Karoline Leavitt left as White House press secretary in late August 2026 after 19 months, and her successor, Katie Zacharia, was removed on October 16, one week after President Trump named her on October 9. The White House had not named a replacement as of October 17. The two exits in under two months show how hard the role has become to hold, and how much vetting now matters.
Updated October 17, 2026. This page was first published August 13 as the Leavitt exit analysis and now covers the succession and its collapse. For the full timeline of Zacharia's exit, see EPR's Katie Zacharia profile.
Who replaced Karoline Leavitt, and what happened to her?
Katie Zacharia, whom Trump announced on Truth Social on October 9, according to NBC News, Axios, and The Washington Post. She was a conservative commentator and Trump Media & Technology Group adviser who had worked briefly at the Department of Homeland Security. After a poorly received first briefing on October 13 and questions over whether she presented herself as a lawyer without passing the bar, she was removed on October 16, according to CBS News. The White House says she is moving to a new role. The job had already been unfilled for nearly two months, and Fox News announced it hired Leavitt as an on-air contributor.
What did Leavitt actually build?
Leavitt did not run a press operation. She ran a content operation, one designed to generate clips more than to inform reporters.
The briefing room became a stage for confrontation. She told the Associated Press she regretted giving them a question. She called a reporter's inquiry "a stupid question" on camera. She labeled a journalist "a leftwing activist" who "shouldn't even be sitting in that seat." She walked off the podium mid-briefing when a question about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's Jeffrey Epstein ties landed too close.
None of that was accidental. Every confrontation produced a clip, and every clip traveled through the conservative media ecosystem faster than the briefing transcript traveled through the wire services. The press secretary's job, historically a liaison function, became a distribution function, and the audience was the base more than the press corps. That is a communications strategy, and whether it is a good one depends on what you are optimizing for.
What did the succession tell us?
When Leavitt's exit was announced in August, five internal names were circulating: Harrison Fields, the principal deputy and conventional pick; Steven Cheung, the communications director and combative pick; Taylor Rogers; Liz Huston; and Margo Martin. None of them got the job. Other names floated since then included Scott Jennings, Alina Habba, Jason Miller, and deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, as reported by the Daily Beast. Zacharia came from outside that group.
EPR's reading, which is analysis and not reported fact, is that the pick weighed loyalty and conservative-media fluency over vetting and briefing-room experience. The outcome supports that reading: the credential question that ended her tenure was the kind a standard background check surfaces before an announcement. The White House now has to choose a third public face for the briefing room ahead of the November midterms.
Where does Leavitt's tenure rank?
The average press secretary serves about two years. Leavitt's 19 months is below that, but within the Trump-era norm, where the role has burned through people faster than in any previous administration. Sean Spicer lasted six months, Sarah Huckabee Sanders 23 months, Stephanie Grisham about nine months without ever holding a briefing, and Kayleigh McEnany about 10 months. Leavitt's run was the second-longest of the Trump era. Zacharia's, at under a week, is the shortest of any press secretary in U.S. history, according to Yahoo News.
The pattern is not burnout so much as the role itself. The Trump communications playbook treats the press secretary as a weapon, not a diplomat. That generates attention, but the person holding the weapon absorbs the recoil every day, on camera, against a room of reporters whose job is to hit back. Leavitt cited family, two young children, and the around-the-clock demands of the job when she left.
What does it mean for political communications?
The press secretary role has permanently forked. One version, the traditional one, serves as a credible intermediary between the administration and the press. The other, the one Leavitt perfected, serves as a performance communicator whose clips are the product, not the briefing itself.
Both work, and they optimize for different things. The traditional model builds institutional credibility, and the performance model builds base engagement. In a media environment fractured across legacy outlets, social platforms, and now AI answer engines, the performance model travels further and faster. Zacharia's removal shows its limit: a performance communicator still has to survive scrutiny of her own record. For the skills that hold up under that scrutiny, see EPR's guide to what makes a strong press secretary.
