Katie Zacharia has held the White House press secretary role for less than a week – and she’s already been fired.
She gave a clumsy first speech earlier this week, prompting President Donald Trump to urge her to ‘reconsider’ her post, despite originally insisting she did a ‘very good’ job.
Recalling his conversation with her, speaking before boarding Marine One to head to Joint Base Andrews, he said he told her: ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.
‘Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.’
A White House official then confirmed she is ‘transitioning out’ of the position but has not shared a timeline for her exit.
Trump said Zacharia could continue to work for him ‘in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form’, and he wants her to be ‘happy’.
He said she told him that the job was ‘a lot tougher’ than she anticipated, and she could ‘make that decision’ herself on whether to resign.
Zacharia, 42, helmed just one briefing on Tuesday and has been noticeably absent since, with Trump saying the media treated her ‘very, very badly’.
‘Welcome to the world of Trump,’ he later declared.
Still, he describes her as a ‘very nice person’, despite clearly having little faith in her public-speaking abilities.
Zacharia is a political commentator who has frequently appeared on Fox News and Newsmax.
In her debut address, described as ‘painful’ to listen to, she spoke briefly, and observers noted she seemed ill-prepared and nervous.
The whole thing lasted for a toe-curling 14 minutes and involved Zacharia stumbling over her words, even though she read directly from notes.
At one point, when asked how she would manage to keep up with her husband and four children alongside the job, she made the mother of all blunders.
She said her husband was helping with bedtime, adding: ‘My president – sorry, my husband.’
Trying to claw it back, she quipped: ‘That’s a good one.’
Her legal background came under scrutiny shortly after, as headlines questioned whether she had misrepresented herself as a lawyer.
The president called her ‘an attorney’, even though public records show she failed the bar exam.
Defending herself, Zacharia said in a statement this week: ‘I practised international transaction law with all the appropriate credentials.’
And when quizzed by a reporter on when she supposedly passed the bar, she replied: ‘When I moved to China.’
Zacharia told Fox News that she consulted ‘legal professionals’, who assured her it was acceptable to brand herself a lawyer because she attended a ‘reputable law school’ and had ‘legal experience’.
Pepperdine University in California confirmed that Zacharia graduated from law school in 2011, but a degree does not permit her to practise law.
Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog group, filed a complaint with the California State Bar Association on Wednesday, seeking to investigate whether she ‘repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practise law without a license to do so’.
At just five days, this makes Zacharia’s stint even shorter than Anthony Scaramucci’s, who served as press secretary for just 10 days in July 2017.
Trump has had a revolving door of press secretaries between his two terms, with Zacharia succeeding Karoline Leavitt, who held the role from January 20, 2025, to August 27, 2026.
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