Outside the Beltway

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia holds first press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Tuesday, October 13, 2026.
Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks

Meanwhile, in North Korea…

A new Press Secretary.

Steven L. Taylor
24

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So, Katie Zacharia made her debut this week as the new White House Press Secretary.

It did not go well.

Katie Zacharia makes Karoline Leavitt seem like Winston Churchill

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-13T13:46:54.696Z

I mean, she’s right that Trump is the main generator of energy in the midterms, but it is opposition energy.

Still, she sounds like a contestant in a regional pageant, not the spokesperson for the most powerful government in the world. And, of course, the sycophancy earns the “Meanwhile, In North Korea” label.

More here:

😬 Katie Zacharia's first press briefing was brutally bad 😬Trump managed to find a press secretary who can barely read, but she does have the number one qualification — looking like IvankaHere's a supercut from Zacharia's first briefing, which made Karoline Leavitt seem like Ronald Reagan

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-13T14:16:43.890Z

It is hard to watch for several reasons.

  1. It is no exaggeration that she lacks the basic skills of adequately reading and speaking from the podium.
  2. She is clearly in over her head in terms of information/how to answer questions. She was only given softballs from friendly media outlets and she couldn’t handle those.
  3. Her praise of Trump truly is North Korea-level stuff.

All of this is funny on one level, but it is also deeply serious. While I have always known that the White House Press Secretary’s job is to get the President’s views of the news out to the public, and therefore spin was always possible, no prior President has ever sent out a pure propagandist to the podium. This has been the Trump pattern since Sean Spicer insisted that Trump’s first inauguration crowd was the biggest. Period!

Zacharia is just the culmination of a long trend.

And while Karoline Leavitt was very much a propagandist, at least she could read and speak without looking and sounding like a college sophomore doing her first class presentation. Granted, having the incompetence be more obvious is better than not, so I will take that silver lining, I guess.

And I honestly don’t like to comment on people’s appearances, but something truly weird is going on here.

Here are the last three Press Secretaries (via Adam Kinzinger):

And Natalie Harp:

I’m just having a hard time accepting that their resumes and experience are getting them their jobs.

It is all unprofessional, bizarre, and misogynistic because Trump clearly likes women who look a certain way and is hiring them on that basis.

This administration is a disgrace on so many levels.

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24 responses to “Meanwhile, in North Korea…”

  1. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    They can’t afford a teleprompter for the press secretary?

    1
    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      I honestly don’t think that would help.

      1. Kathy Avatar
        Kathy

        Maybe an upgrade, then.

        1
    2. Jen Avatar
      Jen

      That would still require reading as a basic skill, no?

      1
  2. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    I read on Bluesky that a Zacharia will soon be the name of a fraction of a Scaramucci, like a minute is a component of an hour.

    She really was terrible. And, I’ll note that as a professional communicator, these jobs are actually harder than they might seem to be. You have to be thinking three steps ahead to provide not just competent answers, but competent answers that reinforce key messaging WITHOUT spilling strategy or state secrets, etc.

    1
    1. Kylopod Avatar
      Kylopod

      My favorite episode of The West Wing has long been “Celestial Navigations,” where Josh attempts to fill in for C.J. as Press Secretary and absolutely face-plants. Of course, like so much else on the show, it assumed a level of normality in US politics that wasn’t even true at the time the show came out and which seems a million miles removed from anything in the Trump era.

      1
    2. Gustopher Avatar
      Gustopher

      Given that Scaramucci keeps popping up along the edges of right-wing grifting and self-dealing, I wonder if he is worried that someone will take away his notoriety or whether he is desperate for it to happen.

      Does being a punchline help or hinder self-dealing? Will he hire her?

  3. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Trump hires women he can fantasize about and no doubt grope. It’s all he can see in a woman, with the exception of Susie Wiles, but she was grandfathered in. It’s a shame Guilfoyle isn’t blond and ten years younger, she’d have been promoted not fired. CNN’s Kaitlin Collins should consider a bleach job if she wants to get better access to Trump. Young, pretty, blond and submissive – 80 year-old Trump has a type.

    1. golem8eight Avatar
      golem8eight

      Susie Wiles is part of Team Russia, there to manipulate Trump.

      1
    2. Ken_L Avatar
      Ken_L

      Trump claimed that people queue up daily at the White House just to thank him. “These young, beautiful girls in the White House… they come in,” Trump remarked during his address.

      He added, “Now, I’m not supposed to say ‘beautiful,’ but what the hell!”

