"So Long Dearie" the White House press secretary wants to spend quality time with her growing family

Trump’s Constant Calls to Karoline Leavitt Really Backfired
Echo report published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Margaret Hartman

When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Wednesday that she will leave her job by the end of the month, there was a lot of speculation about her motivations. In a lengthy statement posted to social media, the 28-year-old mother of two, who just returned from maternity leave on July 16, said she wanted to focus her attention on her kids.

Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least. The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life.

But is that just cover for drama within the Trump administration? Or is Leavitt, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022, plotting to enter politics like former White House press secretary turned Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders❓

New reporting suggests Leavitt’s stated explanation is broadly accurate and not unique to the Trump administration. 

People often exit White House roles after just a few years as they are incredibly demanding jobs that leave little time for family life. 

But there is a Trumpy twist to the story that explains why Leavitt came back from maternity leave only to quit less than a month later, leaving the administration with no clear successor just a few months before the midterms.

Sources told The Daily Mail that Trump really wanted Leavitt to stay on as press secretary, and it sounds as though his aggressive effort to communicate this might have backfired. Rather than letting her recharge during her leave, he kept pestering her about when she was coming back:

One source close to Leavitt — the youngest ever White House press secretary — reveals she had been strongly weighing whether to quit during maternity leave, as the president would contact her often and repeatedly ask when she was coming back.

Another source added that Leavitt has been experiencing extreme “burnout.”

“It was a very stressful job to do with her children. She never got any sleep, and she didn’t want her performance to slip either, so she decided to stay as long as she could and do the job well,” the source told the Mail. “The president did everything he could to keep her.”

Everything except letting her fully detach from work, apparently.

Insiders said Leavitt has been telling people for two months that she felt ready to leave but she had to figure out how to exit without infuriating her boss.

“She was just trying to figure out how to politely step down with [Trump’s] blessing,” one source said.

It looks like Leavitt pulled it off. While Trump is known for berating staffers on their way out, he said on Truth Social that Leavitt quitting to focus on her family is “a decision I totally understand and respect”.

But any parent applying to fill Leavitt’s role should be clear on the fact that Donald “She Takes Care of the Baby” Trump doesn’t really “totally understand and respect” the sanctity of parental leave.

P.S. Maine Writer: Although I respect Karoline Leavitt's resignation decision, she will not be missed. Nevertheless, being around Trump too long is just dangerous. Trump is haunted by thwarted assassination attempts, real or manufactured and his assorted paramours, whoever they are, get in the way of working with him. 

Enjoy Barbara Streisand's terrific performance in Hello Dolly: "So Long Dearie❗"

Donald Trump hiding his visible health issues tries to conceal his chronic hand bruising. Hand bruising is a symptom of an underlying condition.

Donald Trump's aging hands assessment published in the New York Magazine Intelligencer by Margaret Hartman.

(Maine Writer:  As a registered nurse, my observation is that Donald Trump is taking an anticoagulant to prevent the risk of thrombophlebitis related to his swollen ankles circulatory diagnosis. Anticoagulant therapy causes easy bruising. If Donald Trump throws a clot he would become physically incapacitated.) 

Normally, a 79-year-old man having a bruise on his hand wouldn’t be much of a story. But that changes when the aging septuagenarian in question is Donald Trump.

Trump’s injury was first spotted weeks after the 2024, election, which he won in part by bullying Joe Biden for his decrepitude while pretending he himself possessed almost superhuman health and mental acuity. 

But, for months, the White House dismissed Donald Trump's bruising as one of those hand-shaking injuries you’re always hearing about. Then, when Trump’s terrible hand makeup and swollen ankles raised too many questions, the administration admitted he has a condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. Trump recently revealed he’s taking way too much aspirin, which can certainly lead to bruising.  (In other words, Donald Trump is self--medicating. Americans never hear from the White House physician except when scripted email messages are sent.)

For the past year, Donald Trump has had a persistent bruise on the back of his right hand. It initially came and went, but now the bruise is almost always visible on the president’s hand (though he often makes poor attempts to cover it with makeup).

White House press secretary (aka 3D-pringer Barbie) Karoline Leavitt’s explanation has been similarly unchanging. Since February, she’s given some version of this statement when asked about the bruise: “...Trump is a man of the people, and he meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other president in history … His commitment is unwavering, and he proves that every single day.”

