The Trump administration's first press briefing with its new Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia, is scheduled for Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. She'll be walking into a room where CNN, Politico, and MS NOW have already had their credentials pulled. The podium hasn't even been warm for two days and the battlefield is already shaped.
President Trump announced Zacharia's appointment on Truth Social last Thursday, October 9, writing, "It is my Great Honor to have just appointed, as Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia." He noted she "currently serves as Senior Communications Advisor to Truth Social" — meaning the woman who helped run communications for the platform the legacy media spent four years trying to destroy is now the one they'll have to ask questions to every afternoon.
Zacharia's resume reads like someone who was built for this particular moment. She graduated from Pepperdine University in 2007 with a degree in political science, then went back for her JD at Pepperdine's Caruso School of Law. After law school she spent three years in Beijing working as outside counsel for the World Bank Group. She came home, served as general counsel for Ric Grenell's nonprofit Fix California, did regular hits on Fox News, CNN, and Newsmax and then took a brief post as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security before landing as the senior communications advisor at Trump Media & Technology Group.
She replaces Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person ever to hold the position, who stepped down at the end of August after concluding she couldn't balance the demands of the job with being a mother to two young children. Leavitt moved back to New Hampshire and joins Fox News as a contributor on November 1. Her send-off was gracious: "As I told the President, Katie has my full support and I will be cheering for her and the entire team at the White House every day."
Zacharia is the sixth consecutive woman to serve as White House press secretary. She's also a mother of four, an attorney, and — this is the part the press corps should be paying attention to — a self-described "hardline Trump supporter." Former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called her "a dynamic and effective voice in media."
The media landscape she's walking into is not the one Leavitt left. CNN, Politico, and MS NOW are currently banned from the briefing room. A federal judge extended a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to restore access through October 13 — which is Columbus Day, which is the day Zacharia officially starts.
Zacharia responded to the appointment with this statement, "Serving President Trump and the American people at this critical 250-year mark is the honor of a lifetime."
Trump reportedly called a number of close allies and advisers to seek their opinions before making the pick. He didn't run a search committee. He didn't float trial balloons through Axios. He picked someone who he trusts, has worked for him in the past, defended his policies on the networks that hate him, and proved she could handle DHS communications during the most aggressive immigration enforcement in modern history.
The White House press corps has spent the last twenty months testing whether they can break whoever stands behind that podium. Leavitt didn't break. The next woman up is a Pepperdine-trained lawyer who did international legal work in Beijing, ran comms for Truth Social, and has four kids at home — which means her tolerance for performative tantrums from grown adults is probably somewhere around zero.
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m. The briefing room doors open for Katie Zacharia's first press conference.