Katie Zacharia left her position as White House press secretary this Friday, just five days after being appointed, marking one of the shortest tenures in that role in recent history of the U.S. administration, as confirmed to The New York Times by three individuals familiar with the matter.
A senior official from the White House described the situation to Fox News journalist Peter Doocy as a "transition out" of the position, while President Donald Trump publicly denied having fired Zacharia.
"No, no. I want her to have a good life... she has been brutalized by the media," Trump stated to reporters.
The president himself acknowledged, however, that just minutes before speaking to the press, he had shared his doubts with the spokesperson.
“Honestly, if I were you, I would reconsider,” he said, as he recounted himself. “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need it.”
Neither the White House nor Zacharia responded to media requests for comment. Journalist David Alandete noted this Friday that Zacharia did not accompany Trump during his evening meeting with the press, despite having briefly attended to him that same morning.
Zacharia's exit was preceded by a week marked by two simultaneous fronts of controversy: a troubled debut in the press room and serious doubts about his legal credentials.
His first and only press conference, held on Tuesday, lasted barely 14 minutes, more than half of which he dedicated to reading a prepared speech. He only took questions from journalists from Breitbart, Fox News, and Daily Mail, ignoring the rest of the media present.
When asked in what state he had passed the bar exam, he replied, "when I moved to China," a phrase that triggered a wave of headlines.
Trump had introduced her in his announcement on Truth Social as an "attorney," but an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Zacharia took the California Bar Exam in 2011, after graduating from Pepperdine Law School, and did not pass.
The school itself confirmed that it had no record of being authorized to operate under any variation of its name.
In a later interview, Zacharia explained that she did not pass the exam because she was "distracted and overwhelmed" by her wedding and her move to China, and that she did not retake it because she did not need it to work there. She also stated that she had consulted with the president of Pepperdine about how to present herself, and that she was advised that she could use the term "lawyer" but not "attorney" or "esquire."
On October 14, the organization Campaign for Accountability filed a formal complaint with the California State Bar, alleging that Zacharia may have violated Section 6126(a) of the California Business and Professions Code, which classifies falsely representing oneself as a licensed attorney as a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to one year in jail and a fine of 1,000 dollars.
Univision detailed that Zacharia could face legal consequences if it is determined that she lied about her status as a lawyer.
Zacharia replaced Karoline Leavitt, who left the White House on August 27 to focus on her family. Before being appointed spokesperson, she worked as a senior communications advisor at Trump Media & Technology Group since June 2026.
Her tenure in the position was inevitably compared to that of Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 11 days as White House Communications Director in July 2017, the shortest tenure on record for such a role. Scaramucci had posted on social media, "The clock is running," following Zacharia's debut; in the end, she didn’t even complete half of that period.
Related videos:
Filed under: