You're starting. It's White House press secretary three weeks before a midterm cycle that President Trump himself says will be very tough for Republicans. Is your job just to speak about White House matters, or is it to make things less tough for Republicans in the midterms?
Well, Peter, I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply to the extent possible. All of the wins he's making for Americans, for Americans to understand how much has changed in this brief period of time, what he's been able to accomplish. My goal is to be able to communicate that in complete tandem with the president, as he is his own best spokesperson, and will absolutely be leading the way with that.
And I want to ask you a policy question. Has the U.S. stopped sharing intel with Ukraine?
I'll have to get back to you on that.
Our chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, is joining us right now, the CNN anchor. Kaitlan, you've been in the room. What did you think?
Wolf, it was kind of bizarre because it was a press briefing, but there were only two questions that were taken by the new press secretary. She came out, she read very lengthy remarks, which is not unusual. That's typically what Caroline Leavitt would do as well. She would come out and talk about what the administration wanted to tell that day, any announcement, anything that was going on. And then she turned to questions. Oh, actually, let me adjust my count. She took three questions. They took one from the new media and then they took two others from reporters in the room. And then she pointed to the fact that the president is leaving the White House in 45 minutes, and that he would answer questions there. And so, I'm not really sure, Wolf, that I've ever been to a press briefing where there were only three questions in the briefing. It was quite unusual, especially for the first press briefing, which, you know, was widely touted by the White House and announced by the president.
They did make some news during that, where Katie Zakaria announced that the president has asked the ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to resign from her job following that damning Wall Street Journal report with those allegations that she was basically trying to get Trump donors to fund her in exchange for giving access to administration officials, something that Kimberly Guilfoyle, all note, has denied through her attorneys. But regardless, the White House seems to feel that she should resign from that position, and the president has asked her to do so. But yeah, Wolf, I'm just a little surprised. I've never really seen a briefing where there weren't — I mean, I've seen a few where there's only a couple of questions, but I've never seen one where there was only three questions taken during an entire press briefing. So that was unusual. So I'm not really sure. I mean, it started 15 minutes ago, so I don't really know what to say.
You're still processing it, Kaitlan. I know. When she closed her binder, I thought, wait, this couldn't be it, right? And sure enough, sure enough, that was it. So perhaps in the future she'll take more questions from reporters like yourself, Kaitlan. But just for our audience, just to take a step back because this all happened so quickly. I mean, it was just a few days ago she was announced, and she held this very brief press briefing today. What can you tell our audience about what we know about Katie Zakaria?
She was announced pretty abruptly as the new press secretary. Obviously, they've been searching for someone to replace Caroline Leavitt after she announced over the summer that she was going to be stepping down to spend more time with her family. And it was a bit of a struggle for the administration to find someone. Obviously, being Trump's spokesperson is a difficult job in any administration. It always has been, famously, because he speaks on behalf of himself so often. But they have been searching. And then they announced pretty abruptly that Katie Zakaria would be taking that job. She is someone who was working for Trump Media, had a very brief stint at the Department of Homeland Security before that. But then the president met with her in the Oval Office last week and then announced that she would, in fact, be taking over that job and announced she was starting yesterday. And her first press briefing would be today, which is pretty quick. To get familiar, obviously, you've got to, you know, kind of do these practice sessions with the staff. Normally, the press secretary goes and meets with President Trump himself directly. And so they announced this press briefing. And so that's why I guess it's the most confusing, because this was a briefing that was announced, of course, by the White House. It was very short-lived, and we'll see if that continues to be the protocol going forward.
And you noticed, I'm sure you did, Kaitlan, that the initial questions — and there weren't many — but the few questions that were asked were all asked by reporters who were basically sympathetic, supportive of the Trump administration. Is that right?
