He ‘freed Palestine, literally’: Karoline Leavitt rips protesters who hacked into airport systems to mock Trump

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt angrily blasted pro-Palestinian protesters who hacked into the communications systems at several airport terminals this week to broadcast profane messages about her boss and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Leavitt was appearing on Fox News just after the lunch hour as the Senate once again failed to break an impasse over reopening the government on Day 16 of the shutdown and restoring funding to government agencies, allowing federal workers to be paid. Democrats are demanding that Republicans vote to renew federal health care subsidies in order to secure their votes for passage of a continuing resolution through the upper chamber of Congress.

She was asked by a Fox host to respond to several issues, including the recent appearance of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on the network for the first time and then addressed the videos showing PA systems in several airports apparently hacked to broadcast messages that began: “f*** [Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Donald] Trump.”

Leavitt didn’t address the issue of airport systems being subverted specifically, but instead gave a broad response attacking millions of Americans who support Democrats: “The Democratic Party's main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals,” she said.

She then added of pro-Palestine demonstrators in particular: “I would like to ask, where are all the ‘Free Palestine’ protesters? It’s President Trump, who freed Palestine — literally, and they’re now very much quiet about why they can’t stand President Trump. And that is the basis of the Democratic Party today.”

Last year, the White House press secretary was playing a very different tune. On the campaign trail, she attacked Democrats for criticizing Republican voters, and claimed that her boss would be a president “for all Americans,” including Democrats.

One Democratic congressman responded to Leavitt’s remarks Thursday afternoon. Greg Casar of Texas wrote: “Karoline Leavitt should resign. They try to make us hate each other to distract from the fact that they're robbing us all blind. It's sick.”

Leavitt’s remarks come as the peace deal reached between Israel and Gaza has become a rare issue on which Democrats have been willing to offer direct praise of the president. Jake Sullivan, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said that Trump “absolutely” deserves praise for the peace agreement while the president’s usual critics in Congress have also offered cautious optimism.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the earliest Democrats to call the Israeli assault on Gaza a genocide, told a CNN audience in a town hall this week that Trump’s efforts to secure the return of Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons amounted to a “tremendous accomplishment” while warning that there were “questions” about whether the ceasefire would hold.

The White House press secretary’s declaration is also false just as a matter of principle: the concept of a “free” Palestine refers specifically for the long-held ambitions of statehood for Palestinians living in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. While the latest peace deal brokered by Trump calls for the conditions to be potentially established for those ambitions to be realized, it does not call for statehood to definitively be established at the end of the process, nor has Israel agreed to even consider it.

Point 19 of the president’s 20-point plan, which Netanyahu has embraced while avoiding direct commitments on some aspects, reads: “While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

The Israeli government led by Netanyahu is vocally opposed to Palestinian statehood as a concept and has said that it will “never” allow a Palestinian state to be established on Israel’s doorstep, referred to as the two-state solution.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also poured cold water on the concept of world leaders in Europe and Canada recognizing Palestinian statehood through official statements: “There is no Palestinian state no matter how many papers they put out, and the only time there’ll ever be one is if there is a negotiation with Israel,” he said in September.

In Gaza, meanwhile, the U.S.-brokered ceasefire appears to be extremely fragile.

Israeli forces continue to accuse Hamas of ceasefire violations surrounding the return of deceased hostages, whom Hamas says have not been recovered due to the sheer scope of the destruction in the Gaza Strip. 26 Palestinians are dead, Hamas says, after they were fired upon by Israeli forces. IDF officials responded that the deaths were allegedly the result of Palestinians approaching Israeli positions and failing to heed warnings to avoid those areas. At least some of those deaths occurred as a result of an Israeli airstrike.

Hamas has released all of the remaining 20 living hostages and captives and nine of 28 bodies, according to officials. Israeli officials said Wednesday that aid deliveries to civilians in the famine-stricken region would be cut in half until all deceased hostages were recovered and turned over by Hamas.