Trump 'Picked an Incompetent Individual to Do the Job': Katie Zacharia Out After Less Than a Week
"Maybe it's not for her," Trump said, suggesting Zacharia may continue working for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”
Zacharia, who stepped into the role formerly held by Karoline Leavitt, lasted a total of five days in the job. That's less than half the tenure of Anthony Scaramucci—who departed his role as White House communications director after just 11 days during Trump's first term.
Her qualifications were in doubt from the moment Trump plucked her from an obscure role as a Fox News commentator for the highly visible job. Journalists dug up old posts in which she promoted the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracies, as well as Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
From the start of Zacharia's disastrous briefing on Tuesday, many observers predicted it could also be her last.
She was relentlessly panned after struggling to read through her fully scripted remarks (and at one point accidentally referring to her husband as "my president"). She cut the briefing short after just 14 minutes, taking only three questions, all from right-wing outlets.
It also became clear that, despite Trump's introduction of her as "an attorney," she'd never actually passed the bar exam and had misrepresented her credentials for years.
Asked by reporters earlier this week in which state she had passed the bar exam, she said, “When I moved to China" before later claiming not to have heard the question.
Even Fox News host Sean Hannity—a longtime Trump loyalist—challenged her explanation, confronting her Thursday with a report documenting “15 social media posts where you identify yourself as an attorney.”
“I think they were retweets,” Zacharia replied, arguing to a flummoxed Hannity that sharing the posts did not constitute endorsing the title.
While Zacharia's inability to do damage control appeared to do her in, Democratic strategist Mike Nellis emphasized that the problem was not her dishonesty—a trait that is practically a prerequisite to serve in the Trump administration.
"Katie Zacharia wasn't fired because she lied," Nellis wrote on social media. "It was because she was a bad liar. It's a key distinction.”
To some, Zacharia's tenure represented a disastrous culmination of Trump's willingness to eschew competence and experience for personal flattery and undying loyalty when appointing officials during his second term.
Zacharia said she got on Trump's radar by scheduling her TV appearances when she knew he'd be watching.
While other advisers questioned the pick, Zacharia's appointment was reportedly championed by Natalie Harp, Trump’s ever-present personal assistant and a fellow blonde conservative television personality.
"She looks nice for him," said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on MS NOW. "She fits his idea of the blonde white female standing at that podium publicly pronouncing his noise in a way that makes him, when he's watching it, feel good."
Steele emphasized that with just weeks left before a midterm election widely viewed as a referendum on Trump, "the White House is voiceless."
"They do not have a press secretary in place," he said, "because the president picked an incompetent individual to do the job."
Though very few seemed to think Zacharia could turn things around, she did have one person in her corner—perhaps the only other person who could possibly understand her experience: Scaramucci.
While others bet she would not even last "one Scaramucci," The Mooch himself predicted—even after her disastrous Hannity appearance on Thursday—that "she will make it. I have the over."
Following news on Friday that she did not, in fact, make it, Scaramucci wrote: "Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people's pain."
