Americans are in love with Karoline Leavitt, the new, 27-year-old Whitehouse Press Secretary.

She is eloquent, has a razor-sharp wit and a speed-of-light response formulation time, is meticulously prepared . . . and is fiercely loyal to the boss.

However . . .

At this morning's press briefing she showed a crack - a potential big negative -in her otherwise impeccable and impenetrable modus operandi. The layman audience didn't pick it up; the glowing compliments continued to avalanche in.

But I saw a hint of the old politician and traditional press secretary sleight of hand:

When a reporter asked her about the seriousness of tonight's deadline for all Federal government staff to respond to Elon Musk's / DOGE's "send us 5 things you did last week" V2 email, she pulled out the old "reframe the question and monologue it back to something positive and be emphatic to take the emphasis off your redirection" trick. (It's between 9.47 minutes and 13.54 minutes in. Particularly note the clarity and simplicity of the second reporter's key question i.e.  will Federal employees be fired if they ignore Musk's email for a second time? Watch.)

There it was . . . that tired old advice STILL given out to politicians by their media training PR consultant hacks. I've commented on this previously here. And while I think it's disingenuous to do it at all, it's wholly inadvisable to do it if you're not particularly good at it. Under the headline, 'Minister of Police vs Jack Tame', I gave an in-action example, including with the link to the interview and the timestamp at which Mitchell embarrassed himself mightily (albeit he bulldozed on, completely oblivious).

While Leavitt employed the technique (which I prefer to call a "tactic") skilfully, that skill was more of a mechanical one in her case.. Whereas, when Trump uses it (which he does frequently), he's a master at it. His charismatic natural slide into an alternative impassioned point or story is so natural. So, well . . . Trump.

Trump will always get away with it. It's baked into his style. But Leavitt will only get away with it for as long as the puppy love phase lasts and her halo continues to shine so brightly. At some point, if she employs it too regularly, the average citizen out there in viewer land will realise that she's not actually answering the question. I don't think she'll ever be seen as negatively as Biden's "press secretary" (if you could call her that) Karine Jean-Pierre, of course, but Leavitt's podium is at such a currently great height that she has a long way to fall if she does.

Notwithstanding her exuberant youth, captivating good looks and "don't fck with me" forceful manner, there's one thing that pisses off the press and the punters alike. And that's repeatedly not giving straight answers to straight questions.

So it was a disappointment to see her pull this one out the bag so early in her tenure as hallowed Whitehouse Press Secretary - since its emergence doesn't augur well going forward. I mean, just to know that she would  resort to it whenever she felt it expedient.

The Observational Minutiae

By way of further observation, watch carefully as the second reporter comes in with a determination to get the straight answer the first one didn't succeed in getting. At this point, if you're a keen observer of human behaviour and responses, you'll notice Leavitt is slightly pushed off her confident footing. She makes two grammatical stumbles: she first said "Elon come in" instead of "Elon came in". Then she transposed two words slightly further on.

When the second reporter kept pressing her, she defensively snapped, "Are my press briefings not good enough for you, Jackie?"  Not good. She doesn't like being pressed so hard. She needs to get used to it, or there'll be an increasing number of moments when she comes at least slightly unstuck behind the podium.