Photo: The White House / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Katie Zacharia is leaving her post as White House press secretary less than a week after she took it, a White House official said on Friday (October 16), hours after US President Donald Trump told reporters he had advised her to think again about staying in the job.
A senior official described her as “transitioning out” of the role. The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that she had been let go with immediate effect, and CNN said advisers to the president described it as a firing. Trump himself, asked whether he had fired her, said “No, no,” according to Fox News, adding that he wanted her “to have a good life.”
What Trump said
Speaking to reporters outside the White House before leaving on Friday, Trump said Zacharia had been treated very unfairly by the media and that he had asked her whether the job was really for her.
Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.
Donald Trump, recounting what he told Zacharia
The row over her credentials
Zacharia, a political commentator before joining the administration, was chosen to succeed Karoline Leavitt. She has said she got a call about the post the previous week and was offered it days later. She started work on Monday and held her first briefing from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Tuesday, October 13.
When Trump announced the appointment, he called her an attorney. Questions followed almost at once. Zacharia holds a law degree from Pepperdine University in California, but reports said she was not registered to practise law in New York, Washington DC, California, Texas or Florida. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday, she said she had not passed the bar exam, which is required to practise as a lawyer in the US.
One of the shortest tenures on record
Her five days in the job make it one of the briefest stints in a senior White House communications role. The best-known comparison is Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted about 10 days as communications director during Trump’s first term in 2017.
Why it matters
The press secretary is the administration’s main public voice, briefing reporters on everything from foreign policy to the economy. A quick reversal on such a visible appointment comes as Republicans head into the November 3 midterm elections, where control of Congress is at stake.
Al Jazeera’s White House correspondent Kimberly Halkett said the doubts over her credentials, along with a shaky performance at the podium, had sealed her fate, and that the episode risked making the president look impulsive at a time when his campaign was already under criticism.
What happens next
No successor has been named. Fox News reported that Trump said there was no rush to fill the post, which leaves the White House without a permanent chief spokesperson less than three weeks before voters go to the polls.
