Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Mar. 19, 2025

March 19, 2025 · The White House · 0:35:18

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed members of the media at the White House on Mar. 19, 2025, carried on the White House channel. She opened with the return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who spent nearly 300 days aboard the International Space Station on a mission planned for eight days; the President, she said, directed Elon Musk and SpaceX alongside NASA to bring them home and pulled the schedule a month earlier, and he looked forward to welcoming them to the Oval Office.

Leavitt reported that President Trump had spoken with President Putin about peace and a ceasefire in Ukraine, with both leaders agreeing the conflict needs to end with a lasting peace, and that the President spoke with President Zelensky that morning. She announced the release of approximately 80,000 pages of previously classified records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, available at archives.gov/JFK and at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. She also cited February industrial production at its highest recorded level, as she stated it, and announced the extradition of MS-13 leader Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales, captured by the FBI as Director Patel announced.

Why it matters

The briefing is the administration’s same-week record of three running stories - the astronaut return, the Ukraine calls, and the JFK release - each stated from the podium with the figures the scoreboard checks.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the JFK release figure (approximately 80,000 pages) and the February industrial production claim as stated at this briefing are recorded here as checkable items.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Mar. 19, 2025” (YouTube, 2025-03-19) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.