Katie Zacharia had been White House press secretary for a matter of hours when CNN published a review of her social media history. By the time she stepped up to the podium for her first briefing the next morning, posts she had written years ago, including some she had deleted, were circulating everywhere.
The story is partly about politics. But it is also a very modern lesson in how the internet works: deleting a post removes it from your profile, not from the record.
The short version
- Who: Katie Zacharia, who replaced Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary on October 12
- What surfaced: CNN’s KFile found posts making baseless pedophilia accusations against prominent Democrats and sharing conspiracy content
- How: some posts are still public on Truth Social; deleted X posts were recovered through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
- The response: the White House praised her and did not address the content of the posts
- First briefing: about 14 minutes, with questions from three outlets
How she got the job
Karoline Leavitt, who took the job in January 2025 at 27 as the youngest press secretary in history, announced in August that she would leave at the end of the month. “Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life,” she wrote on X, calling it a “bittersweet decision.”
President Trump named Zacharia as her replacement on Truth Social, saying she would start on Columbus Day and hold an introductory news conference the next day. “Katie has been with me, in spirit, from the very beginning, and will do a fantastic job!” he wrote.
Zacharia is a Pepperdine graduate with a law degree from the same school. She has worked as a commentator on Newsmax, as a spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year and, according to her LinkedIn profile as cited by NPR, as a senior communications adviser at Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. The White House describes her as the 37th press secretary.
What CNN’s KFile found
CNN’s KFile team, led by Andrew Kaczynski, reviewed her posts on X and Truth Social. Its conclusion was blunt. Zacharia “repeatedly made baseless accusations of pedophilia against prominent Democrats and shared conspiracy-related content, including claims that echoed the debunked ‘Pizzagate’ theory and that Hollywood elites were pedophilic cannibals,” the report said, adding that many of the posts date from 2022.
Among the examples reported by CNN and other outlets:
- A September 2022 post using the hashtag #pedoPodesta about John Podesta, posted the day his move into the Biden administration was announced.
- A September 2022 reply to a Variety article about Timothée Chalamet in which she described “radical left Hollywood elitists” as “sick pedo cannibals.”
- A repost on Truth Social claiming that Joan Rivers “died mysteriously” after making claims about Barack and Michelle Obama.
- A February 2022 repost suggesting Vladimir Putin was fighting a secret network of elites, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
None of these claims have any factual basis. Pizzagate, the 2016 conspiracy theory that a Washington pizzeria hid a child abuse ring linked to Democrats, was thoroughly debunked and led to a man firing a rifle inside the restaurant.
How deleted posts come back
Some of the material was never hidden. Her Truth Social posts remain public. The more interesting part is what she had deleted.
Zacharia deleted an earlier X account in 2022 and has removed some posts from her current one. Brendan Hartnett of The Bulwark recovered many of them using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which had saved copies of her profile pages before they disappeared. Recovered posts included a reply warning Republicans of a midterm “bloodbath,” a reply to Stephen Miller saying habeas corpus should be suspended “for reasons of Invasion,” and a June 2025 reply to Gavin Newsom saying the federal government “should take over all of California.” CNN credited The Bulwark with first reporting some of the deleted posts and the newsletter Popular Information with first reporting several of the Truth Social ones.
The Wayback Machine crawls billions of pages and anyone can request a snapshot of a public profile at any moment. Once a copy is saved, deleting the original does not reach it. The same goes for screenshots, quote posts and services that specifically log deletions by public figures. For someone who goes on to hold a public role, the practical rule is simple: anything that was public long enough for someone to notice probably still exists somewhere.
This is not new. In February 2025, a 25-year-old staffer at Elon Musk’s DOGE resigned after The Wall Street Journal tied him to racist posts recovered from a deleted X account. Musk later said he would bring him back after Vice President JD Vance called for it, with the president’s backing.
The White House response
Neither the White House nor Zacharia addressed the content of the posts, CNN reported. Zacharia said in a statement: “I am grateful to serve President Trump as Press Secretary, and I will diligently and effectively amplify his successful agenda.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung was more effusive. “Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team. She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary.”
The first briefing, by the numbers
Zacharia’s debut on October 13 was short, even by the standards of an introductory session.
| Detail | What happened |
|---|---|
| Length | About 14 minutes |
| Time spent on questions | Roughly five and a half minutes, according to NBC News |
| Outlets that got questions | Three: Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail, per CNN |
| Most of the time went to | Prepared remarks praising the president’s record |
| How it ended | She cut it off, saying reporters could ask the president questions as he left for Alaska |
Reviews split along familiar lines. CNN quoted a White House adviser calling the debut “brutal,” and a former deputy press secretary called it “rather underwhelming.” Trump said, “I thought she was very good,” and the White House published a release titled “Katie Zacharia Delivers Powerful Inaugural Briefing as the 37th White House Press Secretary.”
Why this keeps happening
The press secretary is the most visible spokesperson an administration has, and every word from the podium is scrutinized. That is exactly why reporters go through a new appointee’s posting history line by line, and why old posts carry so much weight when they surface. This administration has not been shy about using platforms to make its point, whether that means proposing to rename an ocean or announcing a new press secretary on Truth Social.
For everyone else, the lesson is the same one this story teaches in a much more public way. Deleting a post feels like taking it back. In practice, it often just means you are no longer the one deciding who sees it.
Sources and further reading
- UNILAD Tech: Trump’s new Press Secretary Katie Zacharia’s concerning internet history revealed
- CNN KFile: New White House press secretary has a history of conspiracy-laced social media posts
- The Bulwark: Katie Zacharia’s deleted tweets
- NBC News: Zacharia’s first briefing
- CNN: Takeaways from Zacharia’s first briefing
- NPR: The new White House press secretary
- NPR: Karoline Leavitt is leaving the White House
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