  4. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    Cue the blond jokes…

  5. Eusebio Avatar
    Eusebio

    She said that her family (husband and 4 kids) will be moving from California to be with her. I’d say don’t bother.

    Kinda funny that Peter Doocy prefaced a question with, “I want to ask you a policy question.” The next press conference, if she does have another one, should begin by following up on her response (“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”)

  6. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    LOL. The South China Morning Post has reported that when Zacharia was living in China, taking the Chinese bar had as a requirement that one hold Chinese nationality.

    So, to put it bluntly, she’s apparently lied about that bit too.

  7. golem8eight Avatar
    golem8eight

    https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/white-house-press-secretary-katie-zacharia-and-pyongyang-on-the-potomac?r=2jh99&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

    Above is a long blow-by-blow dissection of the press conference, questions and answers etc., with background.

  8. Charley in Cleveland Avatar
    Charley in Cleveland

    Propagandists are going to propagandize: From the White House website:

    Today, Katie Zacharia delivered a commanding inaugural press briefing as the 37th White House Press Secretary. The briefing, which generated wall-to-wall coverage, served as a strong introduction to her tenure and highlighted the Trump Administration’s record of delivering historic successes for the American people.

    OMFG! Jim Jones’ Kool Aid wasn’t nearly as potent as what is being served up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave these days.

  9. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Jonathan Last calls it “Pyongyang on the Potomac.”

  10. Daryl Avatar
    Daryl

    Best Press Secretary ever!!!

  11. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    It is all unprofessional, bizarre, and misogynistic because Trump clearly likes women who look a certain way and is hiring them on that basis.

    There are competent women who have that look.

    I’m weirdly reminded of Biden’s decision to have a Black woman Supreme Court Justice. It excluded a lot of perfectly qualified white men (and others, but it was the White men who complained), but it’s not like there was a particular shortage of perfectly qualified Black women. And I would argue that differing perspectives are good, and it would be great to have a Black person on the court who doesn’t seem to hate Black people.

    I’m not convinced that conventionally attractive white women with blonde hair are an underserved demographic, even within conservative circles, but the choice to hire only incompetent ones is a definite choice being made. (Similarly, you could probably find another broad-shouldered, square-jawed white supremacist to be the Administrative Assistant of War who wasn’t fucking incompetent at the actual job)

    I do wonder whether exposure to these awful women will change what our culture views as attractive, and whether that will end up being another political divide. I’m convinced a lot of women made a conscious choice to look less like Sarah Palin back in the day.

    I know that fascism is an aesthetic movement (Steven Miller notwithstanding), but you can do both aesthetics and competence.

    Perhaps building a movement around a man famous for marketing gold-tone plated shit as luxury was a mistake. Also, Trump should start adding gold sparkles to his bronzer and eventually transition to just being gold.

    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      @Gustopher:

      There are competent women who have that look.

      To be clear, I am not critiquing the look. I am critiquing Trump for using it as a hiring criterion.

  12. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    And to top things off, Katie is a longtime QAnon booster.

  13. dmichaelwells65 Avatar
    dmichaelwells65

    I may be in the minority on this issue but I don”t care if Fatso hired yet another blond bimbo as a spokesperson. She will not be able to stop the killing of children and elderly in Ukraine, will do nothing to stop Brainworm Bobby from making Measles Great Again, will not be able to lower the testosterone of Drunk Pete, war monger, and is obviously incapable of putting enough lipstick on this pig of an administration. It may be juicy for the corporate media but is simply another distraction.

    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      Speaking for myself, it is less that I care that he “hired yet another blond bimbo as a spokesperson” and more what it says about the way he runs his administration, which in turn helps explain and amplify the truly horrible things, such as those you mention.

    2. Jen Avatar
      Jen

      I have a problem with it.

      Spokesperson for the White House is arguably one of the most important administration jobs. This individual is supposed to communicate to the American public and the world details on what the administration is doing, explain their actions, and defend their choices. In a functioning society, where the elected answer to the electorate, this is a critical job.

      The fact that we’ve reached a point where someone this wholly unqualified, and a liar and QAnon nut to boot, is in the job is completely unacceptable.

  14. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    Another one for the “imagine if Obama or Biden did this” file. Cabinet secretaries openly campaigning is bad enough. Heads of supposedly-independent quasi-judicial agencies doing it is not only illegal but grossly unethical.

    Trump brought the White House to the Last Frontier last night, hauling Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, FCC Chair Brendan Carr and FHFA Administrator Bill Pulte to Alaska to urge voters to support GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich

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