‘Quite unusual’: Kaitlan Collins reacts to Katie Zacharia’s first WH briefing

[0:00] You're starting as White House press secretary three weeks before a midterm [0:03] cycle that President Trump himself says will be very tough for Republicans. [0:09] Is your job just to speak about White House matters or [0:13] is it to make things less tough for Republicans in the midterms? [0:17] Well, Peter, I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, [0:22] which was hoping to amplify, multiply and expand upon President Trump's [0:28] incredible agenda for the American people. [0:30] And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and [0:35] only build on, only amplify and only multiply to the extent possible [0:40] all of the wins he's making for Americans. [0:43] For Americans to understand how much has changed in this brief period of time, [0:48] what he's been able to accomplish, my goal is to be able to communicate that in [0:52] complete tandem with the President as he is his own best spokesperson and [0:57] will absolutely be leading the way with that. [1:00] And I want to ask you a policy question. [1:03] Has the U.S. stopped sharing intel with Ukraine? [1:06] I'll have to get back to you on that. [1:09] All right. [1:10] Our Chief White House Correspondent Caitlin Collins is joining us right now, [1:14] the CNN anchor. [1:15] Caitlin, you've been in the room. [1:17] What did you think? [1:19] Wolf, it was kind of bizarre because it was a press briefing, but there was only two [1:24] questions that were taken by the new press secretary. [1:28] She came out. [1:29] She read very lengthy remarks, which is not unusual. [1:31] That's typically what Caroline Levitt would do as well. [1:33] She would take a come out and talk about what the administration wanted to tout [1:36] that day, any announcements, anything that was going on. [1:39] And then she turned to questions. [1:41] Actually, let me adjust my count. [1:43] She took three questions. [1:44] They took one from the new media seat and then they took two others from reporters [1:48] in the room and then she pointed to the fact that the president is leaving the White House [1:52] in 45 minutes and that he would answer questions there. [1:55] And so I'm not really sure, Wolf, that I've ever been to a press briefing where there were [1:59] only three questions in the briefing. [2:01] It was quite unusual, especially for the first press briefing, which, you know, [2:05] was widely touted by the White House and announced by the president. [2:09] They did make some news during that where Katie Zachariah announced that the president has [2:13] asked the ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to resign from her job, [2:17] following that damning Wall Street Journal report with those allegations that she was [2:22] basically trying to get Trump donors to fund her in exchange for giving access to administration [2:29] officials, something that Kimberly Guilfoyle, I'll note, has denied through her attorneys. [2:33] But regardless, the White House seems to feel that she should resign from that position [2:37] and the president has asked her to do so. [2:40] But yeah, Wolf, I'm just I'm a little surprised. [2:43] I've never really seen a briefing where there weren't. [2:47] I mean, I've seen a few where there's only a couple of questions, but I've never seen [2:50] one where there was only three questions taken during an entire press briefing. [2:55] So that was unusual. [2:56] So I'm not really sure. [2:57] I'm sure. [2:57] I mean, it started 15 minutes ago, so I don't really know what to say. [3:01] You're still processing it, Gateland. [3:04] I know when she when she closed her binder, I thought, wait, this couldn't be it. [3:07] Right. [3:07] And sure enough, sure enough, that that was it. [3:10] So perhaps in the future, she'll she'll take more questions from reporters like yourself, [3:15] Caitlin. [3:16] But just for our audience, just to take a step back, because this all happened so quickly. [3:19] I mean, it was just a few days ago she was announced and she held this very brief press [3:23] briefing today. [3:24] What can you tell our audience about what we know about Katie Zachariah? [3:28] She was announced pretty abruptly as the new press secretary. [3:32] Obviously, they've been searching for someone to replace Caroline Levitt after she announced [3:36] over the summer that she was going to be stepping down to spend more time with her family. [3:40] And it was a bit of a struggle for the administration to find someone. [3:43] Obviously, being Trump's spokesperson is a difficult job in any administration. [3:47] It always has been famously because he speaks on behalf of himself so often. [3:51] But they had been searching. [3:53] And then they announced pretty abruptly that