White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired after less than a week on the job following her succession of previous White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
On Oct. 9, in a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump announced that Zacharia would be filling the newly-available role of White House press secretary.
Previously, Zacharia served as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, as well as a senior communications advisor to the Trump Media and Technology Group. She also worked as a commentator for both Fox News and Newsmax.
On Tuesday Oct. 13, Zacharia held her first-ever press briefing, lasting about 15 minutes. Notably, Zacharia only answered three questions from conservative outlets: Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail.
Much of the conference was highly criticized, with Zacharia nervously reading from a script for a large part of the meeting. As the briefing continued, Zacharia made numerous verbal mistakes, repeatedly stumbling over her own words.
New York Times reporter, Shawn McCreesh noted how Zacharia was ill-equipped for the role, stating she “did not often give the impression that she had been in the room with her boss.” Her performance was subsequently parodied and criticized by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and CNN.
When announcing her appointment, President Trump referred to Zacharia as an attorney, which Zacharia confirmed. However, during the press briefing, when met with the question of which state she passed her bar exam in, she inconclusively replied, “When I moved to China.” The bar exam in mainland China is only available to Chinese citizens and records revealed that the State Bar has no records of Zacharia receiving legal licensing.
After endless backlash on her performance, Katie Zacharia was ousted from her role as White House press secretary after just five days. This term became the shortest recorded in history, with many making comparisons to former communication director Anthony Scaramucci’s 11 day tenure, who also served under President Donald Trump.
As Republicans face projections of heavy midterm losses and declining presidential approval ratings, Zacharia was meant to steady the White House’s message.
With midterms only weeks away, Republicans will find out whether or not this is a sign of something larger in terms of broader challenges for the GOP’s unified front ahead of critical midterm elections.
