The Trump White House will continue to “expand” the new media seat “to the extent possible,” White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia told Breitbart News during her first press briefing.
Breitbart News Washington Correspondent Nick Gilbertson, sitting in the New Media seat at Zacharia’s first briefing, received the first question of the press conference and asked the new press secretary about the White House’s efforts to add new media voices to the pool, as her predecessor Karoline Leavitt did under President Trump’s leadership.
“One of the things that your predecessor Karoline Leavitt did is open this room up to more voices, not less. At Breitbart, that’s something our founder Andrew Breitbart certainly believed in — whether that’s adding this new media seat, adding new media voices to the pool. Can you tell us what you plan to do to continue to ensure that new media voices continue to be heard here at the White House?” Gilbertson asked.
“Firstly, my predecessor Karoline Levitt did an incredible job, and I completely agree with the choice of new media seat,” she said. “We are absolutely going to keep it, and we’re going to expand on it to the extent possible.”
Zacharia added, “We love new media, and we want to be able to embrace it.”
The Trump administration set the precedent for more voices, not less, right at the start of his second term, with former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announcing a seat for “new media voices” that had been ignored by past administrations. Additionally, at that time, Leavitt said the White House would restore press passes to 440 journalists “whose passes were wrongly revoked by the Biden administration.”
“Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media, and other independent outlets,” Leavitt said at the time. “It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025.”
Following the announcement in January 2025, the White House received over 7,400 new media requests in a 24-hour period alone.
WATCH Katie Zacharia’s full briefing below:
