Ousted Press Secretary Katie Zacharia melts down in BBC interview

Résumé détaillé

The broadcast comes weeks after Zacharia was dismissed following five days as press secretary

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Katie Zacharia, who briefly served as White House press secretary last month, repeatedly redirected questions about the 2026 midterm election results during an interview on the BBC’s “Newsnight,” focusing instead on an ongoing Senate race in Alaska.

During the interview, presenter Victoria Derbyshire asked Zacharia about statements made by President Donald Trump following election losses that handed control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to Democrats.

Derbyshire noted that Trump had initially expressed a desire to work with congressional Democrats before raising concerns about election integrity days later.

In response, Zacharia raised questions about the Senate contest in Alaska, where the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan Sullivan, faces a challenge from Mary Peltola, a Democrat, as well as an independent candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan.

Derbyshire questioned why Vice President JD Vance did not cite the Alaska contest in a recent social media post attributing the Republican Party’s midterms performance to the war in Iran.

"Why didn’t JD Vance mention the Sullivans and Alaska?" Derbyshire asked. "Does questioning if the election was honest mean that the president is now at odds with his vice president, who clearly said, in a long social media post, it was because of the Iran war, why Republicans lost?"

Zacharia said that Derbyshire was avoiding the subject of the Alaska ballot structure.

"You don’t want to answer the question because you know it’s not fair," Zacharia said. "You know that, that was a set-up! It is so clearly a set-up, and that is why it is being investigated right now.

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