Welcome to Monday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Today, we bring you the inside story of how Donald Trump found his new press secretary, plus we get the real story about cookies in Kansas. Really!
When President Donald Trump decided he needed to beef up his press operation in the final weeks of midterm campaigning, there was only ever one name on the shortlist.
Katie Zacharia reported to the White House Monday morning for her first day as press secretary.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. (Provided by Katie Zacharia)
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White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. (Provided by Katie Zacharia)
Her appointment was as much a shock to her as it was to commentators who had pored over dozens of names without sniffing her out as a frontrunner.
But Secrets can reveal that there were no other serious contenders. The other names in the headlines were mostly red herrings, the result of self-promotion by wannabes and trolling by officials.
According to sources familiar with the process, Zacharia won the gig through her tireless media appearances, ability to roam across a wide range of subjects with her punchy style, and the help of a crucial ally in the highest reaches of the White House.
After leaving the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, Zacharia, 41, joined Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the president’s social media platform, Truth Social. Her role was senior media adviser. That meant she was already inside the family as it were.
“The president likes to hire his own,” said someone familiar with Trump’s thinking.
Zacharia has been based in California until now. That meant she would be up and out of bed at 1 a.m. for appearances on Fox and Friends. Some days she would be on TV for three hours or seven hits, which she managed to do without ever putting any distance between herself and the president. That will have been a huge positive for Trump, who has made it clear that he is frustrated that more people are not talking about his wins.
Secrets understands that Zacharia also had a crucial ally in top aide Natalie Harp, nicknamed “the human printer” for the way she gets news clippings in front of the president. Harp, whose influence has grown during the second Trump administration, made sure TV clips of Zacharia made it into the president’s media diet and talked up her ability.
Speculation about who would follow Karoline Leavitt in the role had dwindled in recent weeks. A role of high-profile stand-ins — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the president’s own media appearances — had filled the gap.
But behind the scenes, Trump himself realized that he needed a high-profile surrogate punching out his message on TV.
Secrets understands that Maria Bartiromo was briefly considered when she was fired by Fox News last month.
For once, however, Trump did not run one of his Apprentice-style auditions. Other names touted in the media or featured on prediction markets, such as Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle, political adviser Alina Habba, or CNN contributor Scott Jennings, were never in the running.
In the meantime, Zacharia had been noticed for her ability to range across subjects while sticking loyally to the president’s line.
She defended the 1776 fund, the $1.776 billion plan to compensate people claiming they suffered “weaponization and lawfare” by the federal government, and went in to bat for agents after Renee Good was shot dead in Minneapolis, for example. Both were issues in which Trump found he needed every ally he could get, and in which some surrogates went missing in action.
“She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning,” Trump said on Truth Social as he announced the appointment. “She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!”
Although she had been invited to the West Wing for a meeting with the president in the previous week, a source said Zacharia was completely shocked when Trump called to offer her the job.
“It came as an absolute, complete surprise,” they said.
Zacharia is expected to spend today meeting her new team and preparing for her first briefing, which will be on Tuesday morning.
She also has some decisions to make. Any new press secretary is likely to want to bring in her own aides, but is there time to make changes with the midterm elections just three weeks away?
The way the cookie crumbles
Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) reelection campaign in Kansas is not turning out the way he expected. No, not the Saturday he spent fishing with Secrets, but the constant string of attacks he faces from a Democratic candidate who sniffs an unlikely victory.
The latest social media storm involved a six-year-old bill for 150 sugar cookies, 100 mini strawberry muffins, and 100 fudge brownies. They had been ordered for a 2020 primary watch party from Holly’s Sweet Treats in Hutchinson. But no one ever paid up, it seems.
Cue an irate baker who posted the bill online, prompting a flurry of outrage and more negative headlines for Marshall in his battle with Adam Hamilton, a megachurch founder.
So he did the decent thing on Saturday.
“We have absolutely no idea how this happened, but rest assured as soon as it became known to us, we immediately attempted to contact the business in order to apologize, and we have repaid the bill from 2020, double,” he posted on X.
Either way, Hamilton’s oppo chief is becoming something of a cult hero on the left.
Tyson Brody, a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has been feted on social media for his constant stream of attacks, pithy asides, and stinging headline dumps.
“We all need to take a moment and just behold what @tysonbrody is doing down in Kansas,” posted Doug Landry. “Just haymaker after haymaker.”
The result is that Marshall’s campaign spent the weekend answering questions about cookies and not talking about Hamilton’s ABC News interview, during which the Democrat discussed the influence of Barack Obama on his political outlook — hardly a vote-winner in Kansas.
Or as Marshall campaign spokeswoman Hannah Wetenhall put it: “Adam Hamilton is Chuck Schumer’s dream — that’s why he’s bankrolling him with millions of dollars. So rather than talk about being a Democrat puppet bankrolled by Schumer, Adam Hamilton does anything and everything in his power to distract from his wildly liberal beliefs that will raise our taxes, give us even higher inflation, and make our lives more expensive than ever.”
Will any of it matter? While public polling has tightened and the handicappers are moving the race into toss-up territory, prediction markets and betting sites suggest Hamilton’s oppo machine may be operating inside a liberal echo chamber.
Marshall has a 26-point lead over Hamilton on Kalshi, for example.
Lunchtime reading
The literary superstar caught up in Germany’s culture wars: Memories of communist East Germany are still raw and mixed with a certain nostalgia for the past, as novelist Charlotte Gneuss found out.
In defense of Levittown: Timothy Carney visits the place that has become a lightning rod for modern ideas of America. “Instead of Car Hell, I found a sort of kid heaven Levittown: An oasis of childhood freedom and an extraordinarily tight-knit community.”
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
