Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Nov. 4, 2025

November 4, 2025 · The White House · 0:35:57

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 November 4, 2025. She opened on day 35 of the government shutdown, saying the Democrats’ obstruction would “break the record for the longest government shutdown in American history tonight,” as she stated it. She cited more than 5,000 flights delayed on the Sunday before, four times as many staffing shortages at air traffic control facilities compared to the previous year, TSA waits past three hours at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and more than 13,000 air traffic controllers working without pay who would “miss a second paycheck in a row this Friday” if the government stayed closed — all as she stated the figures.

Leavitt said the four largest airlines — United, Delta, American, and Southwest — had endorsed the Republican clean funding bill, that major pilots’ unions and nearly 500 travel-industry companies and groups had joined the call, and that the travel economy had “already lost $4 billion” to the shutdown, as she stated the figure. In questions on Mexico, she said the administration condemned all political violence, that the President “has a lot of respect” for President Claudia Sheinbaum and appreciates her coordination, and that the administration is “continually pushing Mexico to do more to tackle the drug trafficking and the drug cartels within their country,” as she stated it.

Why it matters

The November 4 briefing is the White House’s fullest shutdown-pressure statement of that week — the aviation and paycheck figures as stated at the podium — delivered the day before the President’s own “longest shutdown” remarks to Senate Republicans, and eight days before the reopening signing paged in this chronicle.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the shutdown aviation, controller-pay, and $4 billion travel-economy figures as stated at the November 4, 2025 briefing, and the stated push for Mexico to do more on cartels. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Nov. 4, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks and figures as delivered at the briefing.