During a Pennsylvania rally on December 10, President Donald Trump paused his speech on economic policy to shower praise on his 28-year-old press secretary, Karoline Leavitt—then veered into comments many viewers are calling “creepy,” “sexist,” and “disgusting.”
“We even brought our superstar today, Karoline,” Trump told the crowd. “When she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don’t stop-op-op-op, like a little machine gun… they dominate.” He accompanied the phrase with rapid-fire sound effects, drawing cheers from supporters but a wave of cringes online .
Instant Reaction
Within minutes, clips of the moment flooded social media. Critics said the 79-year-old president crossed a line from professional compliment to objectification of a subordinate:
“Who talks like this about an employee? It’s beyond creepy and gross,” one X user wrote .
“Reducing a woman to her lips is grotesque, juvenile, and horrifyingly predictable,” added another .
Journalist Aaron Rupar called it “a sick way for a man to talk about his employee” .
Not the First Time
This is at least the third public occasion Trump has singled out Leavitt’s appearance:
August 2025 – Interview with Newsmax: “It’s that face. It’s those lips, the way they move—like a machine gun.”
October 2025 – Air Force One gaggle: He repeated the “machine-gun lips” line and asked reporters, “Should Karoline be replaced? … Never—look at that face!”
Each episode drew smaller waves of criticism, but the Pennsylvania rally footage—amplified by a slow news cycle and growing fatigue over Trump’s treatment of women—turned the volume up to national headlines .
White House & Leavitt Response
Leavitt has not directly addressed the latest uproar. Instead, she posted photos from the rally praising “President Trump’s winning agenda.” In earlier incidents, she waved off the remarks as harmless praise, echoing the White House line that Trump is simply “frank and transparent” .
Bigger Picture
Critics place the episode in a long pattern of Trump commenting on women’s looks—from Megyn Kelly (“blood coming out of her wherever”) to calling a Bloomberg reporter “piggy” last month . With mid-term polling sagging and female suburban voters a key demographic, each new remark risks deepening the gender gap that has dogged him since 2016.
For now, the “machine-gun lips” sound bite keeps ricocheting across feeds, another reminder that in Trumpworld, even a policy speech can turn into commentary on appearance—and another test of how much voters are willing to shrug off.
