Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Briefs Members of the Media, Oct. 13, 2026

October 13, 2026 · The White House · 0:14:26

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Katie Zacharia held her first briefing as White House Press Secretary on October 13, 2026, in a session carried in full on the White House channel. “I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people as the new White House press secretary,” she said, thanking the President for his trust.

Zacharia framed the briefing around the midterm campaign: she cited the previous night’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, and said the President had announced there that the Department of War had selected Cleveland, Ohio as the new home for the U.S. Navy’s submarine component repair center — a 46,000-square-foot facility, as she described it, to manufacture, repair, and maintain parts for new and existing submarines. She listed further planned rally stops in Alaska, Arizona, Montana, and Georgia.

Taking questions, she praised her predecessor Karoline Leavitt’s opening of the briefing room to new voices and pledged continuity: the new media seat would be kept and, she said, “we are absolutely going to keep it and we’re going to expand on it to the extent possible.”

Why it matters

This briefing is the public start of Zacharia’s tenure in the job this chronicle tracks in its Press Secretary succession record: she was announced on October 9, 2026, and this was her first time at the podium. The briefing-room access pledge she made here — keeping and expanding the new media seat — is a commitment the record can be checked against.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Briefs Members of the Media, Oct. 13, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). Facility details and rally characterizations as stated by the Press Secretary in the briefing.