New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia holds her first press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, US, October 13, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The White House wasn’t impressed by the debut of President Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, at least according to one insider.
MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard appeared afterward on “Money Power Politics,” where he told host Stephanie Ruhle that their colleague Jake Traylor had spoken to a White House source who doubted she would last longer than one of Trump’s most notoriously short-lived aides.
“This is something,” Hillyard said. “Yes, we granted them anonymity, but someone inside the White House, again, I just want to, I just want to share their quote: ‘Getting behind the podium is tough, we all know that. But she got off on the wrong foot. She needs to get much better, faster. Otherwise she will break Scaramucci’s record, which, as we know, was 11 days.’”
Anthony Scaramucci served briefly as White House communications director in late July 2017, during Trump’s first term, and has since become an outspoken critic of the president.
Hillyard said Zacharia lacks what made her predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, effective. Zacharia was hired after Trump went around his own chief of staff to pick her, according to the Daily Mail.
“Leavitt came over from the campaign; she was somebody when she ran for Congress in 2022, who effectively spoke the MAGA message throughout her primary and general election bid,” he said. “She’s somebody who is steeped in the policy dating back to the Trump administration.”
“That is not what Katie Zacharia has been a part of,” Hillyard added. “She has not been a part of these meetings. She has not been a part of these foreign trips with the president of the United States. She has not been inside of the room when Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles are engaging with the president.”
That leaves her trying to speak for “what is already a difficult man to try to explain to the American public,” he added. “And I think everybody watched that in real time play out here.”
Leavitt stepped down in August, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.
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