Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Jan. 26, 2026

January 26, 2026 · The White House · 0:30:55

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

What happened

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed reporters at the White House on January 26, 2026, opening with the winter storm affecting much of the country. President Trump, she said, had “quickly approved 12 federal emergency disaster declarations within 24 hours” — for Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia — and remained in constant contact with FEMA and emergency responders.

She then addressed “the chaotic scenes in Minnesota over the weekend.” Nobody in the White House, she said, “wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets,” naming Renee Good and Alex Pretti alongside federal law-enforcement officers and victims of crimes committed by people in the country illegally. Saturday’s shooting, she said, “remains under active investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI,” with Customs and Border Protection conducting its own internal review, and the administration would “let that investigation play out.” She attributed the circumstances to Minnesota’s Democratic leaders, saying Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey had blocked cooperation with ICE and encouraged agitators to obstruct federal officers.

Why it matters

This briefing is the White House’s formal first account of both the storm response and the Minneapolis shooting weekend — the statement of record against which the investigation findings, when they come, will be checked. The briefing role was then held by Karoline Leavitt, whose later departure and the still-open press secretary succession are tracked in this site’s chronicle.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Jan. 26, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the Press Secretary at the briefing.