trump's new press secretary went on fox last month to ask barack obama "what is a woman." the podium is hers now. pray for the press corps.

via Fox News, the White House and LGBTQ Nation

The new White House press secretary's most famous question on TV so far is one the right has been throwing at trans people for years.

On Friday President Trump named Katie Zacharia to the job. "It is my Great Honor to have just appointed, as Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia," his statement began, as posted by the White House and reported by Fox News. A little before 5pm Eastern, Zacharia posted her thanks, calling it "the honor of a lifetime."

She replaces Karoline Leavitt, who left at the end of August, as Gray News and Reuters reported when Trump announced it. Trump's statement calls Zacharia an attorney, a "frequent Commentator" on Fox News and Newsmax, and a senior communications adviser at Truth Social's parent company, Trump Media. Fox adds that she served briefly as a Homeland Security spokesperson earlier this year.

what she said about trans people

LGBTQ Nation went through her Fox appearances. The clearest one is from Sept. 25, on The Ingraham Angle, where the subject was Barack Obama saying nice things about women in charge. We watched the clip ourselves. "This president, this man has never, for us, defined what a woman is, and his administration was quite hostile towards biological women," Zacharia said. She said he "basically undid Title IX" and added that under him "you can go into any bathroom you want, depending on what gender you identify as." Then the big finish: "So, I want to first ask, what is a woman, Barack Obama."

LGBTQ Nation also points to a May 30 Fox & Friends Weekend appearance in which she called Tom Steyer's support for trans athletes "out of touch with the California voter," and an older Fox & Friends First segment on California's trans refuge law, SB 107, which she called a "war against our children."

why the podium matters

A press secretary does not write policy. She explains it, every weekday, on camera, and her phrasing becomes the administration's phrasing. This administration has made trans people one of its main subjects, and the person now explaining its policy has, on television, reduced the whole question of who we are to a gotcha.

The briefing room can ask her anything now. Somebody should ask her what a woman is. She clearly has an answer ready.