Trump fires Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary after five days, advisers say
By Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump has fired Katie Zacharia as press secretary, advisers to the president said, ending her turbulent week-long stint as the White House’s top spokesperson.
Trump told reporters earlier he had asked Zacharia to reconsider her role, all but declaring her brief tenure in the job over.
“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” Trump said he told Zacharia on Friday morning.
He said they would speak when he returned to the White House and he would leave the decision to her. But he did not sound particularly encouraging of his embattled press secretary.
“Katie, do you need this?” he said he told her. “I don’t think you need this.”
It was a remarkable vote of no confidence in Zacharia, who entered the job a week ago. Her shaky debut in the briefing room on Tuesday and persistent questions about her background had led to immense scrutiny from the media and fellow Trump aides. A White House official told CNN that Zacharia was “transitioning out” of the press secretary role, and a Trump adviser said she’d be leaving the White House in the next few days.
Speaking as he was leaving the White House for a political rally in Georgia, Trump said Zacharia had been mistreated by the media and praised her as a loyal supporter.
But he made clear he did not believe Zacharia was suited to speak on his behalf as the government’s top spokesperson.
“Maybe it’s not for her,” he conceded.
A source close to the president told CNN that Trump still respects and likes Zacharia as a person, insisting the way Trump described the conversation with Zacharia was accurate.
That source and another also said that Zacharia and her family are having dinner with Vice President JD Vance and his family Friday night at the vice president’s residence, a signal that the administration still holds her in high regard.
Zacharia had captured Trump’s attention as a conservative commentator on television, and her hiring occurred quickly after other candidates were deemed ineligible because of critical comments they made about Trump.
Her inexperience was revealed quickly, however. At the White House lectern on Tuesday, she appeared nervous and only took three questions. Later in the day, she offered a confusing answer to a question about where she had passed her bar exam, since she’d been described by Trump as an “attorney” when he announced her hiring.
As it turned out, she had never passed the bar exam, she explained in a series of surprisingly tense interviews on Fox News. And she was vague about whether she would appear again in the briefing room.
It all led to deepening questions inside the White House about how long Zacharia could possibly last in the job.
Trump did not initially think Zacharia’s performance at her first press briefing was as bad as some of his advisers had, two sources familiar with the discussions said. However, her interviews that followed — specifically her Thursday night appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity — and conversations he subsequently had with his allies convinced him that it was untenable for her to remain in the role, they added.
Trump remarked to allies and advisers this week that perhaps she “wasn’t ready for prime time,” one person with direct knowledge of his comments told CNN.
Her five-day-long tenure ultimately came in shorter than that of Anthony Scaramucci, whose 11-day tenure as White House communications director in 2017 is now used as a measuring stick for the relative longevity of embattled White House officials.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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