White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt directly challenged New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker this week after he circulated inaccurate information about restaurant reservations in Washington, D.C., in connection with President Donald Trump’s law enforcement initiative in the capital.
Baker shared a post on X claiming that reservations at D.C. restaurants had declined 25 percent since the federal government increased law enforcement presence in the city.
The tweet was widely circulated, but according to Leavitt, the data Baker relied on was outdated and irrelevant to current conditions.
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Leavitt noted that Baker’s post cited information from a report about Restaurant Week in August 2024, a full year before the Trump administration’s federal takeover in August 2025.
The figures he used were not reflective of the present dining economy in Washington.
“The New York Times ‘Chief White House Correspondent’ Peter Baker is indistinguishable from a junior Democrat comms staffer — except he’s even worse at his job,” Leavitt wrote on X.
“Peter was so excited to criticize President Trump that he didn’t even realize the article he shared was updated, because it dishonestly compared last year’s DC ‘restaurant week’ data to non-restaurant week data this year. The truth is restaurant reservations in DC were up 30% two days ago! Democrats and their left-wing media friends hate that President Trump is finally cleaning up DC!”
The New York Times “Chief White House Correspondent” Peter Baker is indistinguishable from a junior Democrat comms staffer — except he’s even worse at his job.
Peter was so excited to criticize President Trump that he didn’t even realize the article he shared was updated,… https://t.co/pTNAMrAciz pic.twitter.com/sCQyPZNbGc
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) August 20, 2025
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Instead of removing the post and issuing a correction, Baker attempted to defend his use of the data.
Leavitt criticized the response, arguing that it reflected the broader issue of bias in legacy media outlets.
“This is the problem with activist reporters and why Americans’ trust in the mass media is at the lowest point in more than five decades,” Leavitt wrote.
“I exposed Peter Baker of the New York Times for sharing fake news about the impact of President Trump’s efforts to Make DC Safe Again. But instead of fully retracting his original post that received nearly a million views, Peter posted a mealymouthed reply trying to excuse why he got it completely wrong to begin with. The ‘Chief White House Correspondent’ for the New York Times cares more about attacking President Trump than accurately reporting the news.”
🚨This is the problem with activist reporters and why Americans’ trust in the mass media is at the lowest point in more than five decades.
I exposed Peter Baker of the New York Times for sharing fake news about the impact of President Trump’s efforts to Make DC Safe Again.
But… https://t.co/OfG5meI72e pic.twitter.com/gCvr1vfvBI
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) August 20, 2025
The exchange comes as the Trump administration continues to expand its federal law enforcement initiative across the District of Columbia.
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