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Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Scott Bessent, and Kelly Loeffler Brief Members of the Media, Apr. 15, 2026

April 15, 2026 · The White House · 0:41:20

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 Tax Day, April 15, 2026, joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler. Leavitt opened with the filing-season figures as the administration states them: “More than 53 million filers claimed at least one of President Trump’s signature new tax cuts. The average refund this filing season is more than $3,400,” and the tax law passed the previous Independence Day delivered “no tax on tips, overtime, and social security” as part of “the largest tax cut in history for working and middle class Americans.” She also announced the President’s travel that week — Las Vegas for Tax Week remarks and Phoenix for a Turning Point USA event, both recorded in this collection.

Bessent called it “a fantastic tax season” and stated that more than 45% of filers had claimed at least one of the four signature policies — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, the seniors’ deduction, and auto-loan interest deductibility for American-made cars — with no tax on overtime the most claimed of the four. He urged filers to adjust their withholding: “If you change your withholding, then you will get an automatic real wage increase.”

Why it matters

The Tax Day briefing is the administration’s official filing-season scorecard — the filer count, the average refund, and the take-up rate for the four signature deductions, stated jointly by the Press Secretary and the Treasury Secretary — recorded on the Economy, Tariffs & Trade hub.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: the figures as stated at the briefing — 53 million-plus filers claiming a signature cut, an average refund above $3,400, and 45%-plus take-up across the four policies — checkable against the IRS’s final filing-season statistics.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Scott Bessent, and Kelly Loeffler Brief Members of the Media,” The White House, April 15, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by Press Secretary Leavitt and Secretary Bessent at the briefing.