Wednesday, October 14, 2026

THE UNDERSTUDY LIAR: KATIE ZACHARIA TAKES THE PODIUM

 

THE UNDERSTUDY LIAR: KATIE ZACHARIA TAKES THE PODIUM


Every regime eventually discovers that the truth is a poor spokesman. It’s slow and full of caveats, and it keeps asking for sources. So history’s strongmen have always kept a professional on retainer, someone whose job is to look into a camera and explain that the thing you can see happening is not happening.

The lineage is distinguished. Tokyo Rose and Hanoi Hannah (not “Hanio Hanna,” though a Trump press secretary would defend the spelling for forty minutes) spent their careers talking to soldiers who already knew where they were standing. Baghdad Bob assured the world that no American troops were in Baghdad while a tank rolled past behind him. Say what you will about Bob, he committed. He never once blamed the tank on the previous administration.

The Trump era has honored this tradition with a revolving door of podium talent, and on October 9 the door spun again. Meet Katie Zacharia, a Pepperdine double-dipper (undergrad and law), former College Republicans chapter president, Fox and Newsmax regular, and, in a résumé line that should be framed, general counsel of an “election integrity” nonprofit. She has also worked at DHS under Kristi Noem and Truth Social’s parent company. Zacharia has done communications for the department that disappears people and for the platform that disappears facts. That is what the HR people call a full-stack background.

Trump called her a “devoted fan and member of MAGA” with an “unblemished record of support.” Notice what’s missing from that endorsement: any mention of whether she can persuade anyone who isn’t already in the tent. In this administration, the job requirement is loyalty. Competence is a nice-to-have, like dental.

A Rookie Liar With Potential

Let’s be fair to the new girl. Her debut on October 13 ran roughly fifteen minutes. She read from notes about the economy and energy, dropped the news that Kimberly Guilfoyle is out as ambassador to Greece, took three questions, and left. Three. A Little League coach gives more press availability after a rainout.

This is the briefing of a liar still learning to lie. The great ones don’t read from notes. They improvise, they escalate, they look at a reporter holding a document and tell him the document is the problem. Zacharia still has the training wheels on, the nervous brevity of an understudy who hasn’t yet learned that the real art is staying out there for ninety minutes and making them thank you for it.

But give her time. Talent like this can’t be taught, only cultivated, and the Trump White House is a greenhouse.

The Standard She Must Meet

Karoline Leavitt remains the high-water mark. Whatever you think of her, and I think plenty, she treated the Brady Briefing Room like a Colosseum, with the reporters as the lions and herself as the one entertainer who never needed a sword. She called questions “stupid.” She called journalists hacks. She handed seats to friendly podcasters and shrank access for everyone else. Trump says she’s one of the best in the office’s history. By his own scorecard, that’s a compliment about her lying, and he’s right that she was good at it.

Then there’s Anthony Scaramucci, the poor old Mooch, who lasted eleven days. His crime wasn’t dishonesty. It was a failure to read the room, which in that White House meant talking about the wrong person in the wrong language to the wrong magazine. He couldn’t get the Big Lie down fast enough. Still, he was silver-haired and slick, and Trump does enjoy a spokesman who looks like central casting. Leavitt was blonde. Stephen Miller is bald as an egg and twice as fragile. The pattern is clear: Trump’s propagandists come in two finishes, platinum or polished, and nothing in between. Zacharia, a blonde, clears the visual bar. Now she has to clear the other one.

The Forecast

Here’s my prediction. Within six months Zacharia will have found her voice, which is to say she’ll have found somebody else’s and perfected it. She’ll learn that “stupid question” is a complete rebuttal. She’ll learn that the word “sources” can be said with a sneer. And she’ll learn the sacred rule of the podium: never admit the tank is there.

Goebbels, for all his sins, at least believed his own press releases. Baghdad Bob at least had the decency to be funny. Katie Zacharia, we are told, has the devotion. The only question is whether she’ll grow into the liar Trump dreams of, or whether history will file her next to the Mooch, a footnote with good hair.

Place your bets. Just don’t expect her to take questions.



SOURCES AND LINKS

Zacharia’s appointment and background

The October 13 debut and the Guilfoyle news

The historical propagandists



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