New Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Confirms Guilfoyle Asked to Resign in Brief White House Debut

Katie Zacharia made her debut as White House press secretary on Tuesday with an unusually brief first briefing, using it to confirm that the administration has asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to step down as U.S. ambassador to Greece before abruptly handing the spotlight back to President Donald Trump.

“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well,” Zacharia told reporters in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. It was not immediately clear whether Guilfoyle had submitted her resignation.

A short session with one headline

The briefing, the first from the White House podium in weeks, was cut short after only a handful of questions. Zacharia took questions from three reporters before announcing that the session was over and that the president would speak to the press as he departed the White House. Reporters in the packed room reacted with audible surprise, and several called out asking when she would return to the podium, according to BBC correspondents in the room.

She opened with prepared remarks praising Trump’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday night and listing the administration’s economic and border record, and she repeated the president’s announcement that the Pentagon had selected Cleveland as the home of a new Navy submarine component repair center. She also said Trump would add stops in Georgia, Kentucky and Florida to what she called a “midterm blitz” of campaign travel ahead of the Nov. 3 elections.

Asked whether the United States had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, Zacharia said she would need to confirm the information after the briefing. Asked whether her role was to speak for the White House or to ease the political path for Republicans in the midterms, she said she would keep “helping to amplify” the president’s agenda and described Trump as “his own best spokesperson.”

Guilfoyle under mounting pressure

The confirmation came a day after Trump said his administration was “looking at” removing Guilfoyle, telling reporters, “We’re not happy.” The former Fox News host and onetime fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. has faced weeks of reporting by The Wall Street Journal, including allegations that she asked a Trump donor to cover a six-figure credit card balance before her Senate confirmation and accounts of luxury travel funded by Greek businessmen. Her lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and disputed the authenticity of the messages.

Who is Katie Zacharia

Zacharia, 42, is an attorney and conservative television commentator who most recently served as a senior communications adviser to Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent of Truth Social. She previously worked as a spokesperson and deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. She is Trump’s sixth chief spokesperson across his two terms.

She succeeds Karoline Leavitt, who left the post on Aug. 27 after 19 months to spend more time with her family and is set to join Fox News as a contributor in November. In the interim, administration officials rotated through occasional briefings; the most recent was held Sept. 15.

Zacharia, a mother of four, told reporters her family would “always be a priority” and would relocate to Washington. She said Leavitt had given her “wonderful feedback” on the role and pledged to keep and expand the briefing room’s “new media” seat, which went to a Breitbart reporter for the first question.

What comes next

Trump was scheduled to travel later Tuesday to Wasilla, Alaska, for a rally supporting Sen. Dan Sullivan, who faces a close race against Democrat Mary Peltola, with rallies in Arizona and Montana planned later in the week.