Trump names Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary

President Trump on Friday named Katie Zacharia as the new White House press secretary, filling the administration's most visible messaging job with 25 days to go before the midterms.

Zacharia is a conservative commentator and attorney who has served as senior communications advisor at Trump Media and Truth Social and as a former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. She replaces Karoline Leavitt, who left the post at the end of August; the briefing room has been without a permanent press secretary for more than six weeks. Zacharia becomes the seventh woman in a row to hold the job.

Trump announced the pick in familiar terms, praising what he called her "unblemished record of support" and describing her as a "loyal and brilliant supporter" of the MAGA movement.

The appointment tightens the Trump Media orbit around the White House. Zacharia comes directly from the president's media company, not from the traditional pipeline of campaign communications staff, and her background as a DHS spokesperson suggests immigration enforcement, the dominant domestic story of the week, will be a central subject of her early briefings. The seat matters more than usual right now: with a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, a Russia fuel deal announced the same day, and the midterms approaching, the person behind the podium is carrying some of the heaviest messaging load of the year.