Still, questions about Trump’s health, and his bizarrely terrible attempts to conceal his physical issues, have persisted. Here’s a guide, which we’ll keep updated, to everything we know about Trump’s health and how the White House is handling his medical issues.
What’s the latest news on Trump’s health❓

A weird rash has entered the chat. The red marks on the right side of Trump’s neck were visible throughout February 2026, and the rash looked pretty bad when the president made his first live remarks about the Iran war on March 2. New York’s Matt Stieb recapped the emergence of this new ailment:  From a quick dive into wire photos, the rash was first really visible, albeit less inflamed, in photos from February 18, when Trump hosted a Black History Month event at the White House. There are also what appear to be signs of irritation in the same spot as far back as February 13, but not much before that. 

The rash looked worse on February 20, when Trump held a press conference to complain about the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his tariffs. At the State of the Union, it looked even more red. You could also see it on Friday at Trump’s rally in Texas. But by the Medal of Honor ceremony held at the White House on [March 2], it was peeking farther out from his collar and looking way more irritated: Dr. Sean Barbabella, the White House physician explained that the president is “using a very common cream” as a “preventative treatment.”

How long has Trump had the hand bruise❓

It’s been spotted on and off since at least the spring of 2024.

The bruise first drew widespread attention on February 24, 2025, when Trump hosted French president Emmanuel Macron at the White House. A Getty photographer zoomed in on Trump’s hand and noted in the caption that it looked as though he’d put makeup on his hand to cover a bruise.

Since the summer of 2025, the bruise has appeared frequently on the president’s hand, though he usually tries to conceal it.

What did Trump initially say about the hand bruise❓

Though this largely went unnoticed at the time, then-candidate Trump showed off his a hand bruise in a March 2024, Washington Examiner profile. He presented the injury as the result of overly vigorous handshaking:

At the end of his remarks, Trump walked along a rope line on his way out of the room. He shook hand after hand, but rather than a simple handshake, some excited admirers would grasp his hand so heartily, and squeeze so hard, that Trump had to pull back to move on to the next person. Near the end of the line, one woman seized Trump’s hand so vigorously that a Secret Service agent had to deliver a sort of mini karate chop — nothing violent, just a firm tap — to break up the one-sided embrace.

As we walked back to the terrace to resume dinner, I asked Trump, “Weren’t you once famously a germaphobe❓”

“In this business, you just have to get over it,” he said. He held out his right hand and showed that the back was covered by a large, greenish bruise. There were also marks left by female admirers with carefully manicured nails. It happened all the time, he said.

Trump offered the same explanation when asked about the mark on his hand in his Time “Person of the Year” interview, which was conducted in late November 2024:

Sitting under bright lights for a 30-minute photo session ahead of a 65-minute interview, he’s asked to explain the bruising on his right hand. “It’s from shaking hands with thousands of people,” he says.
How did the White House explain Trump’s hand bruise❓

For months, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed Trump, repeatedly claiming it was a totally normal — nay, heroic — hand-shaking injury. 

For example, he’s what she told Fox (Fake❗)News Digital after the early 2025, Macron meeting:  "Donald Trump is a man of the people, and he meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other president in history … His commitment is unwavering, and he proves that every single day."💩💩💩❗

Is Trump’s bruise always in the same place❓

The large bruise and noticeable makeup splotches are almost always on the back of Trump’s right hand.

However, a discoloration on the back of Trump’s left hand was briefly visible in a video of the Donald Trump golfing with Roger Clemens on August 23, 2025, which posted by the Major League Baseball player’s son, Kacy.

Then, a left-hand bruise made a brief reappearance in January 2026. Trump's *left* hand -- not the one that is usually disfigured -- now has a large bruise and is discolored.

The White House told New York’s Ben Terris that this was caused by him hitting it against a table corner.

How long has Trump been putting makeup on his hand❓

It’s impossible to say. If he or his handlers did a good job applying the makeup, we would have no way of knowing.

