Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired on Friday, just five days after she assumed the role, according to a White House official.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision, which had not been formally announced. Zacharia had a rocky start to her tenure as press secretary, hosting a widely panned first White House press briefing on Tuesday. She had also faced questions over her legal credentials after admitting she did not pass the bar exam.
Zacharia, a little-known conservative political commentator who spent much of her career in communication roles, was offered the White House press secretary role on 9 October.
In an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, she detailed the whirlwind sprint to the podium to replace Karoline Leavitt as the president’s chief spokesperson.
But on Friday, Trump told reporters he had asked Zacharia to “reconsider” serving as press secretary, after increasing scrutiny and negative media attention.
“I said, ‘Is this for you, Katie? Because honestly, you don’t need it,’” Trump said, speaking with reporters outside the White House. “I said to her, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider.’”
During her first press briefing, Zacharia stumbled through prepared remarks highlighting Trump’s accomplishments in his presidency. She made a notable gaffe when she called her husband “the president”.
Members of the White House press corps were left puzzled when she ended the briefing after only taking questions from three predominantly conservative media outlets.
Questions about Zacharia’s resume grew in the following days after reports emerged revealing Zacharia, who described herself as a lawyer, never passed the bar exam. She later confirmed she took the bar once and failed.
Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school and shared social media posts that identified herself as an “attorney”. Trump had also called Zacharia an “attorney” when announcing her appointment.
She defended describing herself as a “lawyer”, claiming there was a difference between a “lawyer” and an “attorney”.
Over the last few days, Zacharia spoke with members of the media, in an effort to try to clarify her legal credentials and make the case that she was ready to take on the role as the president’s chief spokesperson.
In an unexpectedly tough interview on Thursday evening, Fox host Sean Hannity grilled Zacharia about her first press briefing, asking bluntly: “What happened?”
Zacharia sought to explain that she had little time to prep in the days between accepting the job and holding her first press briefing and argued that the conservative Daily Mail, one of only three outlets she took questions from, was “not known to be a conservative outlet”. Hannity, a Trump ally, also pressed her on her decision to identify herself as a “lawyer”.
“Why get into this long-drawn-out definition of the difference between a lawyer and an attorney? Because I don’t think most people see much of a distinction,” he asked.
On Friday morning, Lawrence Jones, a Fox & Friends host, continued, telling Zacharia: “You know, Katie, it’s been a tough week for you. It’s not an easy job to be the press secretary, and you never want to be the story.”
Speaking to reporters, Trump said the interviewers had been “a little tough” on Zacharia.
“She’s been treated, I would say, pretty nastily,” the president said.