When the Saudi Royal Guard moved to block CNN's Kaitlan Collins from entering a press event during President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, it was White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt who shut it down.
Collins recounted the incident on Heather McMahan's "Absolutely Not" podcast on Wednesday, crediting Leavitt directly for ensuring she wasn't excluded from the U.S. press contingent. The episode started simply enough — Collins asked a shouted question to Trump during a session with world leaders. He didn't answer. That's standard procedure. Then things got interesting.
"The Saudi Royal Guard kind of freaked out because I dared to ask a question, and they're not used to that there because they don't have a free press."
Collins described watching the guards whisper and point at her, conferring about whether to let her into the next event. Some of the younger White House staff traveling with the press weren't sure how to handle it. So they went to Leavitt.
"To her credit, she said, 'No, Kaitlan's coming in with the rest of the U.S. press,' and we went in. And, so, it didn't become this huge issue."
No drama. No international incident. Just an American press secretary reminding a foreign government how things work in the U.S. delegation.
This is a small story that reveals something important. Leavitt didn't have to go to bat for Collins. The two aren't allies. Collins has frequently clashed with Trump — he's called her "stupid and nasty" and told her earlier this month, during an Oval Office exchange, that he'd never seen her smile. The relationship between this White House and CNN is not warm.
None of that mattered in the moment. An authoritarian government's security apparatus tried to punish an American journalist for doing her job, and the White House press secretary said no. That's not a favor to CNN. That's an assertion of American values on foreign soil.
As Fox News reported, Collins herself seemed to recognize the weight of the moment:
"So, to her credit, she, without a doubt, was like, 'No, you're coming in.' Which I do think is important in that moment, especially when you're kind of the U.S. contingent abroad, and we don't do things like they do in Saudi Arabia."
Exactly right. Whatever battles play out in the White House briefing room, they're family disputes compared to what a state without press freedom looks like. Saudi Arabia doesn't have shouted questions because Saudi Arabia doesn't have journalists free to shout them. Leavitt understood the difference instinctively.
Here's what makes this worth noting beyond the anecdote itself: the American press has spent years painting this administration as an existential threat to journalism. The narrative is familiar — hostility toward reporters equals hostility toward the First Amendment.
And yet when a foreign government actually moved to suppress an American journalist, it was this White House that intervened. Not with a statement. Not with a sternly worded tweet. With immediate, on-the-ground action that resolved the problem before it escalated.
There's a difference between a president who argues with reporters and a regime that silences them. Leavitt's response in Saudi Arabia drew that line with clarity. Criticizing the press is an American tradition as old as the press itself. Barring journalists from rooms because they asked a question is something else entirely — and this administration refused to let it happen on their watch.
Collins, to her credit, has acknowledged this dynamic before. On a podcast back in October, she noted the contrast between Trump and his predecessors:
"When you speak to reporters who covered President Obama, he almost never responded to shouted questions. It wasn't his thing."
"Trump kind of upended that when he came into the White House. Sometimes presidents are press averse. Trump embraced the media."
That's a revealing admission from a CNN host. Trump engages with the press more directly and more frequently than his predecessors — including the ones the media lionized. The friction isn't a sign of suppression. It's a sign of access.
Collins noted that a similar incident occurred when Trump visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone during his previous administration. The details are sparse, but the pattern is clear: when American press freedoms collide with foreign norms, this White House sides with American press freedoms.
That's not something you'd gather from the coverage. The same networks that frame every testy briefing exchange as a constitutional crisis will likely spend very little time on a story where the Trump administration's press secretary personally ensured a CNN reporter's access in an authoritarian country.
The story is small enough to ignore. It's also revealing enough that they'll want to.
Leavitt didn't defend Kaitlan Collins, the CNN host. She defended the principle that American journalists travel with American delegations and operate under American norms — even when foreign governments find that inconvenient. The Saudi Royal Guard learned something about how the United States handles its press. The American press could stand to learn the same lesson about who's actually threatening their access and who isn't.