Katie Zachariah would be taking that job. [3:57] She is someone who is working for Trump media, had a very brief stint at the Department [4:01] of Homeland Security before that. [4:03] But then the president met with her in the Oval Office last week and then announced that [4:08] she would, in fact, be taking over that job and announced that she was starting yesterday [4:12] and that her first press briefing would be today, which is pretty quickly. [4:16] To get familiar, obviously, you've got to, you know, kind of do these practice sessions [4:21] with their staff. [4:22] Normally, the press secretary goes and meets with President Trump himself directly. [4:26] And so they announced this press briefing. [4:28] And so that's why I guess it's the most confusing because this was a briefing that was announced, [4:32] of course, by the White House. [4:34] It was very short lived. [4:36] And we'll see if that continues to be the protocol going forward. [4:40] And you noticed, I'm sure you did, Caitlin, that the initial questions and there weren't [4:45] many, but the few questions that were asked were all asked by reporters who were basically [4:49] sympathetic, supportive of the Trump administration. [4:52] Is that right? [4:53] Well, I mean, I think that they can still get tough questions. [4:58] Peter Doocy from Fox News had asked if they were sharing intelligence with Ukraine still [5:02] or if they had stopped doing so. [5:03] That is something that our reports that are coming out of Ukraine this morning, Wolf, as [5:06] I'm sure that you and Pamela have seen, especially as the president himself has been saying that [5:10] Zelensky should be replaced as the leader of Ukraine amid that fight over his announcement [5:15] that he was buying Russian oil, something the president himself has criticized other countries for [5:20] doing and now says the United States is going to do three weeks after he signed a sanctions [5:25] law that would tariff anyone and sanction people who buy Russian oil. [5:29] And so Katie Zachariah did not have an answer to that question. [5:32] She said that she would have to check and get back on whether or not the United States [5:35] is still sharing intelligence with Ukraine and its partners. [5:39] And then there was a question about Kimberly Guilfoyle. [5:42] That's when she made that news that she was resigning or that you've been asked to resign from that job. [5:46] But Wolf, that was pretty much it for this press briefing. [5:50] Yeah, interesting indeed. [5:52] Caitlin, I want you to stay with us. [5:53] I want to bring in our senior political analyst, Mark Preston and former White House Press Secretary [5:58] for President Bill Clinton, Joe Lockhart. [6:01] Mark, let me start with you. [6:03] You were watching the briefing. [6:04] What are your big takeaways? [6:06] Well, a couple of things. [6:08] Let me just read some of the statements and words that she used to describe what she was talking [6:14] about today and describing President Trump. [6:17] Unprecedented, historic, enthusiastic, record highs. [6:21] Thanks to President Trump. [6:23] No other president delivers on every promise. [6:26] And when asked what her job is, she says, and I'll paraphrase, to amplify and multiply all of the president's wins. [6:34] Now, a press secretary, and I'll let Joe speak to this because I'm just young enough to remember when Joe was the press secretary, [6:39] and I covered him when he was the press secretary standing at that podium. [6:44] The job of the press secretary is to speak on behalf of the United States. [6:48] The job of the press secretary is to calm the fears of whatever's happening around the country, around the world. [6:55] Now, the job of the press secretary is also to represent the president of the United States, even in a personal manner. [7:01] But the reality is, is that she at least was very open. [7:05] Her job is to stand at that podium and speak to an audience of one, and that's President Trump. [7:10] And she had said that he always follows through on his promises. [7:14] Well, we know even hearing from Trump supporters themselves, they don't feel that way in terms of his promise to lower prices. [7:21] You're not seeing that particularly at the pump. [7:23] His promise not to get into wars overseas. [7:26] We have the Iran war now many months in. [7:28] Joe Lockhart, for perspective from you, I just wonder what your reaction is. [7:33] You heard Caitlin there in the rooms talk about just how surprising it was that it was so short. [7:38] She only took a few questions and then left. [7:41] Yeah, I think I agree with Caitlin. [7:44] It was a little bizarre to rush her out there and then rush her out of the room. [7:49] I'm not sure what they were hoping to accomplish, but I don't think they built any confidence