Katie Zacharia’s tenure as White House press secretary was even shorter than Anthony Scaramucci’s brief 11-day stint during President Trump’s first administration. Zacharia lasted just five days.
Personally selected by Trump from relative obscurity the previous week, the 41-year-old faced immediate trouble after her first press briefing on Monday. The 14-minute appearance quickly unraveled as questions emerged about her legal credentials and the years she spent living in China.
She would never return to the podium.
On Friday, Zacharia, a former communications adviser at Trump’s media company, was called to meet the president. Trump reportedly handled the encounter with unusual gentleness.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Trump told Zacharia. “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.”
Allies said Zacharia understood that her position was effectively over. She had arrived at the White House prepared for what she expected would be an “ambush.”
Shortly after the meeting, White House communications director Steven Cheung confirmed that Zacharia would be “transitioning into a new role that will be announced at a later date.”
The announcement came only days after Cheung had insisted that “up and down the White House, everyone has been thoroughly impressed with Katie in just a few short days on the job.” He had previously dismissed contrary reports as “trash.”
On Friday, 41-year-old Zacharia was summoned to meet the president. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Trump told her. “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.”
“She’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats,” Trump wrote in what appeared to be an ill-judged post on Wednesday.
Although Trump delivered the final blow—albeit with considerable restraint—Our News Outlet can exclusively reveal that the decision was orchestrated by Cheung’s boss, Trump’s formidable chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Wiles, known by the nickname “ice maiden,” had reportedly been excluded from Trump’s decision to appoint Zacharia in the first place.
As the controversy intensified, headlines increasingly focused on whether Zacharia had presented herself inaccurately as a lawyer. Trump had referred to her as “an attorney,” even though she failed the bar exam. In an apparent effort to stem the criticism, Zacharia turned to the typically conservative-friendly Fox News.
The strategy took a damaging turn on Thursday night, when Fox host Sean Hannity repeatedly challenged her during a live interview.
Hannity told Zacharia that her first press briefing—during which she appeared unsteady while reading from a script—had been “widely panned.”
He also pressed her on her legal background. Struggling to respond, Zacharia said, “I knew I would be living in China and the result of the bar would be inconsequential.” After law school and failing the bar, she lived in Beijing from 2011 to 2013 with her husband, who had taken a position at a private equity firm.
Sources close to Zacharia said she was particularly hurt by Hannity’s questioning because she had viewed him as an ally.
Despite the difficult exchange, she appeared on Friday morning for a second scheduled interview with Fox & Friends.
That appearance proved no more welcoming.
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“Do you wish you would have disclosed to the president that you didn’t pass the bar?” co-host Lawrence Jones asked at the outset.
The interviews, sources say, hit like a double punch – and the fists belonged to Susie Wiles.
‘Susie gave Fox News the kill order, but Zacharia was an obviously bad choice. This was totally predictable,’ said a senior administration official.
‘Somebody at the White House set her up for a trap in that interview. It only could have been Susie or the president himself. Nobody else is going to be able to make that call to Hannity,’ a second senior administration official told Our News Outlet.
‘When Sean does that, it sends a message that if she can’t handle Fox being a little tough, she’s not going to be able to handle CNN.’
But while the president had been the one to wield the axe, Our News Outlet can exclusively reveal that it was actually Trump’s redoubtable chief of staff, Susie Wiles (left), who orchestrated the execution.
Sources close to Zacharia said she felt particularly wounded by her interview with Sean Hannity, who she had considered an ally.
‘She had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Three days to figure out how to answer a question about her law degree. And she couldn’t,’ said a third source close to the president.
‘She wasn’t going to hack it as press secretary if it was going to take her three days to explain her resumé. Hannity gave her every chance to pivot and she couldn’t pivot. It’s her fault. It’s not the president’s fault. He’s saddened by this. He actually likes her. He wanted to give her a dignified exit.’
Fox News insiders pushed back on the notion of a ‘kill order’, saying it was clear by the end of the Hannity interview that Zacharia had done herself in.
In a statement a spokesperson for the network said: ‘Sean Hannity decides who he interviews and what he asks his guests, period. That’s been true for three decades, through several administrations, and that authenticity is why he’s been number one for nearly 30 years.’
Zacharia told Our News Outlet: ‘President Trump is such a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic and hardworking man – I wish more Americans appreciated him. There’s nobody who will ever come close to making America great the way he has and is. It was an honor to work for him.’
Wiles is now said to be once again eyeing her previous first choice to replace Karoline Leavitt, who unexpectedly stepped down as press secretary in August: Scott Jennings, the Trump-friendly CNN contributor who made a name as a lone conservative voice on the liberal network.
A former Trump official confirmed Jennings is now the frontrunner to replace Zacharia. Jennings did not comment.
As the tide quickly turned on Zacharia this week, with some inside the White House openly expressing their doubts, Trump initially defended his decision, praising her bumbling first press briefing as ‘excellent’ on Tuesday.
By Friday morning, the mood had changed, with Politico reporting that, prior to his meeting with Zacharia in which he urged her to step down, Trump had privately told other officials that ‘she had no talent and shouldn’t be on television’.
In public, he kept the kid gloves on.
‘I told her, “I think you’re better off being happy.” And I’m not sure you can ever be happy in this job,’ Trump told reporters. ‘I want her to have a good life.’
