By almost any measure, President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has endured a deeply difficult start.
The troubled debut is already being compared—unfavorably—with Anthony Scaramucci’s 11-day tenure as Trump’s White House communications director and Geraldo Rivera’s famously fruitless search for Al Capone’s vault.
Yet senior Trump advisers tell me they believe the greatest threat to Zacharia’s future is not her first performance at the podium, or even the controversy surrounding her apparently misleading claims about her legal background.
Their deeper concern is what remains unknown about her past—a background that, by all appearances, was not fully vetted before she was placed in two of Washington’s most visible positions.
Zacharia, a 42-year-old mother of four, stepped up to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room podium looking like someone who had been told, moments before walking into traffic, that speeding trucks posed no danger.
The extent to which she seemed unprepared—and possibly unqualified—to brief the nation on Tuesday morning was obvious almost immediately. Journalists in the room noticed it, as did White House staff watching behind the scenes, reportedly with their hands over their faces.
Her first briefing lasted roughly 14 minutes. About half the time was spent stiffly reading from a script, while the remainder involved questions from only three reporters. But setting aside the widely mocked performance for a moment, Zacharia had also been placed in an extraordinarily vulnerable position.
Trump had introduced her as “an attorney,” and reporters questioned her as she stood behind him before they boarded Air Force One. Asked where she had passed the bar exam, she answered: “When I moved to China.”
By almost any measure, President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has endured a deeply difficult start
Trump introduced her as “an attorney” before reporters questioned her as she stood behind him on the way to Air Force One
Zacharia later told The New York Times that she had misunderstood the question and believed reporters were asking where she went after completing law school.
She did move to China with her husband after earning a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Zacharia took the California bar exam after law school but failed it. Reuters found no record showing that she was admitted to practice in California, any other state or Washington, DC. That is despite her describing herself on LinkedIn as the “general counsel” of a US company and referring to herself as a lawyer in several television interviews.
There is clearly nuance to this issue, and it deserves a full examination. But that does not resolve the more basic question: Did no one at the White House verify Zacharia’s credentials, employment history or the details of her lengthy period in China with her husband?
Zacharia also appears to have received an exceptionally brief introduction to the job.
Trump announced her appointment on a Friday, and she faced the media by Tuesday. Even an intensive long weekend was unlikely to transform a cable-news commentator into a polished White House press secretary. Still, after watching her debut, it is fair to question how effectively those 72 hours were used.
The rush itself raises questions. The administration presumably could have gone several more days without holding a briefing. An additional week spent learning the White House operation, meeting journalists and building relationships might have eased tensions, helped prepare Zacharia and produced a few favorable stories before her first appearance.
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Our News Outlet reported that Trump chose Zacharia without consulting White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. That may explain why some members of Wiles’s team have appeared less than eager to welcome the new press secretary.
The speed and ferocity with which Zacharia’s new colleagues began anonymously criticizing her to virtually any reporter with a phone were striking—even by the standards of a Trump White House.
Trump called her performance “very good.” Those who watched it without the added incentive of having selected her reached a markedly different verdict.
Both things can, of course, be true: Hostile colleagues and Zacharia’s apparent inadequacies.
The comparison that comes to mind is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin taking Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s invitation to join his ticket: an ambitious politico accepting an extraordinary promotion for which she was unready, with practically no runway to get ready.
There are occasions when the smartest answer to a powerful person offering you a dream job is: Thank you, but no. Zacharia’s failure to recognize such a moment tells us something about her judgment.
While she did not need enemies or skeptics to have a bad first day, folks in those two categories could certainly make the second day considerably worse.
The speed and savagery by which Zacharia’s new colleagues began anonymously trashing her to any reporter with a phone was remarkable, even for a Trump White House
My sources tell me that senior members of Trump’s team are now trading tidbits about her background, particularly regarding her time in China. If anything embarrassing were to surface, they don’t seem particularly inclined to tamp it down.
Finally, the timing for this spectacle is horrible for Team Red. Republicans are facing increasingly frightening midterm prospects and they need help and the White House already has enough intrigue and speculation involving Susie Wiles future, the alleged exploits of Kimberly Guilfoyle and allegations facing former Kennedy Center leader Rick Grenell.
Well, throw another log onto the fire and grab the Jiffy Pop.
This has the feel of the first Trump term, of Peak Scaramucci, days, of Trump against the world, making rash decisions and navigating the fallout.
After all, Trump often prospers amid the chaos. It’s his superpower. The people he hires should be more careful since they surely lack his death-defying capacities.
One longtime and close observer of Trump offers this explanation for Zacharia’s appointment: Trump’s goal is to ‘make the DC establishment howl in hypocritical self-righteous indignation.’
The problem is now this is Trump’s DC. It’s hard to see the upside.
There is, however, one substantial reason Zacharia might survive: Trump hates being told that someone he likes must go.
