'Your mom did': White House press secretary snaps at reporter over Trump-Putin summit question

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday responded sharply to a reporter, calling him a "left wing hack" and asserting that he is not a journalist.

The spat comes as US President Donald Trump reportedly announced plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. When a reporter texted Leavitt asking who chose the location for the meeting, she replied, "Your mom did."

Leavitt shared a screenshot of her exchange with the journalist, alleging that his messages resembled an "anti-US President Donald Trump diary."

In a post on X, she said, "For context, S.V. Date of the Huffington Post is not a journalist interested in the facts. He is a left-wing hack who has consistently attacked President Trump for years and constantly bombards my phone with Democrat talking points. Just take a look at SV Date's feed, it reads like an anti-Trump personal diary. Here is my full response to his 'inquiry.' Activists who masquerade as real reporters do a disservice to the profession."

No date has been finalised for the summit, which is expected to be held in the Hungarian capital in the coming weeks, Al Jazeera reported.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed willingness to join the summit arranged between Trump and Putin. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Zelenskyy said he would take part if invited. However, he is cautious about the setting in Budapest, given Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's friendly relations with Moscow and adversarial approach to Kyiv, according to Al Jazeera.

"If I am invited to Budapest - if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three, or, as it's called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me - then in one format or another, we will agree," Zelenskyy said.

Trump continues to push for an end to the war that began in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Zelenskyy, however, warned against a repeat of the "Budapest scenario" — a reference to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — in which Moscow and other powers provided security assurances to Ukraine and other former Soviet states in exchange for giving up nuclear arsenals inherited from the Soviet Union, Al Jazeera reported.