Trump was first accused of using hand makeup after the February 2025 Macron meeting, though the bruising remained very visible. By early summer 2025, he regularly showed up to public events with blotches of unblended makeup on the back of his hand. A C-SPAN cameraman zoomed in on the odd mark while Trump talked to reporters outside the White House on July 15, 2025.

Although the White House has professional makeup artists at its disposal, Trump kept appearing with poorly applied concealer. 

Is Trump still putting makeup on the hand bruise❓

For a moment, it seemed like he’d finally given up on his concealer routine. A large dark bruise on the back of Trump’s right hand was visible throughout the day on August 25, 2025.

Nevertheless, the makeup returned at Trump’s “look, I’m still alive” press conference on September 2, 2025. It was a bit harder to spot, so it appeared Trump was getting closer to finding the right shade of concealer. But, the unblended look came back with a vengeance by the time Trump visited the U.K. on September 17, 2025.

And the bruise was spotted peeking through a heavy layer of makeup during Trump’s visit with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, on March 17, 2026.

What has Trump said about the makeup❓

He acknowledged his hand beauty routine for the first time in January 2026, telling the Wall Street Journal that he puts makeup on his hands after he gets “whacked again by someone.”

“I have makeup that’s, you know, easy to put on, takes about 10 seconds,” he said.

How else is Trump concealing the hand bruise❓

Trump added bandages to his bruise cover-up routine in early December 2025. Here’s a shot from his sleepy December 2 Cabinet meeting: 

Trump also seems to be hiding his hands behind objects, as the Daily Beast noted on September 5. Trump placed his hands behind a strategically placed “Gulf of America” hat. Last week, official photographs of Trump’s meeting with the South Korean president were cropped so as not to include his cankles.

Amid questions over his health relating to his bruised hands and swollen ankles, the White House has seemingly come up with a range of ways to hide his afflictions from view.  
What’s going on with Trump’s ankles❓

Trump showed up for the FIFA Club World Cup Final in New Jersey on July 13, 2025 with noticeably swollen ankles.

This, combined with another blotchy hand-makeup sighting, sparked a a new round of wild speculation about Trump’s health.

In response, the White House finally revealed that the president had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency.

What happened with those mysterious red marks on Trump’s hand❓

The marks came and went several months before the first hand bruise sighting. On January 17, 2024, Trump showed up to E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial with bright red spots on his right hand. Hours of wild online theorizing ensued. But when Trump appeared at a rally that night, the blister-like marks were no longer visible.

When asked about the splotches two weeks later, Trump said, “maybe it’s AI.”

How did Trump reveal his chronic-venous-insufficiency diagnosis❓

After repeating the same dubious claims about the president’s hand-shaking injuries for months, Team Trump uncharacteristically gave in and offered an actual health update at a June 17, 2025 press conference.

“I know that many in the media have been speculating about bruising on the president’s hand and also swelling in the president’s legs,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “So in the effort of transparency, the president wanted me to share a note from his physician with all of you today.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are engaged in a cover up about the Epstein files because Trump is revealed as a participant in the Epstein Files named in the FBI investigation

Jeffrey Epstein published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Matt Stieb: The Epstein Birthday Book Is Creepier Than You Thought

An uncredited drawing of Epstein and young girls. One drawing from an unnamed friend shows Epstein handing out candy to three young girls, who are then massaging him while he is naked 20 years later. “What a great country!” it reads.

After Donald Trump denied the existence of his signature in a birthday book assembled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, the House Oversight Committee has released the entirety of the 238-page book. Not only does it contain a creepy illustration and signature by his friend Trump (which he has denied is his), the book is loaded with awful writings and illustrations as well as many pages of pictures of naked women. Here are some of the worst ideas from the convicted sex criminal and his famous friends.

An oversize check selling a woman to Trump for $22,500: The book includes a photo of Epstein at Mar-a-Lago holding up an oversize check selling a “fully depreciated” woman to Trump for $22,500. The man next to Epstein in the picture is Joel Pashcow, a longtime member of Mar-a-Lago who appears in the Epstein flight logs many times.

