White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt looked “ashen” and “almost frightened” by what she had witnessed during President Donald Trump’s closed-door meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to multiple reporters.
On Saturday night’s episode of MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime, host Antonia Hylton spoke with Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia under President Obama. She pressed him on the reactions of Trump’s staff after Friday’s high-stakes summit in Anchorage, Alaska.
“A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors,” Hylton said. “What did that indicate to you?”
McFaul replied: “We should all be glad that we did not go to Alaska. Because I was in Helsinki with you. And I was in Geneva when President Biden met. They traveled a long way for nothing in return.”
McFaul called the meeting a “disaster.”
“They’re trying to spin it—although they’re not even trying to spin it. That’s a really interesting thing,” he added. “When I worked at the White House and we would have meetings like this, I was the SAO—the senior administration official—that would call up journalists, that would call The New York Times to say, ‘This is what was discussed,’ to push it this way. They’re not even attempting to do that because they know they don’t have anything to work with.”
The summit had been hyped as a chance to move toward peace in Ukraine. It ended with no deal, just vague promises.
Trump spoke to reporters after more than three hours of talks, saying, “We didn’t get there—but we have a very good chance of getting there.” He added, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
He also said he planned to call NATO leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to brief them: “It’s ultimately up to them.”
Despite the lack of results, the event was heavy on spectacle, including a red carpet welcome for Putin. The performance didn’t match the outcome.
Before the summit, Leavitt had fiercely defended Trump from critics.
On Fox & Friends Thursday, she said, “I think it’s pathetic that some of the chatter that we see from these so-called experts who have zero accomplishments on their own résumés to point to.”
“President Trump knows what he’s doing,” she said.
But after the doors closed in Alaska and the cameras rolled away, Leavitt’s face reportedly told a different story.
Watch the full segment below — Antonia Hylton’s comments on Leavitt begin at 11:27.
Here’s another clip featuring a different reporter making the same observation about Leavitt.
Lyin' Karoline Leavitt "came out of the room, she looked stressed out, her eyes were wide, her skin was ashen." Did we just find the Epstein Files? Tongue-in-cheek, but also, WTH happened? I hope she gets asked about this at the next WH presser. pic.twitter.com/ihfkkvF1SE
— John Jackson (@hissgoescobra) August 16, 2025
