Three days into her tenure as White House Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia’s shaky performance at her debut briefing is testing the Trump White House’s MAGA messaging machine and exposing divisions within the administration not seen since the chaotic days of President Donald Trump’s first term.
In the wake of her widely panned 14 minutes behind the lectern a day ago,
defenders of the administration fanned out across social media and television throughout Tuesday evening and Wednesday, if not to praise Zacharia’s performance than at least to savage her critics as biased — or worse.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, now a paid contributor on Newsmax, said on Wednesday that Zacharia was “not even close to being the worst” White House spokesperson he has seen.
Santorum mocked liberal commentators and late-night television hosts for mocking her performance and suggested that they were attacking the new press secretary because she is white, comparing the criticism to Democrats’ defense of Zacharia’s Biden-era predecessor, Karine Jean-Pierre.
“The people you just saw there commenting on Katie were just railing behind Karine because she was a DEI hire,” he said. “As long as you’re a DEI hire, you get supported, but if you’re a blonde white female you get trashed.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity also invoked Jean-Pierre, who was routinely disparaged by Republicans during her tenure, and complained that Zacharia “has been mocked, attacked over her appearance, her hair, the way she spoke” and questioned about her legal credentials by people who once defended the former Biden spokesperson.
But inside Trumpworld, the view of Zacharia is less than glowing.
One former Trump administration official who remains close to people serving in the administration texted The Independent to declare Zacharia’s debut “a train wreck” after previously describing her as a “joke hire” who’d likely be “gone in six months.”
Another insider, a current West Wing denizen, said Zacharia’s outing in the briefing room on Tuesday was “beyond brutal” and suggested that she’ll be on a short leash and will either dramatically improve rapidly or see herself out of the job she campaigned for so effectively.
In addition to the discomfort within the West Wing over the new press secretary’s dismal debut, there is also a growing sense of unease among administration officials over Trump’s decision to cut his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, out of the loop during the hiring process.
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