Trump's New Press Secretary Ends First Briefing After 14 Minutes
The new White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt's successor Katie Zaharia, ended her first press conference after 14 minutes, having mistakenly called her husband the president mid-answer. The White House publicly backed her, while anonymous officials criticised the debut.
Katie Zaharia, the new White House press secretary under US President Donald Trump, abruptly left the James Brady press briefing room on Tuesday, 14 October, after her first press conference lasted just 14 minutes. She replaced Karoline Leavitt, and the briefing matters because it shows how Trump's administration begins communicating with reporters after a change of press secretary.
Trump appointed Zaharia on 9 October, and she first appeared in the briefing room on her second working day. She told journalists that working for Trump was a "huge honour" and that she had long wanted to work for him. For the first six minutes she read a prepared text full of praise for the president and the achievements of recent months. It mentioned a "historic one-day war" against Venezuela, even though, as the British newspaper The Independent notes, the war the president started with Iran is approaching its ninth month.
The question about family
The situation changed after a question from a Daily Mail reporter on how she would combine the job with raising four children, given that Leavitt left the post because she could not balance it with raising two. In her answer Zaharia said: "My president, sorry, my husband, is here." Laughter followed in the room. She called Trump "the most family-friendly president we have ever had" and declared the conference over, saying Trump was about to leave for Alaska. In fact, the president was due to travel there only several hours later.
Reactions
A former administration official who keeps in touch with current staff called the debut a "complete disaster". Another current official told the TV channel MS NOW that Zaharia must "pull herself together very quickly", or she would lose the job faster than Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 11 days as communications director. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote on the social network X that the debut was a "wonderful start".
