I was days from turning 23 when I got the call that changed my life. My congressman's press secretary had passed out in his car at lunch, and he was fired on the spot. I was yanked from our district office in southwestern Pennsylvania and dropped onto Capitol Hill to take his job the next day.
The timing could not have been worse. My boss was about to become the first member of the House reprimanded in a decade, and the press was circling with excitement. One day I was in a district office. The next, I was a press secretary. I had once told the congressman during a drive through our district that someday I wanted to be his press secretary. I didn’t expect it to happen as fast as it did. And I was scared.
Because I had no idea what a press secretary actually did. It was the proverbial metaphor of being thrown into the deep end of the pool and learning how to swim.
I remember the TV cameras outside our office and walking out to read a statement about the ethics investigation. I was terrified. I delivered it like a deer in the headlights, pale as a sheet. A friend back in Pittsburgh saw me on the news and mocked me for weeks.
That memory came flooding back this morning as I watched Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, ather first briefing. She was there for 14 minutes, and I'm being generous calling it a briefing. It was a bootlicking performance, and not a good one at that. It was quite an inauspicious start.
Seven years on the Hill taught me two golden rules: Be honest with the press and speak with authority. Zacharia managed neither. She looked unsteady, and worse, the statements kept coming, one falsehood after another. Her opening statement read like Trump had told her to scroll through his Truth Social and pick the biggest lies. Everything was “historic.”
She repeated “historic” so many times I thought she was better suited for a tour guide in the U.S. Capitol. Full disclosure: I did that, too, shepherding constituents through the historic building while they were visiting historic Washington.
Her “historic” takes started with the midterms.She said the midterms had the “energy and excitement never seen before in the history of midterms, thanks to President Trump.” While I laughed at first, in hindsight, I thought maybe she’s right. His historically low poll numbers are making history. So that part is true.
She also boasted of historic attendance at his rallies, saying, “attendance is at record highs as enthusiastic, hard-working Americans are lining up and packing arenas to support President Trump.”
From Alabama to Ohio to Tennessee to Texas, according toanalysis and media reports, rows of empty seats and crowds drifting out mid-speech are at “historic” highs. My guess is that she’ll get a call from one of her predecessors, Sean Spicer, telling her to go easy on crowd sizes.
Then came the claim that the administration has uncovered$260 billion in fraud. I actually burst out laughing when she said that. Then I thought, maybe that’s true. If that's the number, the estimates of what Trump and his family have historically grifted out of government must be badly understated, because the only fraud I can see being uncovered is coming from inside the White House.
She said she's wanted to work with the president for a very long time. Um, Katie, I’d like toremind you that you have already worked inside the Trump administration and for Trump-affiliated organizations for “a very long time.”
And then came the questions. She took them only from Fox News, Breitbart, and the Daily Mail. That reminded me of how major college football programs schedule soft-opening games against overmatched, smaller opponents. Those games are commonly called cupcake games.
So, today, Zacharia did a cupcake briefing.
It also made me think about Helen Thomas. She was the legendary UPI correspondent who held presidents of both parties to account for decades. Thomas is surely spinning in her grave.
The one moment of levity came when she referred to her husband as “my president,” and the room chuckled. It recalled the story,reported years ago, about Condoleezza Rice allegedly slipping and calling George W. Bush her husband. So, snaps and claps to Zacharia for not being the first to get husband and president confused.
Some critics online predicted she'd have a shorter shelf life than Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 11 days as communications director. I don't buy it. Scaramucci was never cut from the same cloth as Karoline Leavitt and Natalie Harp, the kind of long-blonde-haired beauty, loyal, camera-ready, brainwashed, subservient operatives Trump prizes.
Whether we like it or not, Zacharia will probably be around a long time. I only hope she and her president — oops, I mean her husband — are okay with that