President Trump has named California lawyer and Fox News contributor Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary, filling the post left open when Karoline Leavitt stepped down for her family.
The Daily Mail reported that Trump settled on the 42-year-old California native after the briefing room went more than a month without a permanent face following Leavitt’s departure at the end of August.
Trump confirmed the move later Friday in a Truth Social post, praising Zacharia’s record and loyalty. He called her outstanding and said she had backed him from the start.
Breitbart reported the full thrust of that announcement, which cast the appointment as a deliberate choice of a longtime MAGA supporter for the podium.
"She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning. She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA,"
Trump wrote of Zacharia. The White House had been hunting for Leavitt’s replacement for weeks after her exit.
Leavitt quit as press secretary at the end of August to spend more time with her two young children. Trump consulted her personally before landing on Zacharia, CNN reporting cited in the coverage said.
Just The News reported that Leavitt is expected to start as a Fox News contributor next month, becoming the second of Trump’s press secretaries to move to the network after Kayleigh McEnany.
That track matches earlier coverage of Leavitt’s expected Fox News role after she left the administration. The briefing room sat without a permanent secretary for more than a month while the search played out.
Readers following the handoff already saw the White House weigh options during the hunt for Leavitt’s replacement. Zacharia’s selection ends that stretch of uncertainty.
Zacharia is a lawyer and frequent guest on Fox News and Newsmax. She most recently served as a communications adviser to Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social.
The New York Post reported that she accepted the high-profile offer and framed the job as a rare public trust at a consequential moment for the country.
"Thank you to President Trump for the distinguished privilege of serving as White House Press Secretary... Serving President Trump and the American people at this critical 250-year mark is the honor of a lifetime"
Zacharia said in her response to the appointment. Trump, in the same reporting, described her current Truth Social work in warm terms as he made the pick official.
Earlier this year she stepped in at the Department of Homeland Security. In February she replaced Tricia McLaughlin as the on-camera face of the administration’s immigration crackdown. She left that post in March after about six weeks.
Zacharia said the travel between Washington and California was too hard on her family. She denied separate accounts that she was pushed out over ties to Corey Lewandowski, an adviser linked to Kristi Noem at DHS. The brief tenure still put her in front of cameras on one of the administration’s signature enforcement fights.
Before that stretch she worked as a communications adviser to Trump Media and assisted Trump campaign efforts. Her résumé also includes a college internship at the Republican National Committee and a stint in the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Bush administration.
She earned degrees at Pepperdine’s Seaver College and Caruso School of Law, then spent three years in China as outside counsel for the World Bank. She is married to Hollywood producer Tyler Zacharia. The couple shares four children. She keeps the kids off social media while maintaining an Instagram account with more than 42,000 followers.
Zacharia has not soft-pedaled her politics in deep-blue California. In a February New York Post essay she described a cardio kickboxing class where she wore a Trump hat and met open hostility.
"One woman in the back didn’t confront me directly. Instead, she rudely interrupted the instructor mid-routine, turned the class into chaos, harassed the teacher to force me to remove my hat or face the wall so she wouldn’t have to see it, killed the entire vibe, and then stormed out like a petulant child,"
she wrote. Two other women later emailed the gym and pushed an online smear effort. The owner asked her not to wear the hat. She refused.
"I responded that I would never take my Trump hat off to appease the left,"
Zacharia said. She cast the episode as more than gym etiquette.
"This isn’t about a hat. It’s about the right to speak and express yourself without fear, even in "tolerant" California. When private businesses become dissent-free zones, that’s the quiet death of freedom."
In a September Instagram post she was just as blunt about the personal cost of that stance.
"Being in the world of politics, whether directly or adjacent, is BRUTAL and I personally take DAILY heat for it,"
she wrote. That record of unapologetic support is the through-line Trump highlighted when he chose her for the podium.
The press secretary job demands speed, discipline, and a steady defense of administration policy under daily fire. Zacharia arrives as a lawyer who has already taken heat for Trump in hostile settings, briefed on immigration at DHS, and worked inside Trump Media on the communications side.
Coverage of Leavitt’s move to Fox News underscored how quickly the last secretary shifted from the podium to cable. Zacharia now inherits the daily briefings Leavitt left behind.
Trump’s public case for her was straightforward: loyalty, an unblemished support record, and proven work for his media company and movement. Supporters see a communicator who will not flinch when the press corps presses on borders, enforcement, and the administration’s agenda.
Her California roots add another layer. She has described life as a lifelong conservative in a state that often treats that identity as a provocation. The gym fight over a simple hat became her exhibit for how “tolerance” collapses when the wrong candidate’s name appears on a cap.
That same refusal to fold is what the White House is putting in front of the cameras. After the appointment of Katie Zacharia, the briefing room again has a named permanent secretary rather than a rotating stopgap.
Leavitt’s exit for family time was understandable. The month-plus vacancy that followed was a gap the administration needed to close. Trump closed it with a lawyer, mother of four, former DHS spokeswoman, and Truth Social adviser who has already shown she will not sand down her politics for polite company.
The podium rewards clarity and backbone. Zacharia has practiced both in places that punished her for it, and she still showed up wearing the hat.
