The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room had a permanent occupant at the podium for the first time in weeks on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, as Katie Zacharia — a 41-year-old attorney, conservative television commentator and Trump Media executive — held her debut briefing as White House press secretary. The roughly 14-minute appearance ended a weeks-long stretch without a permanent press secretary at the lectern, and it offered the clearest signal yet of how the Trump administration plans to sell its record in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
The briefing, trending per news coverage from Fox News, USA Today, the Associated Press and other outlets, was part debutante introduction, part campaign pitch — and it included at least one genuine news announcement: confirmation that the White House has asked US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign.
Who is Katie Zacharia?
Zacharia was announced as the new press secretary by President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, October 11, with Trump saying she would begin on Columbus Day and hold an introductory news conference the following morning. She started the job at 7 a.m. on Monday, a federal holiday, and faced the briefing room's roughly 100 reporters the next morning.
By training she is an attorney with a law degree from Pepperdine University, but she is best known publicly as a frequent commentator on Fox News and Newsmax. Before joining the White House she served as a senior communications adviser to the Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Trump's social media platform Truth Social, and she briefly worked as a deputy assistant secretary for public affairs and spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year.
Trump has described her as "a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning," noting she assisted his campaigns in key swing states. On the Saturday before her debut she appeared on "Fox & Friends Weekend" in her new role, touting the president's newly announced deal with Russia to supply more than 1.8 million tons of diesel fuel to US and global markets — framed as an effort to lower fuel and grocery costs. She is the seventh woman in a row to hold the White House press secretary job.
Why the shake-up: Leavitt's departure
Zacharia succeeds Karoline Leavitt, who served as the first press secretary of Trump's second administration for 19 months before leaving the role on August 27 to spend more time with her family. Leavitt was the youngest person ever to serve as White House press secretary, and she became known for her combative sparring with reporters. She has since been announced as an on-air contributor for Fox News.
Just moments before announcing Zacharia's appointment on October 11, Trump posted a public tribute to Leavitt, writing that she had done a "fantastic job." The gap between Leavitt's departure and Zacharia's appointment — weeks without a permanent press secretary at the podium — had itself become a story, and Zacharia's debut was framed across coverage as the start of a new era in the briefing room.
What she said: the opening pitch
Dressed in a navy blazer with gold buttons, Zacharia opened with a cheerful introduction: "Good morning. I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people as the new White House press secretary. I want to thank President Trump for the trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time."
She then spent several minutes talking up the administration's economic agenda, listing what she presented as the president's achievements: rising purchasing power, trillions of dollars in inward investment commitments, tariffs and border security choking off fentanyl imports, energy dominance, job growth and a crackdown on fraud. She praised Trump's "blockbuster rally" in Youngstown, Ohio, the night before, saying the president's midterm campaign blitz had "energy and excitement never seen before in the history of midterms," and asserted that rally attendance was at record highs — though photos from some recent rallies have shown empty seats, per USA Today.
She also made a policy announcement: Cleveland, Ohio, has been selected as the site of a new US Navy submarine component repair centre, a defense-industrial investment pitched alongside claims on manufacturing and energy projects. And she outlined Trump's upcoming campaign travel, with rallies planned in states including Georgia, Kentucky and Florida as the administration barnstorms ahead of the November 3 midterms.
The questions she took — and the ones she didn't answer
During the brief question-and-answer session, Zacharia took questions from outlets including Breitbart News, Fox News and the Daily Mail. She committed to keeping — and expanding — the "new media" seat in the briefing room that her predecessor introduced, a rotation designed to bring non-traditional outlets into the briefing room and the White House press pool.
Asked by Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy how she viewed her role in the midterm campaign, she answered: "I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people."
Not every question got an answer. Asked whether the United States had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, she said: "I'll have to get back to you on that" — a notable dodge on one of the day's most sensitive foreign-policy questions. She also provided a humanizing, if awkward, moment when she slipped while discussing her family's move to Washington: "The idea of not spending evenings with my kids is completely unacceptable. So my president — excuse me, my husband, that's a good one — my husband is out here for the week." She said her husband and four children would be moving to Washington full time.
The Guilfoyle announcement
The briefing's biggest piece of hard news came when Zacharia confirmed that the White House had asked Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as US ambassador to Greece. "She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well," Zacharia said, after reports alleging improper — and possibly illegal — conduct by Guilfoyle before and during her tenure in Athens. The confirmation moved a story the White House had been circling for days into the official record.
What it signals for the midterms
The debut was, above all, a window into the administration's midterm communications strategy. On October 1 at a rally in Durant, Oklahoma, Trump himself had diagnosed the problem: "We're doing a great job in running the country, but we're not doing a good job of public relations." Installing a loyalist with a television background — and one who appeared visibly nervous reading from her opening statement, per the Washington Examiner, before growing in confidence — is the attempted fix.
The reviews from inside the building were glowing: White House communications director Steven Cheung called it "a tremendous start," saying Zacharia "commanded the room." Allies pointed to her frequent cable-news appearances as preparation for the tougher questioning to come. Reports also say she plans to stay in the job through the end of Trump's term — a promise that would make her one of the rare press secretaries to survive the full ride.
Whether the briefing room stabilizes under Zacharia — or churns through another name before 2028 — will be one of the small but telling dramas of the midterm season. For now, the podium has a name again. Her tenure proved remarkably brief — days later, Katie Zacharia was out as White House press secretary after just five days.
Sources: This explainer is based on reporting from Fox News, USA Today, the Associated Press and the Washington Examiner.