Last Friday, Oct. 16, Katie Zacharia, a former press secretary of President Trump, was discharged from her job after just five days in the White House. The tenure—being the shortest for White House press secretary in U.S. History—eclipses the previous record held by Anthony Scaramucci, who served as a White House communications director in 2017 for less than 11 days.
Two days after Zacharia was placed in office, she hosted an inaugural press briefing; however, her political debut delivered disconcerting results. During the event, Zacharia spoke for eight minutes where she seemingly read off the script instead of delivering a tangible speech. Afterwards, Zacharia spent a brief five and a half minutes responding to the questions of three predominantly conservative media outlets including Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail.
During the media press, she committed a severe faux pas by referring to her husband as “my president,” raising criticism from the public and the internet regarding her professionalism in the field.
When Zacharia was first appointed to her role, she self-acclaimed herself as an “attorney,” but it wasn’t long before investigative journalists discovered that Zacharia had never passed a bar exam.
Prior to her new job, she earned her Juris Doctor from the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and government. In 2006, Zacharia worked as an intern for the White House Office of Political Affairs and the Republican National Committee during the Bush administration.
Zacharia defended herself by responding that she passed the bar exam “when [she] moved to China,” bringing further criticism about her expertise and credentials to be positioned as a White House press secretary.
After being dismissed from the White House, she wrote in an X post that President Trump is “kind, wonderful, gracious” and that it “was an honor to work for” him.