Trump selects Katie Zacharia as new White House press secretary

Donald Trump has chosen conservative commentator and Trump Media adviser Katie Zacharia to be the next White House press secretary, according to a White House official.

Zacharia will succeed Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down at the end of August following the birth of her second child. Leavitt has reportedly since joined Fox News.

While the White House has offered Zacharia the position, it is not yet clear if she has formally accepted. If she takes the job, she will become the sixth press secretary across Trump's two presidential administrations.

Currently, the 42-year-old political strategist is a senior communications adviser for Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the Truth Social platform, a role she took on in June.

Who is Katie Zacharia?

Zacharia has been a regular presence on conservative networks like Fox News and Newsmax and has spent most of her career in Republican politics. Her experience includes a 2006 internship with the Republican National Committee and a role in the George W. Bush administration’s White House Office of Political Affairs.

Earlier this year, she had a brief, two-month stint as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, serving from February to March. She later explained her quick departure was due to the personal toll of commuting between Washington and her family in California.

A Pepperdine University law graduate, Zacharia also worked as general counsel for Fix California, a conservative non-profit founded by former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, who now serves as Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions. Earlier in her legal career, in 2011, she spent nearly two years clerking at a law firm in Beijing, China.

A staunch Trump defender

Zacharia has built a reputation as an unwavering defender of the president and his policies.

In a June interview, she brushed off criticism of Trump’s decision to host a televised Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House. She argued that the fighting spirit of the UFC aligned with the country's founding principles.

"It's about not giving up the fight until the bitter end," she said at the time. "I think there's no better summation of the American ethos than a good UFC fight."

What happens next is her formal acceptance and transition into one of the most high-profile roles in Washington, where she will face a press corps that has had a notoriously combative relationship with the administration.