President Donald Trump said on Friday that Katie Zacharia will serve as the next White House press secretary, handing the most visible communications job in his administration to a loyalist from his own media operation just weeks before the midterm elections.
Trump announced the appointment on his Truth Social platform, praising Zacharia as a “loyal and brilliant supporter” and predicting she would work well with reporters and the public. Zacharia succeeds Karoline Leavitt, who left the podium in August to become one of the president’s outside advisers. In her own public response, Zacharia thanked the president and said she expects to start work on Monday, although the date of her first on-camera briefing has not been announced.
From Trump’s Media Operation to the Podium
Zacharia has worked since June as a senior communications adviser for Truth Social and the Trump Media & Technology Group, the president’s media business, and she is a familiar face to conservative television audiences through frequent appearances as a commentator. Earlier this year she served briefly as an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, and before that she built a legal career in California after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school, including counsel work for conservative legal and political organizations.
According to people familiar with the discussions, the president sounded out close allies about the choice in recent days, including Leavitt herself, before offering Zacharia the job. The pick was reported earlier on Friday before the president confirmed it himself. She takes over a briefing room that has often been a battleground: news organizations are currently in court challenging White House restrictions on press access, a fight covered in our report on the press ban case before the courts.
The Job Ahead: Selling the Message Before Midterms
Zacharia’s first task will be message discipline. The administration heads into the final stretch before next month’s midterm elections with its economic pitch under strain, including a much-discussed $5,000 dividend pledge that keeps shifting and has struggled to convince voters it will ever be paid. The press secretary is the official who must defend those policies daily, on camera, against a press corps Zacharia has promised to work with constructively.
Whether she keeps her predecessor’s combative briefing style or resets the tone will become clear at her first briefing, expected in the coming days.
