When news broke that Karoline Leavitt was leaving her post as White House press secretary, it wasn’t surprising, but it was disappointing. Leavitt was amazing at her job, and a lot was riding on who President Donald Trump would pick to replace her.
When the pick turned out to be Katie Zacharia, I honestly didn’t know anything about her. I figured I’d judge her by her actual performance. Tuesday was the day, and I was, to say the least, disappointed.
Zacharia’s first briefing was… well, I wouldn’t say it was a disaster, but it was not very promising. It lasted just 14 minutes, one of the shortest White House briefings of the past decade. She looked visibly nervous and read conspicuously off the script in front of her, which looked terrible. Worse, she burned eight of those 14 minutes on opening remarks, and she lacked the gravitas of Leavitt.
That left roughly six minutes for actual questions. She took three, from Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail. Photos of her notes suggest she picked those reporters in advance, and she still botched their names. So she had a cheat sheet for the easiest part of the job and still couldn’t get it right.
And then she bailed.
“I am going to end it because President Trump is heading out to Marine One for our historic trip to Alaska,” Zacharia said. Trump wasn’t going anywhere. Reporters didn’t get the call for the Marine One departure for another hour.
That was bad.
Her defenders inside the administration either showered her with praise on social media or scrambled to excuse her lackluster performance. “She seemed nervous, but who wouldn’t be?” one administration official told The New York Post. The same official said critics were “being assholes” because she “had the guts” to try something new “with 24 hours of prep,” insisting that TV newcomers “all come out of the gates shaky.” Sorry, but nobody forced her to take the podium on a day’s notice, and the White House press secretary doesn’t get a rookie curve… certainly not this close to the midterms.
A second official had an even weaker case. “She looked absolutely stunning,” the official said, which matters to a president who likes staff who look “out of central casting.” The official also praised the mother of four for discussing how she plans to balance motherhood with the job and predicted that “she’ll find her footing pretty quickly.” Maybe. Looking good on camera and having a nice family story won’t help her answer a hostile question about foreign policy.
I’m just sitting here thinking if they could still get Scott Jennings to do the job.
A person close to the White House admitted “it’s unfair to compare her negatively to the best press secretary [under Trump], Karoline [Leavitt],” while conceding, “I doubt [Trump] will move on quickly” because Trump “doesn’t exactly love saying he was wrong, even implicitly.” Trump, who watched on TV, seemed perfectly content. “I thought she was very good,” he said as he left for Marine One. Rumors suggest Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is far less happy with the pick and was not consulted.
The media held nothing back in criticizing Zacharia.
“White House press secretary Katie Zacharia was met with a barrage of criticism following her first briefing in her new role, leading some to question the future of her tenure shortly after she was tapped for the job.,” wrote The Hill.
“Several White House officials are questioning how long Katie Zacharia will keep the press secretary job after her first briefing Tuesday, saying her performance was unlikely to satisfy President Donald Trump,” reported CNN.
Were the criticisms and negative reports fair? Yeah, I think they were. But not entirely. Zacharia’s performance was arguably the worst from the briefing room podium since Karine Jean-Pierre.
And that’s where the media’s sudden concern for competence falls apart.
When Jean-Pierre took over for Jen Psaki as Joe Biden’s press secretary, it was immediately obvious the Biden administration promoted her for her diversity score, not her competence. She was objectively bad at the job. She routinely looked unprepared, dodged questions, and leaned on a massive binder of cheat sheets that often produced answers to completely different questions.
In fact, things got so bad that the White House eventually brought in John Kirby to bail her out.
Even though she was so bad at the job from day one, the media didn’t mock her for being incompetent; they praised her “historic” role as the first lesbian immigrant woman of color to hold the job. Jean-Pierre knew exactly how her diversity score helped her get the job, and she leaned into it. “I am a black, gay, immigrant woman,” she told reporters at her first briefing. “The first of all three of those to hold this position.”
The press took the cue like they were supposed to. “Karine Jean-Pierre held her first briefing as White House press secretary on Monday after making history as the first Black and out LGBTQ person to step into one of the most visible roles in the administration,” CNN reported in its opening paragraph. Business Insider followed suit. “Karine Jean-Pierre made her debut on Monday as White House press secretary, making history as the first Black and openly LGBTQ+ person to serve in the public-facing role,” the outlet wrote. CBS News opened the same way. “Karine Jean-Pierre makes history Monday as the new White House press secretary,” its report began. “The New York native is the first Black and first openly gay LGBTQ+ person to hold the position.”
Now, because Katie Zacharia is straight, white, and serving in the Trump administration, she gets no soft gloves from the media. But, again, I agree her performance was terrible, but it was no worse than Karine Jean-Pierre, and the media never dared to mock her or give a single honest assessment of her job performance.
I’ve seen plenty of conservative outlets and commentators praise Zacharia’s performance today, and it makes me cringe. Maybe Zacharia will grow into the job in time, but I’m not convinced she will.