According to the New York Times, the woman whose face is redacted dated both Epstein and Trump, and she may have been one of Epstein’s victims: The woman, whose name is also redacted in the files released by the House Oversight Committee, was a European socialite then in her 20s, according to two people familiar with the original photo. She had briefly dated both Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump around that time, according to court transcripts and a person close to Mr. Epstein. The birthday book entry appears to be a reference to the competition between the two men for the woman’s affections. The nature of the woman’s relationship with Mr. Epstein is murky. The New York Times is not naming her because she may have been one of his victims. A lawyer for the woman said she knew Mr. Epstein in “a professional capacity” when she was a student, but severed ties with him in 1997. She did not know anything about the letter or its “derogatory content,” the lawyer added. The woman in the photograph was mentioned in the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring to sexually traffic minors. An employee of Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein testified that the pair “felt like a couple.”

An uncredited drawing of Epstein and young girls. One drawing from an unnamed friend shows Epstein handing out candy to three young girls, who are then massaging him while he is naked 20 years later. “What a great country!” it reads.

A venture capitalist talking about escorts and women in Iowa being “hogs”.  (❓🐷) 

William Elkus, a venture capitalist with early stakes in PayPal and Yahoo, wrote a letter to Epstein recounting their trip to Iowa. “It’s no secret that Jeffrey appreciates beautiful women,” he wrote. “But not many people know that he can create them out of thin air.” Elkus wrote that they were in Iowa together in 1988, where it was hard to “tell the difference between the girls and the hogs.” He said Epstein was able to find a “spectacular tall blonde” there to spend time with, and he even wondered if “Jeffrey arranged the whole episode through some long distance escort service.” (Elkus told the New York Times his note was a joke meant to emphasize Epstein’s “charisma.”)

A fake magazine cover from Alan Dershowitz suggesting Epstein funded Al Qaeda. Epstein’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz 🤢made a fake magazine cover called Vanity Unfair featuring teasers about Epstein being Jack the Ripper, funding Al Qaeda, and dating Nicole Kidman.

“As a birthday gift to you, I managed to obtain an early version,” Dershowitz wrote. In a statement to CNN, the lawyer said he did not remember doing this.

So many girls, so little time’: In a letter to “Degenerate I,” one of Epstein’s friends describes his two-decade relationship traveling the world with this “mischievous, mysterious lad.”

“So many girls, so little time,” he writes, signing the letter “Degenerate II.”

A reference to a teenage Ghislaine Maxwell: Former Bear Stearns banker Elliot Wolk recalled meeting Epstein in the 1970s, when he joined the bank and was “running an account for Bob Maxwell,” the suspected spy and father of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of trafficking girls for Epstein. “Was that when you first discovered the Maxwell teen-age daughter,” Wolk writes.

Lots of jokes about Epstein’s sex life: The "birthday book" is full of quips about how much sex Epstein had and his nonstop desire to have more. One of the stranger entries is from an unnamed contributor who wrote that he’d “agonized long and hard about what to write.” Instead of writing anything, he just attached pictures of lions and zebras having sex. These pictures, he wrote, “seemed more appropriate than anything I could put in words.” Another friend, signed “Leslie,” wrote that he “wanted to get you what you want,” so he just drew a sketch of a woman’s breasts.

The Trump sketch: Trump has denied that he wrote a poem in the book that features his signature mimicking a woman’s pubic hair. House Oversight chair Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, said he does not intend, for now, to investigate the matter further. “The president says he did not sign it,” Comer said Tuesday. “So I take the president at his word.” Trump’s allies also say the signature is fake, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. (BTW Rep. Comer is reported to be studying to become a spiritual scholar working on a doctorate degree.)

Epstein Letter Signature Actually Does Look Like Trump’s: 
Donald Trump reported by Margaret Hartman:

Donald Trump would prefer that his birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein did not exist. So when The Wall Street Journal reported on it in July, he and his allies insisted it’s fake for a variety of implausible reasons. Trump said, “I never wrote a picture in my life” and “I don’t draw pictures,” though we’ve seen many of his sketches over the years. And Trump supporters suggested he would never use words and phrases from the poem like “enigma” and “I won’t tell you what” despite many examples of him doing just that. Now that the House Oversight Committee has released the actual image of the poem, Team Trump has come up with a new convoluted reason that the poem can’t be real: Trump’s signature doesn’t match.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the image “PROVES” Trump “did not sign it,” 🤥😒😠without really explaining why.

