Katie Zacharia reportedly out as White House press secretary after five days

Trump says he urged her to reconsider

On Friday, 16 October, Donald Trump told reporters he had spoken with Katie Zacharia about her future in the job and suggested the post might not suit her. He said he had told her that if he were in her position he would think again, and that she did not have to take the role if she did not want it. Trump said the decision was hers to make, that she had been treated very harshly by the media after her debut, and that he simply wanted her to be happy.

“I think you're better off being happy, and I'm not sure you can ever be happy in this stuff.”

Trump also said he wanted to speak with her again soon, and he praised her loyalty while doubting that the role was right for her.

Conflicting reports on her departure

Fox News, citing a White House source, reported that Zacharia was on her way out of the post, although the source did not explain what that meant. The New York Times, citing three White House sources, reported that she had been fired. A senior adviser to Trump told Axios she would probably leave within a few days. Members of Zacharia's family later confirmed her decision to leave, according to Rzeczpospolita, and the president did not announce that she was leaving.

A brief tenure and a rocky debut

Zacharia began work on 12 October, replacing Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in August to care for her young children. Her first press briefing took place on the morning of Tuesday, 13 October, lasted about 14 minutes and included questions from only three reporters. Critics said the appearance was marked by verbal stumbles and embarrassing mistakes, and the White House said in a statement that she had made a strong debut and presented the president's record with conviction.

Questions over her legal credentials

Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University in 2011 and had described herself as a legal adviser to a conservative nonprofit, while also saying she had worked as a lawyer at a Beijing firm. On Thursday, 15 October, in an interview with Fox News, she acknowledged that she had failed the California bar exam and never retook it. She said the exam did not matter to her because she planned to move to China, and that she sat it so she would not be recorded as withdrawn. She said experts had told her the title was acceptable with a Juris Doctor and international experience, provided she gave no paid legal advice, and described 15 social media posts that labeled her an attorney as retweets that she had corrected.

Katie Pavlich, a NewsNation host, wrote on X that Zacharia had lied to the president to get the job, arguing that failing the exam is normal but that claiming to be a lawyer for years is not. The controversy followed Trump's own introduction of Zacharia as an attorney when he announced her appointment.