told The New York Times<\/a> on Wednesday evening that she was once advised by a president of Pepperdine University that it was OK for her to identify as a lawyer on television. She told Mr. Posobiec on Thursday that she \u201cconsulted for a very long time many people in the field\u201d and was told it was \u201cabsolutely\u201d acceptable to call herself a lawyer.<\/p>\n\u201cI never came across as someone who was an attorney at law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In her brief conversation with The Times, Ms. Zacharia declined to say which president of Pepperdine had advised her. She graduated from law school there in 2011. Andrew K. Benton was the university\u2019s president at that time. In 2019, Jim Gash became the president.<\/p>\n
Mr. Benton said in a phone call on Thursday that he was not the one who advised her, though he did call her \u201ca young woman of high integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative for Mr. Gash said \u201che does not comment on private conversations,\u201d but released a statement from him: \u201cPepperdine is proud to count Katie among our alumni, former colleagues and friends. As she takes on this significant responsibility, we pray that God will grant her wisdom and courage. We look forward to seeing her use her incredible gifts and extensive experience in service to our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the interview with Mr. Posobiec, Ms. Zacharia also described the harried process of her hiring, hinting that she wasn\u2019t really ready for what was about to happen when she stepped up to the White House lectern for the first time.<\/p>\n
She said she was taking her young son to a pumpkin patch last Wednesday when she got a phone call from the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very excited by this phone call from the president, and basically, in short order, flew out on Thursday to meet with him on Friday, and accepted the job on Friday,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The next day, she said she flew back to California to \u201cpack up all my suitcases, because I was only in D.C. with a carry-on bag at a hotel, and packed up two suitcases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday was a federal holiday, \u201cbut he asked me to be in office on Monday, and Monday I showed up,\u201d she said. The next morning, she was standing before a room of journalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cTypically, Jack, briefs are in the afternoon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., where the press secretary has ample amount of time\u201d to prep, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up at 3 in the morning on Tuesday to prepare with what I had,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
She took questions for less than six minutes and from only three outlets. She said this was because her new boss was scheduled to depart the White House later that morning, and she figured he\u2019d want some quality time with the press, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolutely my goal to keep it short, considering he is his own best spokesperson, and he would love, and does love, gaggling with the media as he goes to Marine One, and so I wanted to give ample deference, and not barge into his time,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
The press secretary was upbeat in her interview with Mr. Posobiec, but did seem to understand that she was in the center of a full blaze media bonfire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not watching anything right now, except what he\u2019s doing and focusing on, what the president\u2019s up to, and trying to amplify that,\u201d she said. \u201cI do not want to see any of the other X, or Instagram, or TV right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Posobiec surmised that \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d was likely to take a whack at her and asked whom she would like to be portrayed by.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s coming, yes,\u201d she said. \u201cWho would I like to have play me? Maybe a Scarlett Johansson-type character.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, confirmed on Thursday that she had never passed a bar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1452,35125,137805,93957,24439,9,11,10,137803,137807,137804,137806,1069,1876,137168],"class_list":["post-374520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-donald-j","tag-jack","tag-johansson","tag-katie","tag-legal-profession","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-pepperdine-university","tag-posobiec","tag-real-americas-voice-llc","tag-scarlett","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-zacharia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}