WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt condemned her predecessor Jen Psaki on Thursday for comments dismissing prayer in the wake of a mass shooting at a Roman Catholic school in Minnesota that left two children dead.
“I saw the comments of my predecessor, Ms. Psaki, and frankly, I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer,” Leavitt said during a press briefing at the White House.
With class and calm, Karoline Leavitt just absolutely wrecked Jen Psaki for mocking the power of prayer:
“I saw the comments of my predecessor, Jen Psaki, I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country… https://t.co/Mk595Sq1Dnpic.twitter.com/cHLb31pWSR
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 28, 2025
Hours after the Wednesday morning massacre at Annunciation Church and Catholic School in Minneapolis, where a trans-identified man named “Robin” Westman murdered two children and injured more than a dozen others during a morning Mass, Psaki tweeted that prayer is insufficient to address such violence.
“Prayer is not freaking enough,” tweeted Psaki, who served as White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2022 before getting her own show on MSNBC. “Prayers does [sic] not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”
“When kids are getting shot in their pews at a Catholic school Mass and your crime plan is to have National Guard put mulch down around DC maybe rethink your strategy,” she added in an apparent reference to the Trump administration’s recent deployment of the National Guard to crack down on rampant crime in Washington, D.C.
Leavitt, who opened Thursday’s briefing by condemning the shooting and addressed it multiple times, said Psaki was “utterly disrespectful to deride the power of prayer in this country, and it’s disrespectful to the millions of Americans of faith.”
She went on to encourage Psaki to pray for the victims instead of dismissing it.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who is Catholic, pushed back against Psaki on X on Thursday, writing, “We pray because our hearts are broken. We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways, and can inspire us to further action. Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?”
“Of all the weird left wing culture wars in the last few years, this is by far the most bizarre. ‘How dare you pray for innocent people in the midst of tragedy?!’ What are you even talking about?”
During a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC, Psaki appeared to sob while saying she felt “a mixture of anger and emotional exhaustion today because we have been here so many times.” She dismissed “thoughts and prayers” from political leaders such as Vance and President Donald Trump.
Psaki also pushed back against “narratives” that transgender ideology and antisemitism were to blame for the actions of Westman, whose alleged manifesto in a since-scrubbed YouTube video, posted shortly before the shooting, was replete with anti-Christian, antisemitic and satanic sentiments.
One image from his alleged manifesto featured what was presumably a self-portrait of a rifle-strapped man gazing into a mirror as a demon peers back at him. Written in Russian around the drawing is what appears to be a conversation with the demon, ending with the words, “Kill yourself.”
Other images include a picture of Jesus on the head of a body-sized target, a rifle barrel emblazoned with “Israel must fall” and a magazine that says “Where is your God now?” The portrait of Jesus on the target was a form of the “Withered Wojak” meme, an image used online to indicate an individual overwhelmed by despair.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