in her ability to go forward. [7:56] A couple things struck me. One was she talked about being ready for this job as an extension of what she's been doing. [8:03] And she's been kind of a far right, you know, bomb thrower on behalf of Trump and, you know, the MAGA world. [8:11] And that's a little odd to cite that as, you know, your, you know, your resume for being able to get up there and stand at the podium and speak for the country. [8:22] The second thing is there's there there's just it's not fair to her. [8:25] There is no way for her to be ready to do this job, even under the way Trump defines the job. [8:31] I had said earlier that even after two years with the president, which, you know, Wolf knows because he was in the he was in the building with me. [8:40] I spent a couple of months just going and learning the intricacies of all of our foreign policy. [8:46] That podium is supposed to be an instrument of American foreign policy. [8:50] She got asked a foreign policy question and she just said, I don't know. [8:54] I remember those days when you were the White House Press Secretary, Joe. [8:58] I was the CNN White House correspondent for seven years. [9:01] So I remember all those briefings. [9:03] I was sitting up up near the front of that briefing room all the time and you were available. [9:08] You were ready to answer questions. [9:09] And we all simply assumed based on your knowledge that you were speaking not just for the president, but for the entire U.S. government at that time, [9:18] answering serious substantive questions, not just on national security, foreign policy, but on domestic issues as well. [9:25] Based on what you saw and heard so far, does she have the qualifications to do the job? [9:31] Well, she doesn't have the qualifications to do the job the way I would define it in a way traditionally it's been defined. [9:38] Traditionally it's defined as someone who, yes, works for the president and tries to do what they can to promote their agenda. [9:45] But secondly is the voice for the American people to let them know what the U.S. government is doing, what the U.S. government is doing well, [9:52] what the U.S. government is failing at and trying to do better. [9:55] In the Trump administration, they don't view it that way at all. [9:58] They view it as a place for propaganda, a place for amplifying whatever Trump says, even when they know it's not true. [10:06] I mean, you know, you could do a psychological study on whether Trump believes his own lies. [10:12] But the people around him know when he's not telling the truth. [10:15] And they view that podium as a place to go and amplify that. [10:19] And that's, you know, it's just, you know, propaganda. [10:22] There's no other word for it. [10:23] So Mark Wolf asked Joe if she's qualified for the job. [10:28] Our cave file has been doing some digging in her history and some of her deleted posts and so forth. [10:33] And based on what it found, she has a history of conspiracy-related content in her social media posts. [10:39] What more can you tell us about that? [10:41] Let me, first of all, she has amplified conspiracy theories across social media over the past several years. [10:49] But two of them really stand out. [10:51] One, she's accused prominent Democrats of pedophilia. [10:54] Then she's gone on, which is even crazier for me to say, that she's accused of the Hollywood elite of being pedophile cannibals. [11:03] Now, let me just rephrase that for you again. [11:05] Pedophile cannibals. [11:07] And yet she's standing at the podium right now and she's supposed to be speaking on behalf of the free world. [11:13] So it really does cause a problem for her to at least when she has the credibility issue when she comes out to the podium. [11:21] But again, as I said earlier, she's not necessarily speaking to the nation or speaking to the world. [11:26] She's speaking to an audience of one, and that's Donald Trump. [11:29] Because as we know from past press secretaries, that if you were to go out and you were to say something that he didn't like, he would be raging behind the door. [11:39] So, you know, from her purposes, she's probably walked off that podium and feels like she did a great job. [11:44] But the reality is, I mean, she does have a background. [11:47] Your past does follow you. [11:48] And for her to at least establish any credibility going forward for however long she stays in this job, she's going to have to earn that from the podium. [11:56] She doesn't have that. [11:57] She certainly didn't show that today. [11:59] But, you know, there's still this time. [12:01] But again, she has a history and you have to think that history in itself is going to repeat itself. [12:06] It's going to be very young, too. 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