Press secretary Katie Zacharia tries to defend shaky first briefing: I woke up at 3 in the morning
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia tried to defend herself after a shaky first briefing – claiming she woke up at “3 in the morning” that day and wasn’t given “ample” time to prepare.Zacharia, 42, told “Real America’s Voice” host Jack Posobiec on Thursday that she had a chaotic week leading up to the Tuesday press briefing, where she appeared visibly nervous.The briefing lasted 14 minutes and she took only three questions from reporters. “Typically, Jack, briefs are in the afternoon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., where the press secretary has an ample amount of time to have discussed with all the necessary people, get all the right information, be briefed and walk out, and this was a very different incoming, intake,” she said.“Monday, Columbus Day, is when I got the briefing materials, and then Tuesday morning they were completed.
And I woke up at 3 in the morning on Tuesday to prepare what I had, but they weren’t finalized until – we didn’t finalize everything until about 8 a.m.,” she added. “And I never had a full briefing beforehand and I went out and I effectuated the briefing.”Zacharia – who was chosen to succeed former press secretary Karoline Leavitt – said she was taking her 5-year-old son to a pumpkin patch on Wednesday when she got a phone call from President Trump. On Thursday, she flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump on Friday and accepted the job that same day.She then flew back to California on Saturday to pack her suitcases, traveled back to D.C.
on Sunday and started the job on Monday, she said. Zacharia also responded to criticism about the unusually short length of the briefing, saying it was purposeful since Trump was planning to fly out of D.C.that morning.“Knowing that White House protocol is pretty specific, it was absolutely my goal to keep it short considering he is his own best spokesperson and he would love and does love gaggling with the media as he goes to Marine One, so I wanted t...