Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary after just five days on the job, a tenure that ended faster than any predecessor in presidential history.
Her five days in the role easily beat the previous record held by Anthony Scaramucci, who spent 11 days in President Trump’s communications shop during his first term. Zacharia kicked off her time at the podium with some big news, announcing the departure of Kimberly Guilfoyle as US ambassador to Greece, but she quickly became the news as questions swirled over her legal career.
Day 1
Trump announced Monday, a federal holiday, that Zacharia would be holding her first press briefing the next day. “Katie has been with me, in spirit, from the very beginning, and will do a fantastic job!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Before the appointment, she was the senior communications adviser to Truth Social, after having briefly served as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.
Day 2
Zacharia held her first press briefing before a packed room of journalists. It was a shaky opening as she haltingly read from a script and accidentally referred to her husband, Tyler Zacharia, as “my president.”
Within minutes, critics were asking if Zacharia was up for the job. That afternoon, a reporter asked Trump where his new press secretary, who often touted herself as a lawyer, passed the bar exam. She responded, “When I moved to China.”
The newsletter Popular Information previously raised questions about her legal career, reporting that no record was found of her passing a bar exam anywhere.
Day 3
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school in 2011 but didn’t pass. The Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with the State Bar of California asking for an investigation into whether Zacharia’s claims of being a lawyer broke state law.
The White House pushed back on the complaint, with communications director Steven Cheung calling Campaign for Accountability a “radical leftist organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Day 4
Zacharia went on defense Thursday, with a pair of interviews on conservative outlets. She told Jack Posobiec that she didn’t have time to get fully prepared ahead of the shaky Tuesday briefing.
She told Posobiec that the results of her bar exam were “somewhat inconsequential” because she knew she’d be moving to China. “It’s unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy or want to put me in a camp,” she said. “The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney-at-law.”
Day 5
Zacharia appeared on Fox News again Friday morning and was met with tough questions. “Fox & Friends” host Lawrence Jones asked if she should have told the White House about her legal qualifications during the hiring process. “Those questions weren’t asked,” she said. “I’m being hired as White House press secretary, not White House counsel.”
Later Friday, Trump told reporters he had told Zacharia to “reconsider” the role. “I said, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,'” Trump said. Minutes later came reports that she was out. A White House official said she was “transitioning out” of the role.
The Bottom Line
Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary after five days, the shortest tenure in presidential history. Her rapid downfall was driven by questions about whether she passed the bar exam and misrepresented herself as a lawyer. She defended herself in interviews, saying she never claimed to be an attorney-at-law, but Trump ultimately told her to “reconsider” the role. She is out.
My Opinion
Five days. That is how long Katie Zacharia lasted as White House press secretary. It is shorter than a work week. It is shorter than a jury trial. It is shorter than it takes to read the bar exam study guide she apparently never finished.
The White House will blame the media. They will say the press was out to get her. They will call the questions about her legal credentials a distraction from Trump’s accomplishments. But the questions were not a distraction. They were the story. Zacharia presented herself as a lawyer. Trump called her an attorney. She said she passed the bar in China. She did not. The Wall Street Journal reported she failed the California bar exam.
The real question is how this happened in the first place. Who vetted her? Who checked her credentials? The White House press secretary is not just a spokesperson. It is the public face of the administration, answering questions on behalf of the president of the United States. If the vetting process is so broken that a person can be hired for that role without anyone checking whether she actually passed the bar, what does that say about how the rest of the administration is run?
