Katie Zacharia out as White House press secretary
The new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, is out of her role just five days into the job, according to people familiar with the situation, after President Donald Trump said publicly that she should think about leaving.
Her departure marked a rare and speedy retreat from a presidential appointment after a rough start to one of the highest-profile roles in the White House.
“Maybe it’s not for her,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday, saying that he would ultimately leave the decision to her but falling far short of a ringing endorsement.
Trump complained about the news media’s treatment of Zacharia, who has been assailed for representing herself as an attorney even though she failed to pass the bar examination in California and is not licensed in any other state. Trump cited two appearances on Fox News—an outlet that the White House generally sees as favorable.
“She’s been treated, I would say, pretty nastily. And I said to Katie just two minutes ago, I said, ‘Katie, you know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want,’” Trump said.
“I said to her, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” he said.
Zacharia’s brief tenure was even shorter than that of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, whose 10-day stint in the administration in 2017 became a byword for the staffing chaos of Trump’s first term. Scaramucci was fired after giving an expletive-filled interview to the New Yorker in which he discussed fellow White House staff in vulgar terms.
“Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” Scaramucci wrote Friday.
Trump didn’t take Zacharia on his campaign trip to Georgia on Friday, an early sign of her changed standing at the White House.
Zacharia did an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday night in which the anchor pressed her extensively on her qualifications and appeared skeptical she was up to the job. Hannity speaks frequently with Trump, and even before the president’s announcement, the Fox star’s treatment of Zacharia was an indicator of her tenuous position.
Despite the “you’re fired” catchphrase Trump used as a reality television host on The Apprentice, the president often is reluctant to fire people, preferring that his subordinates exit on their own when he wants them gone.
Trump announced Zacharia as the new White House press secretary on Friday, Oct. 10. Her first day on the job was Monday. Her first press briefing was Tuesday—and it went poorly. She appeared nervous, stumbled as she read off a written script, took just three questions from friendly media outlets, and retreated after 14 minutes.
She was quickly enmeshed in questions about why she had repeatedly identified herself as a lawyer, despite not being a licensed member of the bar.
After Tuesday’s briefing, she appeared to tell a reporter that she had taken the bar exam in China. She later said she had misheard the question. On Thursday, she admitted that she had failed the bar exam in California and had worked in China at a law firm without practicing there formally as an attorney.
Trump remains fond of Zacharia, according to two people with knowledge of the relationship who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about internal White House considerations.
Zacharia, her husband and children are scheduled to have dinner Friday night with Vice President JD Vance and the second family at Vance’s residence, the people said.
See also:
New White House press secretary calls confusion over legal credentials misunderstanding
Is she or isn’t she? Trump’s new press secretary claims she took the bar—in China
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