President Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, made her debut behind the White House lectern Tuesday morning.
It was a bumpy one.
“Good morning!” she began. “I want to thank President Trump for his trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time.”
She spent the next eight minutes reading nervously from a script, looking up at the cameras every couple of lines. Then she said she was ready to take some questions. She called on only three reporters, dropped one wild piece of news, made a slip mixing up her husband and her president, then darted out of there after just five and a half minutes, leaving the White House press corps to scratch its collective head.
All told, Ms. Zacharia picked only a few outlets from a list she was holding: Breitbart, Fox News and The Daily Mail.
The White House press secretary gig is a tricky one that, when practiced well, involves more than reciting talking points on cable TV, which is what Ms. Zacharia was doing as a commentator on Fox News when she got picked for this job. Of the few questions Ms. Zacharia allowed on Tuesday, the most substantive one was also among the most predictable: “Has the U.S. stopped sharing intel with Ukraine?”
For days, the breakdown of U.S. negotiations with the Ukrainians has been front page news — certainly it is the dominant story line in Washington this week — and yet, Ms. Zacharia was not prepared to answer the question.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said.
One of the few questions she took was about how she hoped to “manage” her new job with a husband and four kids at home (hard to imagine a male press secretary getting that one). There was a moment of levity in the room when she caught herself in a funny slip, and was able to laugh about it. “So, my president, excuse me, my husband,” she said, “that’s a good one.”
She did come armed with one special surprise to drop. When another reporter asked about the fate of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ms. Zacharia said, “We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign.”
Reporters in the room lit up — News!!! — but before they could ask more about this development, the new press secretary announced that she was ready to “end it,” because it was nearly time for the president’s departure. Reporters pelted questions at her as she prepared to edge out of the room toward the little sliding door painted blue.
“Can you take a few more questions?”
“Just a few more!”
“Did the president speak with Ambassador Guilfoyle?”
“What about the Russian diesel! Will the diesel come into the States?!”
Having not yet mastered the hard exit, she replied, “He will answer those questions out at Marine One.”
In the history of White House press secretaries, the ones who tend to do best have direct access to the president and therefore feel comfortable speaking on his behalf. Those who don’t end up having trouble in the job. Under President George W. Bush, that was Scott McClellan. Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., did not often give the impression that she had been in the room with her boss.
Karoline Leavitt, Ms. Zacharia’s predecessor, really was part of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, and because she was with him on the campaign trail when he was mounting his comeback, she could speak for him with some authority. Ms. Zacharia, 41, is not only new to the president but also to a lot of the people who work for him in the White House.
At 27, Ms. Leavitt was the youngest person ever to hold the job. Behind the podium, she could be lacerating, vitriolic, dissembling. But she didn’t seemed scared, exactly.
Reporters are animals. They can smell fear. Ms. Leavitt used to post photos of herself on Instagram sparring with a packed briefing room set to the soundtrack of “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses.
Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day. You learn to live like an animal, in the jungle where we play.
Not long after the briefing, Ms. Zacharia walked out of the White House with the president onto the South Lawn, where a massive, gnashing press maw was waiting. Ms. Zacharia stood off to the side while her boss prowled the pavement, fielding questions about Iran and Ukraine and the midterms and the end of Ms. Guilfoyle’s chapter as Our Woman in Athens.
The president was asked how he thought Ms. Zacharia had fared in her first briefing, and why she had taken so few questions.
“I thought she was very good,” he said.
In the social media post he made last week announcing her appointment, he called her “an attorney,” and she identifies herself as a lawyer. This reporter asked the president in which state Ms. Zacharia had passed the bar exam? Mr. Trump turned to look at his new press secretary. She took two small steps closer. “When I moved to China,” she said.
Asked later for clarification, White House officials would not say whether or where Ms. Zacharia passed a bar exam.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, provided this statement over email: “Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team. She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as press secretary.”
Mr. Trump finished taking questions, turned and traipsed toward his helicopter. Ms. Zacharias was left standing alone. The reporters began shouting in her direction.
“Katie! Katie!”
They waved her over. She just smiled and stared straight ahead.
After another moment, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, appeared with two of the president’s most trusted aides, Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta. Ms. Zacharia joined her new co-workers and together they all walked silently across the South Lawn and climbed into Marine One to begin a long day of travel to Alaska followed by Las Vegas.
Plenty of time for everybody to get to know each other a little better.
The post Katie Zacharia Stepped to the Lectern for the First Time. It Was a Bumpy Ride. appeared first on New York Times.
