The new White House press secretary’s old jobs come back to haunt her.
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for 2521 Entertainm
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has shared several articles online calling Democrats pedophiles and giving weight to the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
In Truth Social posts discovered by Popular Information, Zacharia, 41, apparently showed herself to be a deep believer in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory by calling on Fox News to highlight it.
Pizzagate is a right-wing conspiracy theory that originated during the 2016 presidential election and claims that prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, were involved in a child sex trafficking ring. The theory baselessly claims that Clinton and Podesta ran their sex trafficking business out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong.
The theory came to a head in December 2016 when Edgar Maddison Welch traveled from North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle.
Although Pizzagate has been debunked several times over the past decade, Zacharia still seems to believe it.
Get the best of The Beast delivered straight to your inbox
She posted “Pedo Podesta. #pedoPodesta” on September 4, 2022, the same day it was announced that Podesta had agreed to work in the Biden White House.
@katiezacharia/Social Truth
Later in the day, Zacharia, a California native, posted “Hollywood radical left elitists are sick pedo-cannibals. Change your mind.”
@katiezacharia/Social Truth
And on October 17, 2022, she posted a post tagging Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, writing “(O)here’s the report on John Podesta?”
She also reposted an article on Truth Social that said, “Democrats want to hide and rape your children. It’s their satanic agenda.”
The new White House press secretary.
The new White House press secretary has also posted extensively about QAnon, a Pizzagate-related conspiracy that claims Donald Trump is actually fighting a child abuse group made up of elites from the Democratic Party, Hollywood and the so-called “deep state.” Proponents of this theory believe that Trump often sends signals to them through coded messages.
In November 2022, Zacharia responded to a Truth Social user who posted: “Did you notice Trump drinking bottled water last night during his announcement. He drank at least 2-3 times. I haven’t seen him do that at his speeches or rallies. Reminds me of Q posts 765, 767, and 847. Or was that a signal for something else: by land or sea.”
She said, Zachariah replied, “I was wondering the same thing…”
@katiezacharia/Social Truth
Zacharia has previously been called out for some of her past remarks, in which she expressed support for Trump’s baseless theory that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and that Joe Biden was not the true winner of the race. She also advocated for an unconstitutional third term for Trump.
She replaces Karoline Leavitt on the podium, who left the White House in August. The White House did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Zacharia’s conspiratorial beliefs.
Zacharia is a frequent face on cable news.
Michael Ostuni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
Long before her MAGA transformation, Zacharia lived in Beijing, China, from 2011 to 2013, with her husband, Tyler.
While there, she worked as a corporate attorney at Compassion for Migrant Children, according to her LinkedIn. The organization describes itself as “a collaborative effort to provide a framework within which organizations, individuals and businesses can express their concern for the children of migrant workers.”
She previously served as a senior communications advisor at Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. She also briefly worked under Kristi Noem as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, but she left that position around the same time Trump canned Noem.
Zacharia is already a frequent face on Fox News and the far-right Newsmax, although she was not on the payroll of either network.
In a softball interview on Fox and friends after her new position was announced, she awkwardly fawned over her new boss.
“I can’t wait to come in and work for President Trump,” she told the weekend panel. “This work is not about me; this work is about him and how he wants to communicate with the American people. His policies are the most effective, the most exciting. He is the most energetic and intense president we have ever seen.”
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Best value for money
*Substack access provided the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement with Substack. Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Log in
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You are ready!
Thank you for subscribing.
Subscription$0.00
Total$0.00
Gn headline
