Katie Zacharia, Donald Trump's new White House press secretary, held her first press briefing, which lasted just 13 minutes. She spent 5 minutes and 15 seconds of that time taking seven questions from one MAGA blogger and two pro-Trump TV reporters before ending the session.
In less time than it takes to microwave a jacket potato, Zacharia showered the President with praise, took a handful of softball questions, swerved one proper question entirely, and accidentally referred to her husband as "her President," before abruptly ending the shortest ever briefing.
Briefing highlights and gaffes
Zacharia took to the podium for her highly anticipated debut and immediately spoke about how she has always wanted to work for Trump. She then read a relatively lengthy monologue from notes about how great the President is, her eyes fixed on the paper in front of her, with the confidence of a new starter at a call centre reading out the Direct Debit Guarantee for the first time.
She indicated that Trump is energetic, reeling off a string of states he plans to visit over the next week to hold rallies ahead of the Midterms, many of them in states like Alaska and Arizona where Republicans should be winning, but aren't.
Claims and questions
Within a couple of minutes, she told her first lie from the podium, insisting attendance at Trump's rallies is "at record highs, as enthusiastic hardworking Americans are lining up and packing arenas to support President Trump and Republicans" - despite photographs of empty seats at his rallies being all over social media every single night.
When it was time to take questions, she turned to the "new media seat," introduced by her predecessor Karoline Leavitt as a ploy to dilute the actual reporters in the press room with giddy propagandists. Today it was the turn of far-right blog Breitbart, whose representative asked whether she would be keeping the new media seat, and another about whether Trump will be continuing to campaign energetically before the midterms.
Fox News' Peter Doocey asked whether she would be a credible source of information or another lying mouthpiece. Her answer was no more reassuring, saying she was there to tell everyone about Trump's "incredible wins." She swerved a follow-up from Doocey about whether the US has stopped sharing intel with Ukraine.
News and resignation
She then turned to NewsNation's Elina Shirazi, whose question elicited both actual news and Zacharia's first excruciating gaffe. The news was the inevitable resignation of Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece and Donald Trump Jr's ex-girlfriend, who allegedly asked a Trump donor to pay off her $100,000 American Express bill. The gaffe was when, answering a follow-up about her family, she mistakenly referred to her husband as "my President."
In a brief moment of self-awareness, she mumbled: "That's a good one..." And that was it. After gushing about her predecessor Karoline Leavitt in response to one more follow-up from Shirazi, she told the pack that it was all over, and that any further questions should be put to Trump himself before he gets on his chopper to head to Alaska for a rally.
