{"id":227781,"date":"2026-10-17T03:12:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T03:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/katie-zacharia-fired-after-five-days-as-white-house-press-secretary-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T03:12:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T03:12:58","slug":"katie-zacharia-fired-after-five-days-as-white-house-press-secretary-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/katie-zacharia-fired-after-five-days-as-white-house-press-secretary-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Zacharia fired after five days as White House press secretary – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zacharia hosted widely panned first briefing on Tuesday and faced scrutiny after admitting she didn\u2019t pass bar exam
Donald Trump\u2019s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired<\/a> on Friday, just five days after she assumed the role, according to a White House official.
Zacharia confirmed her departure from the White House on Friday evening.
\u201cPresident Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man. I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to,\u201d she wrote on social media<\/a>. \u201cIt was an honor to work for him.\u201d
Zacharia, a little-known conservative political commentator prior to her selection as the president\u2019s chief spokesperson, came under immediate scrutiny after a widely panned inaugural<\/a> <\/a><\/strong>briefing on Tuesday<\/a>. The 14-minute exchange was soon followed by a barrage of questions over her legal credentials after she admitted she did not pass the bar exam.
In an interview on Thursday, Zacharia detailed her whirlwind sprint<\/a> to the podium to replace Karoline Leavitt as the White House press secretary, stepping into the role as the president faces multiple headwinds just weeks before the midterm elections next month.
On Friday, Trump signaled that Zacharia\u2019s tenure would be short-lived, telling reporters that he had asked<\/a> his embattled press secretary to \u201creconsider\u201d the job.
\u201cI said: \u2018Is this for you, Katie? Because honestly, you don\u2019t need it,\u2019\u201d Trump said, speaking outside the White House. \u201cI said to her: \u2018Honestly, if I were you, I\u2019d reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider.\u2019\u201d
During her first \u2013 and apparently only \u2013 press briefing, Zacharia stumbled through prepared remarks highlighting Trump\u2019s accomplishments in his presidency. She made a notable gaffe when she called her husband \u201cthe president\u201d.
Members of the White House press corps were left puzzled when she departed the podium after only taking questions from three predominantly conservative media outlets.
She spent the next hours and days trying to clarify swirling questions about her r\u00e9sum\u00e9, after reports emerged revealing that Zacharia, whom Trump has referred to as an \u201cattorney\u201d, had never passed the bar exam<\/a>. She later confirmed that she took the bar once and failed.
Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University\u2019s law school in California, and repeatedly called herself a lawyer.
She defended using the term to describe herself professionally, claiming there was a difference between a \u201clawyer\u201d and an \u201cattorney\u201d, a title reserved for those licensed to practice law.
She had previously shared social media posts<\/a> identifying herself as an \u201cattorney\u201d. And when the White House officially announced her appointment, the statement described<\/a> her as an \u201cattorney\u201d.
Over the last few days, Zacharia has spoken with members of the media in an effort to try to move past the criticism and make the case that she was ready to take on the role as the president\u2019s chief spokesperson.
In an unexpectedly tough interview on Thursday evening, Fox host Sean Hannity grilled Zacharia<\/a> about her first press briefing, asking bluntly: \u201cWhat happened?\u201d
Zacharia sought to explain that she had had little time to prep in the days between accepting the job and holding her first press briefing<\/a> and argued that the conservative Daily Mail, one of only three outlets she took questions from, was \u201cnot known to be a conservative outlet\u201d. Hannity, a Trump ally, also pressed her on her decision to identify herself as a \u201clawyer\u201d.
\u201cWhy get into this long, drawn-out definition of the difference between a lawyer and an attorney? Because I don\u2019t think most people see much of a distinction,\u201d he asked.
In a Friday appearance on Fox & Friends<\/a>, host Lawrence Jones continued, telling Zacharia: \u201cYou know, Katie, it\u2019s been a tough week for you. It\u2019s not an easy job to be the press secretary, and you never want to be the story.\u201d
Jones then asked: \u201cDo you think you still have the confidence of the president?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m standing here,\u201d Zacharia replied, referring to the fact that she was speaking from the White House north lawn.
She said she hoped to \u201cbuild the trust and confidence of everyone around me\u201d but could not say when her next press briefing would be.<\/p>\n

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Zacharia hosted widely panned first briefing on Tuesday and faced scrutiny after admitting she didn\u2019t pass bar examDonald Trump\u2019s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired on Friday, just five days after she assumed the role, according to a White House official.Zacharia confirmed her departure from the White House on Friday evening.\u201cPresident Trump is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}