White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia beat an abrupt retreat from the James Brady Briefing Room after just 14 minutes Tuesday morning, capping off an awkward appearance in which she mixed up the man who hired her with the man to whom she is married and spent the majority of her debut on prepared remarks filled with praise for the president.
Zacharia, whom President Donald Trump named Friday as successor to Karoline Leavitt appeared in the briefing room for the first time on just her second day on the job. She opened by telling reporters she was “so honored” to be working for Trump and noted that she’d “wanted to work for him for a very long time.” She spent the next six minutes reading haltingly from prepared remarks replete with praise for Trump and boasts about purported successes dating back months, including what she called a “historic one-day war” against Venezuela as the actual war Trump started with Iran approaches its ninth month.
When it came time to take questions, Zacharia worked from a list of outlets laid out on a note-card that was captured by a photographer’s camera placed above the press secretary’s lectern.
She first called on a reporter from the right-wing Breitbart News, who was in a seat normally used by White House staff that her predecessor repurposed for “new media” outlets that are generally friendly to the administration.
She then turned to Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, who asked her if the U.S. has halted sharing intelligence with Ukraine amid Trump’s blow-up at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zacharia was unable to answer and told him she’d “have to get back to [him] on that.”
Next up on what appeared to be a prepared list of reporters was a correspondent from the Daily Mail, who first asked about whether Trump was still considering firing Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a spate of embarrassing headlines about her conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.
Here she made some news, telling reporters that Trump had indeed asked the ex-Fox News presenter (and ex-fiancee to his eldest son) to quit her post.
But it was a softball follow-up from the Mail that left Zacharias sputtering and led her to flee the room.
She was asked about how she will handle the notoriously tough press secretary role while juggling being a mother to four children given how her predecessor chose to resign over the burdens of balancing the job with caring for just two children.
That’s when things truly went off the rails.
“The idea of not spending evenings with my kid kids are is completely unacceptable,” she said, before confusing her spouse with her boss.
“So my president — excuse me, my husband — is out here,” she said.
She attempted to recover from the laughter in the room by pivoting to more praise for Trump, who she called “ the most family-friendly president we've ever had.”
“He has hired more women with families, and the fact that he knew I had four kids and he knew that this job would be demanding, and still placed his trust in me, shows that I know I'm capable of being able to step up to that,” she said.
At that point, she declared an end to the briefing because Trump was “heading out to Marine One for our historic trip to Alaska, and we can ask him all of the questions out there.”
The president was not scheduled to depart for Alaska for several hours.
Her brief performance left journalists stunned and MAGA insiders decidedly unimpressed.
One former Trump administration official who remains close to people serving in the administration texted The Independent to declare Zacharia’s debut “a train wreck” after previously describing her as a “joke hire” who’d likely be “gone in six months.”
Separately, a current administration official told MS NOW that Zacharia had “got off on the wrong foot” and needed to “get much better, fast” lest she lose her job faster than the 11-day record held by one of Trump’s ex-communications directors, hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci.
But the White House, at least publicly, is standing by the new press secretary, with White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung writing on X that Zacharias’ debut was “a tremendous start.”
“She commanded the room and effectively reminded the American people of all the great work President Trump and his Administration has done thus far,” Cheung added.
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