White House press secretary Katie Zacharia to reportedly leave job after less than a week

Katie Zacharia will leave her role as White House press secretary after a short, rocky tenure defined by questions about her professional background and lack of polish in fielding journalists’ questions, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The person, granted anonymity to discuss a personnel decision not yet made public, said that Zacharia would be transitioning out of the role.

The shift comes after U.S. President Donald Trump cast significant doubt on her future earlier on Friday, telling reporters that he would talk with her following his weekend travel — and that if he were her, he would reconsider the job.

Zacharia came under immediate scrutiny after appearing uncomfortable during her inaugural briefing on Tuesday, when she delivered halting remarks touting the president and his accomplishments. Criticism followed her 14-minute briefing, as the conservative commentator had long called herself a lawyer though she had neither passed the bar exam nor otherwise held any credentials to practice.

Zacharia was a surprise choice when Trump announced her appointment as the successor to Karoline Leavitt, the youngest-ever White House press secretary who was part of Trump’s inner circle for years, on Oct. 9.

The chaotic nature of Zacharia’s appointment and subsequent downfall evoked some of the personnel messes of the president’s first term, which had largely been absent from his second.

In a lengthy exchange with reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said that he told Zacharia that she might want to change her mind about the job, though he thought that the press had treated her unfairly.

“I told her, ‘I think you’re better off being happy,’” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn as he left for a rally in Georgia. “I said, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider [the job].’ I said, ‘You think about it, but I would reconsider.’”

Zacharia did not return any messages seeking comment on Friday, and the White House also did not respond to a request for confirmation. Zacharia plans to have dinner with Vice President JD Vance and his family on Friday evening, according to another person with knowledge of the meal who was granted anonymity.

In his own comments, Trump said that he told his press secretary, “‘Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this,’” and that he wanted her “to have a good life” and not be subjected to criticism, which he likened to being “brutalized by the media.”

The president said that he would make a final decision later, perhaps after his campaign travel on Friday and this weekend, adding, “When I get back, [Zacharia and I are] going to talk.” When asked who might replace Zacharia, he said that many people wanted the job.

Zacharia’s first official day on the job was on Monday

In her first and only briefing on Tuesday, she took questions from just three reporters, all from conservative-leaning or Trump-friendly outlets, and left after only about 14 minutes.

Zacharia said that she wanted to keep her briefing short to ensure that Trump had enough time later that morning for his own question-and-answer session with reporters, and that White House staff had not fully briefed her beforehand.

She later traveled with Trump for his rallies on Wednesday and Thursday in Alaska, Arizona and Montana — but did not hold more press briefings.

In an appearance on Fox News Channel earlier on Friday, Zacharia was asked if she had the president’s confidence and responded, “I hope to be able to build the trust and confidence of everyone around me.” But she also would not say when her next press briefing would be.

Zacharia, a Pepperdine University law graduate, also faced criticism for describing herself as a lawyer in her appearances as a commentator on conservative television outlets. She said that this was the proper term to use when offering legal analysis, and that she had worked as a lawyer in China.

That was part of the unusual amount of skepticism that she faced from those friendly to the administration, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, who pressed the new White House spokeswoman on why she wasn’t forthcoming about her professional background.

Hannity, known to be friendly with Trump, asked Zacharia after she confirmed that she did not pass the bar exam in California, “Why not just say, ‘I went to Pepperdine law school and then took a different career path, and I took the bar once and didn’t pass it’?”

“Why get into this long, drawn-out definition [of] the difference between a lawyer and an attorney?” he continued. “Because I don’t think most people see much of a distinction. Why didn’t you just say, ‘I never practiced law’?”

Zacharia reiterated to Hannity that she wasn’t acting as a lawyer or offering legal advice. And during that Fox News interview on Friday, she said that she wasn’t asked about passing the bar before becoming press secretary. Both she and Trump have said that she was hired to work in press and communications, not as an administration lawyer.

Before joining the White House, Zacharia worked in communications for Trump Media, the company that oversees the president’s social media site, Truth Social. She also briefly worked at the Department of Homeland Security during the second Trump administration.

AP