New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia’s first week has been all about Katie Zacharia, when the role should be about the president and his agenda.
Zacharia has been on the defensive, including in interviews with President Donald Trump’s allies, most starkly on Thursday night when the president’s longtime friend Sean Hannity repeatedly challenged her on Fox.
The scrutiny from Fox, which continued Friday on the president’s favorite morning show, reflects serious skepticism about her ability to represent the president going forward.
Hannity called Zacharia’s all-too-brief debut press briefing “widely panned.” She defended herself by admitting she had “very little prep time” since Trump offered her the job during their first in-person meeting about it.
Hannity sounded like he was belatedly vetting Zacharia for the job — unintentionally highlighting Trump’s lack of vetting.
The president’s Truth Social post appointing Zacharia called her “an attorney,” but she failed the bar exam, a fact she acknowledged to Hannity on Thursday night.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski has shown how Zacharia repeatedly amplified stories and posts identifying her as an attorney in recent years. The issue ultimately comes down to credibility, an essential attribute for any press secretary.
“Between her lying about being an attorney and that humiliating debut, I have to imagine her West Wing colleagues are absolutely livid. And I suspect the knives are already out for her,” said Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary in the Trump White House until resigning the night of the January 6, 2021 attack.
White House communications director Steven Cheung has publicly defended Zacharia as “uniquely qualified and whip smart.” On Wednesday, he wrote, “At the end of this second term, she’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats.”
But some White House officials have anonymously questioned how long Zacharia will remain in the role. And many Trump detractors have drawn parallels to Anthony Scaramucci’s infamous 11-day stint as White House communications director in 2017.
“The clock is running,” Scaramucci quipped after Tuesday’s mini-briefing. But for the record, he predicted Zacharia will last longer than he did.
“She clearly can’t handle the podium, but she doesn’t seem like a bad person,” Scaramucci told CNN on Thursday night.
Scaramucci’s theory is that Trump is focused on “bigger things and bigger personnel problems.” Amid widespread expectations of Democratic gains in the midterm elections, he thinks the president is “likely” to remove chief of staff Susie Wiles and defense secretary Pete Hegseth “right after the midterms.”
As for Zacharia, he said, “She probably won’t see the podium anytime soon because she’s not ready for that.”
Conservative commentators are not holding back their criticism. Podcaster Meghan McCain said Friday morning that Zacharia shouldn’t be anywhere near a briefing room.
“One of the biggest problems with the administration right now is every issue facing Americans is serious and all they do is keep hiring deeply unserious people to represent them,” McCain wrote on X. “It gives the impression the administration just simply doesn’t care what Americans think and that their problems aren’t worth hiring capable people with real experience.”
Zacharia’s predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, held one press briefing a week on average. Leavitt stepped down in August, shortly after returning from maternity leave. Fox News recently hired her as an on-air contributor.
Zacharia was announced as Leavitt’s successor last Friday, hours after she flew to Washington to meet with Trump about the position.
The president cited her “unblemished record of support” for his presidency and her regular TV appearances.
Zacharia’s cable news credentials are well-established. She was a popular MAGA defender on cable, including on CNN, while living in California with her family.
However, representing the US from the White House podium requires a different skill set. In Thursday interviews, Zacharia rather candidly said she might not have been ready for her briefing room debut.
Talking with Jack Posobiec, the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist who now hosts on the pro-Trump streaming channel Real America’s Voice, Zacharia said she “never had a full briefing beforehand.”
It was a whirlwind hiring process, Zacharia said, starting with an unexpected call from the president on Wednesday, October 7: “Wednesday phone call; Thursday flight; Friday meeting; Saturday flight; Sunday flight; Monday, Columbus Day, federal holiday. Start work, wants a brief Tuesday morning.”
While Zacharia didn’t say so, the implication was that Trump wanted her out there and on camera as soon as possible.
Zacharia read pro-Trump talking points, then called on three reporters — one asked about Kimberly Guilfoyle, then the embattled US ambassador to Greece, which led Zacharia to announce that the president had asked Guilfoyle to resign.
Speaking with Hannity, Zacharia touted that moment: “I delivered some breaking news. I think I’m one of the first press secretaries to deliver staff changes for the administration, and I was honored that President Trump trusted me delivering that information.”
Hannity, a close confidant of the president, sounded unimpressed with her press briefing performance and her answers on Thursday night.
Anthony Scaramucci tells CNN that Katie Zacharia is “not qualified for the job.”
Anthony Scaramucci tells CNN that Katie Zacharia is “not qualified for the job.”
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As the TV segment’s outro music began to play, indicating Zacharia was out of time, she tried to reassure Hannity: “I will be very prepared, Sean, and I will step up to the duty President Trump has asked me to as press secretary.”
Later in the evening, Trump indicated he had watched the broadcast because he posted on Truth Social praising one of Hannity’s other guests.
On Friday morning, “Fox & Friends” co-host (and Hannity’s fiancée) Ainsley Earhardt referenced the previous interview and expressed sympathy for Zacharia. “You were just thrown into this role,” she remarked.
“Fox & Friends” interviews with Trump administration officials are often genial, but Earhardt’s fellow co-hosts appeared skeptical. “It’s been a tough week for you,” Lawrence Jones said to her.
Jones asked whether she wished she had told the president she never passed the bar exam — a fact that emerged amid days of press scrutiny of her background.
“Those questions weren’t asked,” she said. “I’m being hired as White House press secretary, not White House counsel.”
Even as the Fox hosts — known for their Trump boosterism — scrutinized her credentials and credibility, Zacharia pivoted to blaming the “legacy media,” arguing that unnamed other outlets want to “put the focus and attention on me” because they “want to be distracted from the major wins that President Trump is making for America.”
When Earhardt asked when the next press briefing would be, Zacharia didn’t say. Then Jones asked: “Do you think you still have the confidence of the president?”
“I’m standing here,” Zacharia responded, referring to the fact that she was live from the White House North Lawn.
When the interview ended, Zacharia said hello to a crowd of reporters gathered outside, but declined to answer any questions.
“I’m not taking any questions, but I wanted to let you know I’m looking forward to working with all of you so much,” she said. “Please get my number, reach out to me, call me, text me, email me.”
Matthews told CNN that Zacharia should have waited to hold her first briefing “until she felt adequately prepared.”
“Karoline Leavitt was doing that job while pregnant and was ruthlessly efficient at it,” Matthews said. “Now, much of that involved lying and gaslighting the American public, but she knew how to command a briefing room. And if Zacharia can’t even handle a Hannity interview? She is in for a rough ride.”