DonOLD Trump rally rants are incoherent, unhinged and driven by grievence

Donald Trump’s cult rally speeches have always been a dizzying mix of fearmongering, conspiracy theories, threats against his enemies, and laments about how America is a “nation in decline.” 

Trump made Joe Biden’s decrepitude the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, so you’d think he would focus on appearing competent and presidential at his MAGA gatherings — especially now that he’s running against Kamala Harris, who’s nearly two decades his junior. Yet Trump’s rallies are now weirder than ever.

An essay published in New York Magazine the Intelligencer
by By Margaret Hartmann

It’s not just that the substance of Trump’s remarks has grown more disturbing, though it certainly has (for example, he regularly celebrates the January 6th rioters and uses Nazi rhetoric to describe migrants). These days his speeches are also littered with pointless and astoundingly strange musings, like his anti-shark diatribes and tributes to a fictional serial killer.

Trump insists he isn’t incoherent; he’s just misunderstood. 

(Trump is "gaslighting" the media because he just tells endless lies and eventually expects that people will eventually accept his lies.)

Trumpzi repeatedly insiss that he’s not rambling, he’s ust using a “genius” 😝😠rhetorical device he calls “the weave.” 

Trump simulates oral sex on his microphone. At a November  rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump fumed for several minutes about some issue with his microphone. 

Initially this rant didn’t seem that bad. Trump was angrier and cursed more than usual, but his point was clear. “I get so angry,” he said. “I’m up here seething. I’m seething! I’m working my ass off with this stupid mic.”

Trump falls asleep during his criminal trial so he is incompetement to stay awake in the White House

Trump Is Furious He Got Caught Sleeping in Court
Echo report published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Margaret Hartman:

Journalist Maggie Haberman is a target of Trump rages 

If a normal person fell asleep during a high-profile trial over hush-money payments they made to cover up an affair with a porn star, how would they react?

It’s a bit hard to say, since a normal person would never be in this scenario. But it seems likely they’d be embarrassed or angry at themselves.

Sleepy Don

Of course, Donald Trump doesn’t experience those emotions. So instead he has “privately raged” at the journalists who informed the public that he’s been unable to keep his eyes open in court, according to three sources who spoke to Rolling Stone.

The magazine reported that Trump has been particularly focused on Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, with whom he’s had a long, complicated relationship. Last Monday, on the Manhattan trial’s first day, she reported, “Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack.” Then she repeated her observation in an interview with CNN. Per Rolling Stone:

The observation immediately went viral, provoking an irate denial from Trump’s campaign and reigniting the former president’s antipathy towards Haberman, who has been reporting on him for years. The resentment lasted the entire week, the sources add.

… In recent conversations with Republican associates, Trump has repeatedly torn into Haberman and her CNN appearances, attacked her journalistic credentials, and bizarrely insisted that she was wrong about him falling asleep. 

Despite his dozing being widely reported, the former president has laid much of the blame for the detail going viral at Haberman’s feet. He was even observed glaring at her on Monday as he exited the courtroom following her CNN appearance.

Haberman was the most prominent journalist to cover Trump’s courtroom naps, but several other reporters backed up her observation. And if Trump was so deeply upset by the accusation, he probably should have channeled that energy into staying awake; multiple journalists saw him sleeping in court two more times last week.

The “Sleepy Don” narrative isn’t the only thing sending Trump over the edge. Rolling Stone reported that he’s also upset about late-night hosts joking about the trial (which explains last week’s incoherent Truth Social rant about Jimmy Kimmel) and how he’s been portrayed by courtroom sketch artists:

Trump has also privately asked people close to him if they agree that the courtroom sketch-artist must be out to get him, two of the sources say. Trump has critiqued the sketches of him that have circulated in the media this week, and insisted some of the images were likely drawn to make fun of him. One such sketch captured Trump snoozing, with his eyes closed and head tilted.

When court broke for lunch on Tuesday, Trump was observed licking his lips as he walked down the middle aisle before flashing a small smile at the courtroom sketch artist as he exited.

So he’s upset about both journalists and sketch artists relaying what they’re seeing with their own eyes. I hate to needle a guy who’s already feeling paranoid, but it seems objective reality is “out to get” Trump.