Karoline Leavitt Makes Subtle Split From Trump With Flashy Trip To Super Bowl 2026
Is the honeymoon over at last? White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been her boss's biggest supporter ever since she was appointed to be the president's mouthpiece. Leavitt couldn't even resist gushing over Donald Trump when she announced her second pregnancy. (We're still waiting to see what she means by her mention of his "pro-family environment in the White House.") Yet her doings over Super Bowl weekend suggest that Leavitt doesn't entirely see eye-to-eye with the divisive POTUS.
February 8, 2026, saw the Patriots taking on the Seahawks in the much-anticipated milestone Super Bowl LX. Despite having attended the previous year's game with daughter Ivanka Trump and her children, Donald opted to skip this year's matchup. He claimed the San Francisco venue was "too far away" for him to travel, per the New York Post, though rumor has it Trump's fragile ego was really the reason. Despite insisting he gets a great reception at sporting events, sources told Zeteo the president was afraid of being booed the way JD Vance was during the Winter Olympics opening ceremony.
Leavitt had no such fears — or, if she did, she didn't let it stop her. She gladly made the trip west and glammed up to attend the Super Bowl LX Studio 60 concert, with Sting as headliner. Sunday found her rooting for the Patriots, as a proper New Hampshire native does. It was refreshing to see the press secretary enjoying an event the president snubbed, but oh, to be a fly on the wall Monday morning when she faces her boss back in Washington.
We're waiting for Leavitt's opinion of the halftime show
The bigger question surrounding Karoline Leavitt's appearance at the 2026 Super Bowl isn't what she wore or how she felt about the Patriots' loss, but whether she stayed for the halftime show. When Bad Bunny was announced as the star, President Donald Trump and his followers denounced the idea of a Puerto Rican artist singing entirely (gasp!) in Spanish. Sure enough, during the actual performance, MAGA threw a tantrum over Bad Bunny's jersey. (It said "Ocasio," his surname; conservatives thought it was a shout-out to a certain Democratic congresswoman.) Trump himself interrupted his own Mar-a-Lago watch party to rant on Truth Social that the show was "an affront to the Greatness of America" and that "nobody understands a word this guy is saying."
Did Leavitt agree, or did she secretly like it? Maybe she ducked into the ladies' room for the duration; the line would surely have been shorter. Perhaps she sat in a VIP lounge to stream the show tossed together by Kid Rock and Turning Point USA as a more "patriotic" alternative to seeing a Grammy-winning superstar (three, counting the surprise cameos from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin). At this writing, the press secretary hadn't offered any insights, but if she does, she'll probably echo the president's sentiments for the sake of diplomacy, even if she actually enjoyed the show.