt said to Collins. “Especially you, and especially CNN.”

“We expect you to cover [the story] as you should, Kaitlan, but you and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad; that is an objectionable fact,” Leavitt said.