Trump aides fire back at press over Zacharia firing as they seek to limit damage

Welcome to a new week of Washington Secrets. We take a look at the fallout from Katie Zacharia’s five days as White House press secretary and the questions she leaves behind. Plus, we preview Donald Trump’s trip to Kansas on Monday and explain why strategists picked Wichita for his rally …

The White House went into damage-limitation mode at the weekend as officials sought to curb the fallout from Katie Zacharia’s brief tenure as press secretary and protect Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s chief of staff.

They ridiculed reporting that Wiles had carried out a “sanctioned hit” on Zacharia or that the newest member of staff had been barred from bringing in her own team.

Instead, they briefed that Zacharia had made a series of blunders, from setting up an interview for Trump after a rally, at a time when he had made clear he wanted to relax, to messaging reporters that she had delivered a poor performance in her first appearance at the podium.

The result was more questions about how Zacharia was in and out of such a high-profile job so quickly, and whether the president had been outmaneuvered by his staff.

“The unwritten story here is how the president wasn’t even allowed to have the press secretary he himself had picked,” one Trumpworld insider said.

Zacharia was a surprise choice when she was named for the role a little more than a week ago.

She had spent a few weeks at the Department of Homeland Security but was known mostly as a TV commentator.

As Secrets previously reported, she was quietly boosted by the support of Natalie Harp, who has emerged in the past year as one of the president’s most trusted aides.

Things began to unravel on Tuesday, when Zacharia appeared in the briefing room for the first time. Only a day into the job, she was visibly nervous, and reporters were infuriated when she ended her appearance after just 14 minutes.

At the same time, questions circulated about whether she was qualified to describe herself as an “attorney.”

A person with knowledge of how events unfolded said the writing was on the wall when she gave an unimpressive performance Thursday evening on Hannity, followed by Fox & Friends the next morning. Allies inundated the president with messages urging him to move on from her.

From left, White House aide Natalie Harp; Walt Nauta, personal aide to President Donald Trump; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles; and now-former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia walk to board Air Force One on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

She flew home to California on Sunday, leaving behind a swirl of questions about whether she was properly vetted and blundered through the week or whether she was set up to fail.

Politico reported that the Hannity appearance was part of a coordinated effort to discredit her.

White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez and Wiles “fed her to Hannity,” a source told the outlet.

The story triggered a furious reaction from White House communications officials.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser, said the idea that Wiles “moonlighted” as a media booker was a lie before raising questions about Politico’s motives.

“I’ve long suspected the @axelspringer German-owned newsblog was a foreign op,” he posted, referring to the company that owns the news organization.

Reporters at RealClearPolitics, a conservative site often seen as friendly to the administration, got similar treatment for a story that questioned whether Zacharia had been given the chance to succeed.

“She was a one-person operator in a 30-person staff with no one loyal to her,” it quoted one source as saying.

Miller went for one of the reporters bylined on the story, posting: “First, I’ve never even heard of Carolina Lumetta. And neither has anybody else in the White House.”

“Second, everything about this is FAKE NEWS.”

Zacharia’s tumultuous week could not have come at a worse time. The president is heading toward what will almost certainly be bruising midterm elections in two weeks’ time.

His popularity is at an all-time low, and he lashed out recently at Wiles confidante James Blair and former campaign aide Chris LaCivita over their work in the Balkans when they should be focused on the midterm elections.

Meanwhile, headlines suggest that aides are starting to jockey for position amid reports that Wiles will step down soon.

Zacharia left the White House as gracefully as possible. She posted an image of herself with the president in the Oval Office, thanking him for the honor on Friday.

Her inbox will be filling up with interview requests and invitations to tell her side of the story. No wonder White House officials have been circling the wagons and getting their version out fast.

You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, whom you can reach at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.

Why Kansas?

If you wanted to pick a red state to be a case study in how to alienate Trump supporters, then it would be Kansas.

Transcontinental truck routes intersect just outside Salina, about 100 miles from the geographic center of the country. Need to talk to a trucker about the impact of diesel prices? That’s the spot.

The impact of ICE deportations on the agricultural economy? Head to Dodge City in the west, where federal agents have been raiding meatpacking plants, sending shockwaves through legal as well as undocumented migrants.

Want to know about how Trump’s policies have affected beef producers? Then stop off at a sales ring where ranchers will complain about opening up the country to cheap foreign imports.

And what about farmers, who worry about China closing down soybean markets in a trade war and the price of diesel sending their costs soaring?

The president won the state by 16 points just two years ago, but now it is very definitely in play for Democrats hoping to pick up a Senate seat.

And so Trump is flying to Wichita later Monday to campaign for Sen. Roger Marshall, whose reelection effort has been buffeted by all those headlines. As regular readers will know, Secrets spent a day with him on a tour of Marshall’s Kansas, visiting the places where he grew up and worked.

Sen. Roger Marshall accused his Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton of living in a wealthy, suburban “bubble” as their bitter Senate contest in Kansas heads into the final stretch. (Rob Crilly/Washington Examiner)

A day earlier, we also met James Moreland, a fifth-generation farmer, to discuss just how difficult it has been.

He was just preparing to begin harvesting thousands of acres of soybeans and explained how the price of diesel was going to cut into profits.

Where a year ago a tanker load would cost about $20,000, now it is around $40,000.

“We need new thinking,” he said in his farm office, about an hour south of Wichita on the border with Oklahoma. “We need somebody that thinks for the state here, and cares about our problems.”

He has long been a Democratic voter but said he was picking up a shift among farmers, even if they might not like to admit they planned to vote for Marshall’s opponent, Adam Hamilton.

Moreland said it wouldn’t be until the election was over that anyone would know how big the effect had been.

“You’re going to call agriculture pretty red, but there are some hardcore guys like the ranchers you met yesterday, who are saying this is hitting me pretty hard,” he said.

“But if you go to the local cafe or coffee shop, you won’t find an outspoken Democrat.”

We’ll find out whether Trump has any reassuring answers Monday night. He is due to take the stage at 6 p.m. local time.

Why Wichita

Nothing is left to chance in Trump’s scheduling. And his decision to appear in Wichita shines a light on the Republican strategy in the state.

The city, known as the “aviation capital of the world,” is the main battleground.

Hamilton, the Democratic candidate, will clean up in the suburbs of Kansas City, in the northeast of the state. That is where he founded a megachurch, and he will do well in Johnson County, home to about 1 in 4 of the state’s voters.

Marshall, like other Republicans across the nation, can rely on support in the rural west of the state.

So to win, he will have to run up the vote in Sedgwick County, with Wichita at its center. The county counts for about 18% of voters, including a high proportion of independents.

No wonder Trump is coming to town.

Secrets wonders whether he will address those awkward comments he made recently about Bombardier, one of the city’s major employers!

Lunchtime reading

OJ Simpson, a secret informant and a decades-old mystery: Well, well, well. Secrets is starting to wonder whether Simpson might not be quite so innocent after all.

Trump’s Montana rally – firsthand and secondhand: A former editor of the local paper finds that his experience of a campaign event was very different from how it was reported elsewhere.

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