Katie Zacharia out as White House press secretary after just 5 days, tumultuous 1st week on job

Former White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia.

Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary just five days into the new job, according to numerous reports, and following remarks by President Trump on Friday that made it sound like her fate was sealed.

Speaking with reporters on Friday before heading to a campaign event in Georgia, the president said, "Katie's been treated very badly by the media," adding that he questioned her on whether a job in such a hostile environment is something she really wants. "Honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider, he said he told her. "You should reconsider." Trump told reporters the two were going to discuss it further after the event in Georgia.

The president seemed to leave open the possibility that Zacharia could shift to another role within the administration. Her five-day tenure is notably short and less than half the time Anthony Scaramucci held the role for 11 days in July 2017, during Trump's first term.

Zacharia appeared on Fox & Friends early Friday morning, her second interview on the cable news network within 12 hours, and defended her first week on the job, saying she hit the ground running in the high-profile new role. Later on Friday, President Trump suggested she may not be long for the job.

Zacharia was announced last Friday, gave her first White House press briefing on Tuesday, where she broke the news that Trump had asked embattled ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, and answered and handful other questions from the media, before quickly wrapping up to join the president on Air Force One for a campaign trip to Alaska. Shortly thereafter Guilfoyle announced her resignation.

But Zacharia quickly came under fire for her stiff and nervous demeanor during that initial press briefing, and under scrutiny over whether she in fact passed the bar exam. "You know," she said on Fox & Friends Friday, "the legacy media wants to put the focus and attention on me because they want to distract from the major wins President Trump is making for America."

She graduated from Pepperdine University Law School in 2011, but didn't pass the bar exam in California, and then moved to China shortly after getting married. Zacharia made things worse this week when answering an impromptu question from a reporter with a vague answer suggesting she passed the bar exam "When I moved to China."

In China, she was able to practice as an attorney without being licensed, and is not reportedly licensed as an attorney in any U.S. state. However, Zacharia has mostly been working in media in recent years, appearing on cable news networks as a pundit from time to time, before being chosen to succeed Karoline Leavitt. 

Her interview Friday morning came just hours after Zacharia appeared on Hannity, an interview that turned out to be more confrontational than viewers might have expected. Sean Hannity grilled Zacharia over her handling of the questions about her legal background. 

"Why not just say, 'I went to Pepperdine Law School and then took a different career path'?" Hannity probed. "Why get into this long drawn-out thing about the difference between a lawyer and an attorney?" Zacharia said she was distracted with her new marriage and giving birth to four children over six years, and didn't have firm plans to becoming a practicing attorney. 

Hannity also grilled her on why the first press briefing was so short and why she didn't take more questions. Trump's assessment of that appearance, he said Friday, was that "Sean was a little bit tough." He also said Fox & Friends was a little too tough on Zacaharia, too.

Her tumultuous first week combined with the tense interview with Hannity had some questioning whether her tenure as press secretary might approach the brevity of Anthony Scaramucci's notoriously short 11-day stint as White House press secretary in 2017.

Scaramucci weighed in on the drama with an X post on Friday that was directed at Zacharia. "Speaking as the world's leading expert on short White House tenures: turn off the news and go enjoy your family. In time you’ll realize that the Universe did you a major favor," Scaramucci said.

Below, watch Trump's remarks to reporters on Friday afternoon.