10/12/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19q3bwzhvv/
Katie Zacharia was almost aborted.
Her biological mother was 19 years old, and her abortion appointment was less than 30 minutes away when a Christian counselor called and urged her to place her baby for adoption instead.
On Friday, President Trump selected that baby to be the next White House press secretary.
Katie has never hidden how close she came. In a 2025 interview with podcast host Gates Garcia, she said she was "approximately 20, 30 minutes away from being aborted."
Her birth mother took the counselor's advice and chose open adoption. Katie was adopted as a newborn, and at 18 she met the woman who gave her life. Now she will step into the role Karoline Leavitt left in August.
Somewhere in this country is a counselor who made one phone call on one ordinary day. That counselor had no way of knowing the baby would grow up to earn a law degree, raise four children of her own, and one day speak for the President of the United States.
The call was made because a scared teenager and her unborn child were worth the effort.
Every pregnancy center volunteer and every counselor who picks up the phone at the end of a long shift should hear this story and take heart.
Katie has not wasted the life she was given. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees at Pepperdine University.
As a student she interned at the Republican National Committee and in the White House Office of Political Affairs under President George W. Bush.
After law school she worked at a firm in Beijing and with an organization that cared for the children of migrant workers. She has served as general counsel for Fix California, the group founded by Ric Grenell, and became a familiar face to Fox News and Newsmax viewers.
Earlier this year she served as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.
Most recently she has been a senior communications adviser at Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social.
President Trump praised her "unblemished record of support" and wrote that he is confident she "will deliver strong results for our Country."
Katie called the appointment "the honor of a lifetime." The White House has not yet said when she will start.
Her faith and her own story shape how she sees the life issue.
She serves on the board of the White Rose Resistance, a group founded by Seth Gruber that works for legal protection of unborn children from the moment of fertilization.
On October 2, she shared Justice Samuel Alito's words from the Dobbs decision, which begin, "Abortion presents a profound moral question." For Katie, that question has never been abstract. Every child on an appointment calendar has a future no one in the waiting room can see.
Hers led to the most watched podium in American government.
Her birth mother deserves honor, too.
A 19-year-old with an appointment already made faced a hard choice under heavy pressure. She chose life for her child and then chose a family to raise her. That took courage, and it should be said out loud.
So should our thanks to the adoptive parents who brought a newborn home and raised a daughter who would one day stand in the briefing room.
The work ahead will be hard. Katie takes the podium less than a month before the midterm elections, facing a press corps that will test her every day.
Earlier this year she stepped away from her post at Homeland Security, saying the travel between Washington and California was hard on her family.
This job will ask even more of her husband and their four children.
So please join me in prayer for Katie Zacharia.
Pray for wisdom. Scripture promises, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5). Pray that her words at the podium will be clear and steady, "alway with grace, seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6).
Pray for her husband and their four children, that their home stays strong and close while she carries one of the hardest jobs in Washington.
Pray for her birth mother, wherever she is tonight, that she knows the good that came from her choice.
Pray for the counselor who made that call, and for every counselor, volunteer, and pastor who will make one like it this week.
Pray for the 19-year-old somewhere in America who is frightened tonight and has an appointment on her calendar. May someone reach her in time, the way someone reached Katie's mother.
The prophet Jeremiah heard the Lord say, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee."
God knew Katie Zacharia before anyone made that appointment. He has a plan for every child not yet born, and now He has put one of them behind the podium at the White House.
