The Sneaky Sign Kaitlan Collins & Karoline Leavitt's Feud Is More Ugly Than It Looks
It's no great secret that CNN news anchor Kaitlan Collins and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt aren't going to become besties anytime soon, considering how their feud shows no signs of slowing down. However, a recent press conference seems to have tipped the scales of the beef from medium rare to well done.
While Collins used to be front and center for Leavitt's messages to the press, she's been noticeably absent recently — including today's conference. Collins wasn't seen in a clip shared to X from the meeting. In the video, Leavitt discussed the drama surrounding President Donald Trump receiving a $400 million luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar. ABC News reported the plane has been referred to as "a flying palace." In true Leavitt snark, she scolded anyone in the media who wrote that the aircraft was a donation to Trump, citing it was actually a donation to America, as well as to the United States Air Force.
Karoline Leavitt: "I was watching the American press spew a lot of misinformation about the plane donation. Let's be very clear."
"This plane is not a personal donation or a gift to President Of The UnitedStates, and everyone who wrote that last week should go and correct their... pic.twitter.com/KN4YNTc7lA
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) May 19, 2025
Collins' absence may indicate her feud with Leavitt could be nastier than they originally let on, and the CNN employee is distancing herself from the situation. After all, Collins' list of enemies keeps growing. Granted, Collins could be away for a myriad of reasons, but optics are everything in politics, so having a prominent reporter MIA from press conferences seems like a red flag.
Both women were recently in the Middle East
The last political event Kaitlan Collins was photographed at was in late April for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, D.C. However, the CNN journalist posted a carousel to Instagram on May 18 that indicated she was in the Middle East. One of the photos was of a place card with Collins' name on it for boarding Air Force One. The trip appears to be part business, part pleasure, considering how several of the snaps feature other CNN reporters, including DJ Judd, Jeff Zeleny, and Betsy Klein, hanging out and giving tourist vibes.
These four journalists co-wrote an article for CNN that shared takeaways from President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East, reporting on the POTUS' various stops in places such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Clearly, Collins hasn't been at Karoline Leavitt's press conferences because she's been busy traveling abroad for work.
Unfortunately, the mystery doesn't end there. Leavitt was also in the Middle East, sharing her own carousel on Instagram the day before Collins' post. Did these two women cross paths at all? It's possible, though Collins isn't the only person who can't stand Leavitt, so it seems like if they did connect, it was begrudgingly through their jobs and away from the cameras.