Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, faced a hostile Fox News interview on Thursday, with host Sean Hannity pressing her over her disastrous first White House press briefing.
Her shaky debut has already prompted speculation that her tenure as the White House’s latest spokesperson could be short-lived.
During Tuesday’s briefing, the 41-year-old answered only three questions, stumbled over her words, mistakenly referred to the president as her husband and brought the session to a close after just 14 minutes.
When she appeared on Hannity’s show late Thursday, Ms Zacharia may have anticipated a sympathetic interview from the network widely regarded as a favorite of her boss.
Instead, Hannity pressed her on her underwhelming performance and questioned whether she could legally describe herself as a lawyer after never passing the US bar exam.
‘You did not pass the bar exam, correct?’ Hannity asked. ‘Correct,’ Ms Zacharia replied. When he asked whether she had taken the exam again, she clarified: ‘I did not.’
During another appearance on Fox and Friends on Friday, Ms Zacharia was asked whether she believed she still had the president’s confidence.
‘I’m standing here, and I was able to travel with him through all of the midterm rallies, and I hope to be able to build the trust and confidence of everyone around me,’ she said with a broad smile.
Katie Zacharia faced tough questioning from Fox News host Sean Hannity over her performance as White House press secretary
The 41-year-old answered just three questions during Tuesday’s briefing, all from conservative publications
Asked by Hannity how she viewed the awkward press conference, Ms Zacharia said she had been offered the job only the previous Friday and had not been given enough time to prepare for the question-and-answer session.
‘What I feel is I really stepped up to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time,’ she said.
‘Given the fact that I had been on the job less than maybe eight hours, and had a briefing book in the morning, I feel like I did my very best, Sean, to deliver for the American people that day.’
Hannity then asked: ‘Am I hearing that you think the staff should have prepped you better?’
Ms Zacharia replied that she believed the event should have been limited to a brief introduction to the press corps rather than a full question-and-answer session.
At Tuesday’s briefing, she was asked whether the United States planned to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine. Appearing unable to provide an immediate answer, Ms Zacharia said: ‘I’ll have to get back to you on that.’
The short briefing also left reporters without time to question the White House’s new spokesperson about Trump’s controversial proposal to buy Russian diesel or the so-called ‘energy ceasefire’ between Russia and Ukraine.
Ms Zacharia has previously said she practiced law before entering politics, while Mr Trump has described her as an attorney.
According to Pepperdine University, she received her law degree from the institution in 2011.
Most licensed lawyers in the United States first earn a law degree. However, graduates cannot legally practice law without being admitted to a state bar.
Following Tuesday’s press conference, a reporter asked Ms Zacharia where she passed the bar exam, and she gave a confusing answer: ‘When I moved to China’.
Speaking to Hannity, Ms Zacharia clarified that she failed the bar before moving to China, where she said she got a job in a Chinese law firm.
US President Donald Trump speaks with White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia and aide Natalie Harp after boarding Marine One at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska
Hannity suggested she would have been better off telling reporters that she graduated from Pepperdine and took a different career path, instead of continuing to call herself a lawyer.
‘Why didn’t you just say, “I never practiced law”?’ he said.
Ms Zacharia has previously claimed she consulted Pepperdine’s president and attorneys, who agreed that she was allowed to be labelled a ‘lawyer’ due to her degree and legal experience in a firm.
She was not, however, allowed to use the terms ‘attorney’ or ‘esquire’ when appearing on television to offer legal analysis.
Nevertheless, she has shared at least 15 social media posts identifying her as an “attorney” over the past two years, according to CNN.
The posts, published to Ms Zacharia’s X and Truth Social accounts between April 2025 and September 2026, featured Fox News headlines and One America News segments identifying her as an attorney, a title she repeatedly amplified to her audience.
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‘I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said that those not endorsing the title, they were retweets of a title that had been given,’ Ms Zacharia told Hannity when questioned about the posts.
He concluded the interview by asking Ms Zacharia what she ‘might do a little differently going forward’ in her role, before offering her some ‘unsolicited advice’.
‘That’s never going to be a friendly room to you,’ he said.
Ms Zacharia replied saying she would ‘absolutely be very well prepared on the briefing’ in future conferences.
Under California law, those who practice law in the state need to have passed the bar exam, and it is a misdemeanour to pretend to be a lawyer.
In a previous interview on Real America’s Voice, Ms Zacharia cited the advice she said she had been given about identifying herself as a ‘lawyer’, adding that her degree helped support her use of the title.
‘They said absolutely across the board, you can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and, to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law, which gives you the ability to analyse it, not necessarily give advice,’ Ms Zacharia told the outlet.
Katie Zacharia, White House press secretary, and US President Donald Trump’s Executive Assistant Natalie Harp stand outside the White House, in Washington, DC
White House aide Natalie Harp hands pens to President Donald Trump before he signs pardons for Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming at a rally at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Centre
Following the interview, one MAGA account posted on X: ‘Hannity was clearly out for blood. She might not make it to November.’
Semafor editor Max Tani said: ‘Hannity knows Trump watches his show. His decision to ask Katie Zacharia real questions instead of just defending her or criticising the media seems pretty notable.’
Mr Trump was spotted being greeted by his beaming ‘human printer’ assistant Natalie Harp and Ms Zacharia in a photo from their trip to Alaska on Tuesday afternoon.
Ms Zacharia and Ms Harp, 35, sat side by side in close proximity to the 80-year-old president aboard Marine One as they prepared to fly from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage to Wasilla, Alaska.
Ms Harp was dubbed the ‘human printer’ after she was said to carry a portable device to print out social media posts and articles favourable to the president.
She has been the subject of recent public scrutiny because of the nature and intensity of her relationship with him.
She was revealed to have sent Mr Trump gushing emails and was by his side when he covertly switched planes via a catering truck after a Nato summit in Turkey on the basis of a supposed assassination threat from Iran.
Later, during a political rally in Wasilla, the president had Ms Harp bring him the pardons for Zachary Czuback and Patrick Fleming, co-owners of a vehicle repair shop in Anchorage.
President Donald Trump speaks to the reporters as he walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, October 13
Both men pleaded guilty in 2022 to violating the Clean Air Act by tampering with federally mandated and monitored devices that tracked vehicles’ diesel emissions.
Ms Zacharia hadn’t even left the White House podium after her first on-camera press briefing when her colleagues started knifing her.
‘I feel badly for her… her kids and family watching,’ one source said.
A senior Trump communications official called it ‘terrible on so many different levels’, while another called it ’embarrassing’.
A GOP communications expert sent only a single dumpster fire emoji.
As Our News Outlet previously reported, Mr Trump hired Ms Zacharia on the spur of the moment without consulting his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles or any serious vetting.
‘Her hiring and the briefing shows this White House is collapsing now that they’re facing real pressure,’ a senior Trump administration official told Our News Outlet.
‘They have no idea who to hire. We’re entering wartime and they’re completely unequipped.’
Officially, the White House press shop is calling the performance ‘commanding’.
Mr Trump himself, asked by reporters later in the day, offered a six-word verdict: ‘I thought she was very good.’
