White House press secretary calls on media outlets to tell truth

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shot back at the press Tuesday, saying she will provide honest answers from the press briefing-room podium, but expects honest reporting in return.

Ms. Leavitt gave her first press briefing as the youngest White House press secretary in history Tuesday afternoon. When asked by a member of the press how she views her role, whether she’s advocating for the president or providing the truth, Ms. Leavitt said she commits “to telling the truth.”

“I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States,” she said. “That is my job and I will say it’s very easy to speak the truth from this podium when you have a president who is implementing policies that are wildly popular with the American people.”

She said the Trump administration is “correcting the lies and the wrongs of the past four years, many of the lies that have been told to your faces in this very briefing room.”

And, she immediately added, “I would like to point out, while I vow to provide the truth from this podium, we ask that all of you in this room hold yourselves to that same standard.”

“We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family and we will not accept that,” Ms. Leavitt said. “We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.”

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President Trump has long railed against news outlets, specifically the big news networks. He already has filed lawsuits over hostile coverage and has vowed to continue doing so.

“It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press,” Mr. Trump said at a press conference in December. “Our press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.”

The comment came after he won a defamation case settlement from ABC News over comments from host George Stephanopoulos inaccurately saying Mr. Trump was found liable for rape.

He has also filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register over a pre-election poll.