Trump's 'embarrassing' new hire exposes truth behind MAGA's 'meritocracy'

New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia holds her first press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, October 13, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

On her "embarrassing" first day at the press room podium, President Donald Trump's new press secretary exposed the sinister truth behind what the MAGA movement means when it claims to support "meritocracy," according to a new piece from MS NOW.

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday morning, author and former White House speechwriter David Litt expressed some empathy for Katie Zacharia obvious struggles in her first press conference, explaining how he himself started in the Obama administration when he was just 24. Despite that, her performance still raised far more questions about her qualifications than she answered.

"Among them: Why all the unnatural pauses while reading out loud from a binder?" Litt wrote. "What’s with the weird hand gesture where she taps her fingertips together? Is she the first press secretary in history to publicly mix up the president with their own spouse? Why did she flee the briefing room after just 14 minutes, only eight of them spent taking questions?"

In fact, far from just seeming ill-equipped to be White House Press Secretary, Litt noted that Zacharia appears to have had "extensive experience at being unqualified for her job."

"According to the investigative journalism newsletter Popular Information, she has repeatedly described herself as a lawyer despite there being no evidence she ever passed the bar exam," Litt explained. "(Later today, when asked which state she passed the bar in, Zacharia replied, “When I moved to China.” I have no idea what that means.) Yet those of us with low expectations were shocked by how poorly she performed."

Litt further suggested that Zacharia's hiring would appear to cast yet more doubt on Trump's 2015 promise to only hire "the best and the most serious people" if elected president, as well as casting doubt on the MAGA movement's overall claim to support "meritocracy." The truth of what is going on, however, "might be more complicated," he added, "And in a way, more dangerous for the country."

"Perhaps the problem isn’t that Trump and MAGA don’t really care about meritocracy," Litt wrote. "It’s that they have a different definition of merit than the rest of us do. Just look at the president’s statement announcing Zacharia’s hiring as press secretary. He pointed to her 'unblemished record of support' and the fact that she has 'been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.' He ended his statement on Truth Social, whose parent company Zacharia once advised, by saying, 'She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!''"

He continued: "These are not what most of us would consider to be professional qualifications... Even Trump’s strongest supporters don’t make hiring decisions this way. Elon Musk clearly gets an ego boost from his legion of social media groupies. But when he hires for his companies or political operations, he tends to choose people he thinks will be effective, not just supportive. Trumpworld functions differently. It’s a mistake to ask whether Trump thinks his new press secretary is qualified or merely sycophantic. For Trump, sycophancy is a form of qualification."

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