Megyn Kelly never needed a teleprompter to say what everybody else in the room was thinking.
So when President Trump’s new spokeswoman stepped behind the podium, the former Fox News star had notes.
But one name Kelly dropped while delivering them stopped plenty of viewers cold.
A Rocky Debut Handed Kelly Plenty to Chew On
President Donald Trump named Katie Zacharia as his new White House press secretary in October, picking the conservative commentator to fill the chair Karoline Leavitt vacated at the end of August.
Zacharia held her introductory briefing in mid-October, and the whole thing wrapped in roughly 14 minutes.
Critics in the press corps didn’t wait long to pounce. Neither did Megyn Kelly.
Kelly broke down the performance on her show, and she started with the obvious stuff. Zacharia sounded nervous, and Kelly described her as “a little stumbly because she was nervous.”
But nerves weren’t what Kelly really wanted to talk about.
“Part of it is the look. You know, she’s got very heavy makeup on. She’s got the long curls. She’s got some chest showing with the tie. I think she needs to dial it back,” Kelly said.
She didn’t leave much wiggle room after that. “You’re not there to turn anybody on. You’re there to look like a professional,” Kelly said.
And she even put a number on it. Kelly prescribed “20% less makeup, the sparkly eyeshadow,” and then promised, “you’ll get there with the American people if you are smart and credible.”
The Name Kelly Pulled Out of the Fox News Vault
Then came the line that had media watchers doing double takes.
“Roger Ailes will be the first to tell you, when you are in a job in which you need to be taken seriously, you need to present as a serious person,” Kelly said.
Few people in television knew Ailes better. The late Fox News founder built the network that turned Kelly into a household name. And in 2016, Kelly accused him of sexual harassment, a fight that helped end his reign at the channel he created. Ailes denied wrongdoing before his death in 2017.
So the woman who once went public against Ailes now holds him up as the gold standard for looking the part on camera. Folks can make of that whatever they like.
But it says something about the old Fox News culture. Ailes famously obsessed over how his anchors looked on air, and plenty of his alumni still carry those lessons around like a pocket Constitution.
Kelly drew one more line in the sand. She insisted she has “no problem with glam makeup or hair” in general. Her gripe came down to timing. “But I do think you have to earn it, and she hasn’t yet,” Kelly said.
Kelly’s Fox News Wisecrack Sounds a Lot Like a Prediction
And she didn’t stop with Zacharia. Kelly took a swipe at the whole profession while she had the microphone.
“I’m just going to say, I know she’s auditioning for a job on Fox News. They all are. Look at Dana Perino. She was too. It’s been a long line of Republican press secretaries whose real goal is to wind up on Fox News,” Kelly said.
Perino spoke for President George W Bush before landing a long-running gig at Fox News.
And Kelly’s timing couldn’t have been sharper. Fox News announced that Leavitt, Zacharia’s predecessor, will join the network as an on-air contributor beginning in November.
Whether Zacharia has those ambitions is anybody’s guess. She spent years as a regular guest on Fox News and Newsmax before the White House came calling, so the cable bookers already know her number.
Trump Picked a Fighter, and Even Kelly Didn’t Argue the Point
Lost in all the makeup chatter is a simple fact. Kelly never questioned Zacharia’s loyalty or her fitness for the job.
President Trump sure doesn’t. When he announced the pick on Truth Social, Trump called Zacharia “a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.” He also said she has “the respect of, and will work fantastically with, the Media, the American People, and my Administration.”
Her resume holds up. Zacharia served as spokesperson and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, then went to work as a senior communications adviser for Trump Media and Technology Group. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees at Pepperdine University, according to her LinkedIn profile, and she worked as a legal adviser to Fix California, the conservative outfit Trump ally Richard Grenell founded.
Zacharia told Fox News the President “loved what a fighter I was for him.”
Leavitt sounded just as fired up. “As I told the President, Katie has my full support and I will be cheering for her and the entire team at the White House every day,” Leavitt wrote on social media.
Late-Night Hosts Smell Blood, and the Kelly Clip Hands Them Ammunition
Here’s where the story gets more interesting than a debate over eyeshadow.
Kelly’s critique comes from inside the tent. She told viewers she’s handed out this kind of advice before, saying “it’s advice I’ve given to other officials, cabinet officials and others in the Trump administration, and I think some of them took my advice and were very well served by it.”
That’s tough love from somebody who wants the team to win. You can argue with the delivery. Plenty of people will.
But the Hollywood crowd plays an entirely different game. Jimmy Kimmel jumped on the rocky debut to mock the President’s hire, according to Mediaite. Kimmel’s monologue has served as a nightly anti-Trump pep rally for years, and nobody should mistake his punchlines for honest media criticism.
Sean Hannity, by Mediaite’s account, took the opposite view and waved off the bumpy first outing as nothing unusual. Anybody who has ever spoken in front of a hostile room would probably agree with him.
And here’s the part the Left will conveniently skip. The White House press corps never grades a Republican press secretary on a curve. Leavitt took the podium in 2025 as the youngest press secretary in American history, and plenty of media critics questioned whether someone her age could handle the job.
Leavitt silenced them by getting good at it. Zacharia gets the same shot.
But the clock runs faster this time around. Zacharia steps in with the midterms bearing down and a briefing room that hadn’t hosted a press briefing since September. Every stumble will land in a supercut. Every outfit will get the Kelly treatment from somebody a whole lot less friendly than Kelly.
Kelly’s advice boils down to something any grandfather who ever wore a coat and tie to a job interview would recognize. Look the part first. Win the room. Then do as you please.
Whether Zacharia takes the advice is her call. Kelly, for her part, wrapped it up in four words: “So dial it back.”
Sources: Mediaite, “Megyn Kelly Goes Off on Katie Zacharia’s Physical Appearance: Roger Ailes Would Say ‘You Need to Present as a Serious Person’”; Associated Press via Boston Globe, “Trump names commentator Katie Zacharia of his media company as next White House press secretary”; CNN via KRDO, “Trump selects Katie Zacharia as next White House press secretary”; The National Desk, “New White House press secretary to hold first press conference this week”; News9, “Trump picks Katie Zacharia as next White House press secretary”; Israel National News, Trump announcement of Zacharia appointment; The Christian Post, “Who is Katie Zacharia: 5 things to know about Trump’s new White House press secretary”; Voz, “Trump announces new White House press secretary will take office Monday”
