President Trump announced Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary on October 9, 2026, replacing Karoline Leavitt. Her first briefing on October 13 ran 14 minutes, took three questions from Fox News, The Daily Mail and Breitbart, and drew heavy criticism. She would not say which state she passed the bar in, then said she sat the exam in China, where no non-Chinese person can sit for it; she failed the California bar once and never retook it. Colleagues anonymously called the briefing embarrassing, she did not brief Wednesday or Thursday, and a senior official says she is transitioning out.