DOMINANT ANGLE
Brussels sees Katie Zacharia's ousting as a saga of American domestic politics, where a series of blunders precipitates the departure of a spokesperson after just five days.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
Katie Zacharia will have served as White House spokesperson for only five days (La Libre Belgique).
- 02
Her first press conference, on October 13, was deemed the shortest ever held: only three questions (VRT NWS, citing the BBC).
- 03
Donald Trump stated: "If I were her, I would reconsider," leaving the decision to Zacharia (VRT NWS).
ANALYSIS
Brussels, 16 October 2026. For the Belgian press, Katie Zacharia's departure is first and foremost a chronicle of a rapid shipwreck. The VRT announces that she is leaving her position as White House spokesperson "after just a few days" after taking office, which the White House confirmed to the BBC. La Libre Belgique specifies that she "will have only stayed in office for five days".
The account lingers on the first press conference, held on 13 October. The VRT, which relays the BBC, presents it as the shortest briefing in White House history: only three questions, including just one critical one, about whether the United States would stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine. La Libre mentions "stammering and hesitation" and a slip-up, "my president", when she meant to talk about her husband. It quotes former Joe Biden press attaché Jen Psaki, written as "Jen Paski" in the article: this press conference "resembled a Saturday Night Live sketch".
La Libre also portrays a divisive figure: a former Fox News commentator, a supporter of the Maga movement, she supported the "pizzagate" theory and denied Joe Biden's victory in 2020. The newspaper recalls that she replaced Karoline Leavitt, who left at the end of August to take care of her second child, and that serving Donald Trump was for her "the honour of a lifetime".
On the presidential side, the VRT reports that Donald Trump initially defended her, calling her a "very kind person" mistreated by the media, before saying: "If I were her, I would reconsider." He added that he would leave the decision to Zacharia herself and was not in a hurry to appoint a successor, according to his remarks to Fox News. The exact date of her departure remained unclear at the time of publication.
The VRT adds a touch of American irony: Anthony Scaramucci, who himself was a spokesperson for ten days according to the Flemish media outlet, reacted on X by writing that "records are made to be broken" while saying he took no pleasure in someone else's pain. The Belgian coverage therefore remains focused on the internal mechanics of the White House: recruitment, gaffes, presidential protection, and then implicit disavowal, without entering into the diplomatic or legal issues of the case.
