WORDS OF WISDOM

Fox Host Gives Trump’s New Mouthpiece an Ominous Warning

Katie Zacharia’s predecessors are giving her some advice ahead of her podium debut.

Newly minted White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is getting pointers from her predecessors ahead of her first press briefing this week.

Fox News host Dana Perino, who served as White House press secretary under George W. Bush, warned that Zacharia could be heading into a particularly tough stretch, with the midterm elections just over three weeks away and Republicans expected to face doom at the ballot box.

“Just take it from me, I was press secretary the last two years of a second term. Those are usually very tough years, especially if the midterms don’t go your way,” Perino, 54, said.

Perino also cautioned Zacharia, 41, that the role involves far more off-camera work than many expect.

“What people see is the hour that you’re briefing a day. But what they don’t realize is the 23 other hours of the day is when all of the other work happens, and there’s a ton of that to do,” Perino explained. “You’re responding to press requests, you’re getting briefed, you’re with the president, you’re having to know a lot about everything.

Perino, 54, also explained that when she was at the podium, she felt as though she spent half of her time defending the president’s policies and his administration, and the other half defending the rights of the free press.

Perino also noted that part of the job is having good relationships with reporters off-camera, in order to get things running smoothly.

Trump announced via Truth Social on Sunday that Zacharia will hold her first press briefing on Tuesday. She is replacing Karoline Leavitt, who left the White House in August.

“Katie has been with me, in spirit, from the very beginning, and will do a fantastic job!” he said in his announcement.

Trump still couldn’t help but post another Truth Social tribute to Leavitt just before he announced Zacharia’s first day.

“I just want to pay my respect and thanks to Karoline Leavitt for the fantastic job she has done as White House Press Secretary — Could not have been better!” he posted before announcing Zacharia’s first briefing.

Zacharia is already a frequent face to viewers of Fox News and the far-right Newsmax, although she was not on the payroll of either channel.

But she doesn’t yet appear to be the most eloquent speaker in the MAGA-verse. In a softball interview on Fox & Friends after her new gig was announced, she awkwardly fawned over her new boss.

“I am looking forward to walking in and working for President Trump,” she told the weekend panel. “This job is not about me; this job is about him and how he wants to communicate to the American people.”

“His policies are the most effective, the most exciting. He is the most energetic and intense president we have ever seen,” she continued.

Additionally, Zacharia appears to heavily believe in conspiracy theories, even more so than others within the Trump administration.

She has posted online that Democrats are all pedophiles, shown support for the so-called Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories, and expressed ardent beliefs that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

In 2022, she reposted a crazed post reading: “Democrats want to mask and rape your children. That’s their satanic platform.”

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Annabella RosciglioneReporter

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