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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke February 4, 2025

No, Karoline Leavitt didn’t invoke Jesus Christ in response to a tariffs question

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  • This quote was fabricated. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t say it. 

At a Jan. 31 White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fielded multiple questions about the tariffs President Donald Trump has threatened against Mexico and Canada.

But she didn’t respond to one of those questions by saying, "Remember, Jesus didn’t have electricity either and he did just fine." 

Some social media posts have claimed otherwise.

They were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

One Feb. 1 Threads post that attributed the quote to Leavitt also linked to a Jan. 31 Irish Star article on the website NewsBreak that said Leavitt was "hit with claims she told press ‘Jesus didn’t have electricity either.’"

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But that article had initially reported that Leavitt "shocks as she tells press ‘Jesus didn’t have electricity either.’"

"When asked about the tariff war between Canada and the United States after the prime minister of Canada said he would consider cutting off electricity to America if Donald Trump continues to impose tariffs, she referenced Jesus Christ," the Irish Star article said. 

"‘They want you to panic, but President Trump wants you to remember Jesus didn’t have electricity either and he did just fine,’ Leavitt said."

That article has since been updated with a new headline: "Karoline Leavitt hit with false claims she told press ‘Jesus didn’t have electricity either.’"

But as of Feb. 4, it still included the same image of Leavitt at the Jan. 31 White House briefing with this caption: "Karoline Leavitt confused members of the press when answering a question for the Trump administration."

Leavitt didn’t mention Jesus or electricity during the press briefing, video and a transcript of the briefing shows.

One reporter asked about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying that Trudeau "said today that if the U.S. imposes tariffs, he will respond and he will not relent until the tariffs are removed. Are we seeing the start of a trade war with Canada?"

Leavitt responded: "I don’t think so. I think the president is going to implement those tariffs tomorrow and he will respond to Mr. Trudeau’s comments in due time, I am sure."

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Leavitt also answered multiple questions about tariffs at her first press briefing, Jan. 28, but didn’t mention Jesus or electricity then, either.

Trump said Feb. 1 that he was imposing tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China. On Feb. 3, he agreed to pause the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days.

Fact-checking publication Snopes reported that claims about Leavitt’s comments appear to have originated in a Reddit post that has since been deleted. This post featured an image of Leavitt at the Jan. 28 press briefing with this quote: "They want you to panic, but Trump wants you to remember — Jesus didn’t have electricity either, and he did just fine."

The person who posted the image with the quote said in response to a question about its authenticity that it wasn’t real, Snopes reported.

"Actually I’m making light of the fact that nobody even asked the question to begin with," the poster said. "Canadian premiers, like Doug Ford, are publicly threatening to shut down electricity to the Northeastern U.S. in response to Trump’s tariff trade war, and not a single reporter has asked if Trump is calling their bluff." 

In December, Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada, threatened to cut off energy supplies to the United States in response to Trump’s tariffs. 

But claims Leavitt made invoked Jesus in response are unfounded. 

We rate them False.

 

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No, Karoline Leavitt didn’t invoke Jesus Christ in response to a tariffs question

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