Trump's New Press Secretary Confused Her Husband With The President
- 14.10.2026, 8:57
Katie Zacharia held her first briefing at the White House.
Katie Zakaria, who replaced Caroline Levitt as press secretary to President Donald Trump, held her first briefing at the White House. It lasted only 14 minutes and was marked by an awkward moment.
When asked how she plans to balance her job with being a mother of four, given that her family lives in California, Zakaria said that they are all moving to Washington, but accidentally confused her husband with Trump, according to The Independent.
“The thought of not spending my evenings with my children is completely unacceptable, so my president… uh, excuse me, my husband is here…” Zakaria said.
After clarifying her remarks, the press secretary took the situation in stride.
“That’s a good clarification,” she remarked.
The entire briefing lasted 14 minutes, and during the first eight minutes, Katie praised the “energetic president” and cited “record attendance” at his rallies, after which she quickly listed positive statistics on wage growth, drug prices, the employment situation, and energy production volumes.
She devoted no more than six minutes to answering questions from reporters.
Among the media outlets that managed to ask her questions were Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail. After that, Katie ended the press conference early. It was one of the shortest briefings in the past decade, and the press secretary’s noticeable nervousness became a topic of discussion in Washington.
The Western press has already criticized her debut, and The Independent even called it a disaster. For its part, the New York Post noted that the new White House press secretary was overly nervous.
Despite this, Zakaria’s boss was pleased with how his new subordinate performed.
“In my opinion, she did a great job. She performed very well,” he said.
As a source familiar with the matter told The Post, Trump personally briefed his new chief spokesperson in the Oval Office (which is why she was slightly late) and instructed her to take advantage of the high public interest in the briefing to detail her accomplishments and announce the decision to demand the resignation of the U.S. ambassador to Greece Kimberly Gilfoyle.
Before joining the White House, Katie Zacharia worked at Trump’s media company and served as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In this role, she succeeded Caroline Levitt, who stepped down at the end of August 2026 to spend more time with her family.