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MS NOW dumbfounded by new press secretary's disastrous debut: 'Glad we cut away'
October 13, 2026 10:36AM ET
Katie Zacharia (MS NOW screenshot)
The debut of new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia was cut off early by MS NOW, with the panel dumbfounded at her staring at her notes and fumbled her way through with fragmented sentences.
After the cutaway, MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle smirked and stated, “Let's look at the way that just started...” which was greeted with laughter.
Ex-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) offered, “I mean, you know, I feel like common decency should give her more of a chance, but my god. Right? So you violate the Hatch Act right out of the gate. You're clearly singing from the playbook here, which is to just make it all about you and Donald Trump.”
He later added, “But I'm kind of glad we cut away.”
According to analyst John Avlon, Zacharia showed no evidence that she will ever be able to answer questions “on the fly.”
“But this is a real problem because we're going to see when she gets real questions, if she can answer questions about buying , uh, Ukraine, buying Russian diesel and Ukraine and Iran, and health care. But that's actually literally part of the job in real time. You can't hide behind the flag.”