The Rise and Fall of Katie Zacharia

Ever since 2017, Washington has used a new unit of time: a Scaramucci. It refers to the 11-day period that Anthony Scaramucci served as a communications director in the first Trump administration. This week, the president’s newest press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lasted just half a Scaramucci. From one short-lived administration official to another, he offered a message.

“Speaking as the world’s leading expert on short White House tenures: turn off the news and go enjoy your family,” Scaramucci posted to X, tagging Zacharia’s account. “In time you’ll realize that the Universe did you a major favor.”

After her departure was announced, Zacharia said in a statement, “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.”

In the past seven days, Zacharia flew from California to Washington, accepted a job offer from Trump, hosted the shortest-ever briefing in the Brady Briefing Room, went on a campaign trip with the president, and attempted to salvage her image with friendly media. When even that fell short, Trump said he had a conversation with her.

“Just two minutes ago, I said, ‘Katie, you know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want,’” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. “She said, ‘This is a lot tougher.’ I said, ‘Welcome to the world of Trump.’ I’m going to let her make that decision.”

Trump then boarded Marine One with an array of White House staffers, but not Zacharia. Unnamed officials told several media outlets that Zacharia is now transitioning out of her role. And with just over two weeks until the midterm elections, the president is yet again on the hunt for a top messenger for his record, which he’s banking on to secure GOP wins.

In an interview with Real America’s Voice, Zacharia recapped her mayhem weekend and the unofficial audition process. A spokeswoman for the Trump Media & Technology Group, Zacharia has also long been a conservative legal commentator on Newsmax and Fox. In Thursday’s interview, she told RAV that she began tailoring her hits to address what Trump was posting, knowing he would likely be watching the clips.

“My philosophy is I’m on TV enough where if he sees me and he likes me, then I will be recruited for the job,” Zacharia said in the interview. “I wanted to work for it … I tracked every news hit to be in accordance with what policies he was pushing forward, particularly on Truth Social since I was the senior communications advisor for Trump Media and Technology Group and Truth Social, where I would track what’s important to President Trump.”

After flying from California to Washington, she arrived at the White House last Friday for a job interview with Trump. That same day, the president posted to Truth Social that he had offered her the job. Over the weekend, Zacharia flew back home to California, where she most recently lived with her husband and four children, ages 12 and under. Then she flew back to Washington, her husband began moving the family, and Zacharia spent the Monday federal holiday getting onboarded. She started to receive the briefing materials as Trump announced, again via Truth Social, that her first briefing would be Tuesday morning. Zacharia said she hadn’t received confirmed briefing materials until around an hour before.

Amid the mayhem, it’s unclear when the White House conducted its standard vetting. In that vacuum, the media did. Reporters found that while Zacharia had often referred to herself as a lawyer, there was no record she had passed the bar after graduating with a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University. When asked where she passed the bar exam, Zacharia said, “When I moved to China,” but later said she misheard the question.

But reporters also grew tired of Zacharia’s recap of her schedule as her reason for an unprepared briefing. In a Thursday night interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, she repeated the timeline and her response to the headlines on her status as a lawyer. Zacharia repeated almost verbatim that she was in the middle of a wedding and a move to China where her husband had accepted a job with a private equity firm. She called the bar results “inconsequential.” Hannity critiqued the comms strategy.

“You said you consulted with many people and they advised you it was okay to call yourself a lawyer but not an attorney, correct?” he asked. Zacharia answered, “Correct.” Hannity then pointed to social media clips showing at least 15 instances where Zacharia referred to herself as an attorney in media interviews. She characterized them as retweets. But Trump’s own post announcing her hire referred to her as an attorney.

“I’ve known a lot of press secretaries over the years, and following on the heels of Karoline Leavitt is very tough. And speaking for Donald Trump makes everything tougher,” Hannity said. “Why get into the long, drawn-out definition difference between lawyer and attorney? Why didn’t you just say, ‘I didn’t practice law’?”

Hannity further grilled why Zacharia only took questions from three reporters. He asked what she would do differently. He advised her to change her answer about not passing the bar. The hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday morning took up the same line of questioning and asked whether Zacharia still had the president’s confidence.

“Well, I’m standing here,” she replied.

It has not been unusual for the Trump White House to prioritize friendly media sources for administration interviews. But Trump previously praised former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for taking on what he called the liberal media in a variety of interviews and from the briefing podium. In her interviews with RAV and with Fox, Zacharia still delivered halting answers and stumbled over her words.

At the same time, Zacharia was trying to catch up to the media in the race to define herself. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, a former Pepperdine law school classmate praised Zacharia as a loyal and caring friend. She also confirmed that Zacharia personally gave her blessing to speak to RCP, but said Zacharia did not give her any specific talking points.

“I remember her being a very hard worker, always studying really diligently and always making an effort to be really prepared for whatever it was that we had coming up,” Kimberly McCall, now a professor in Tennessee, told RCP. “We went to law school during the recession, so there were a lot of questions about what all job opportunities were coming once we finished.”

McCall said she kept in touch periodically with Zacharia through chats with other women who were in a Pepperdine Bible study with them. Now the group occasionally texts life updates and prayer requests. When McCall’s nephew lost his car in the Palisades fires in California last year, Zacharia loaned him her personal car to get to class.

“I do remember her being outspoken in her conservative political views,” McCall said about their law school days. “She easily made friends with everyone, whether they agreed with her or not, and she was someone who built others up … She also promoted the success of those around her. She really does thrive on challenge.”

One week in the West Wing proved to be quite a challenge. Zacharia was not allowed to bring in her own staff, according to one source familiar with Zacharia’s onboarding. A different source confirmed this account. RCP was directed to Meredith Syms, a special assistant to Communications Director Steven Cheung, for scheduling. Other reporters were directed to a general email to schedule appointments, used after Leavitt closed part of the press offices, citing national security concerns. Furthermore, anonymous sources in the administration began messaging reporters about Zacharia’s briefing performance and were quoted in Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

“It’s like being told to pitch in the World Series when you had never been in the stadium,” the source told RCP. “She was a one-person operator in a 30-person staff with no one loyal to her.”

Another source in the White House press shop disputed this account.

“The president values her and is rooting for her,” the source told RCP. “Sources are trying to create some tabloid nonsense that isn’t true, and she deserves more dignity than that.”

It’s been a long week of crisis communications from the White House to defend, define, and now sideline its new press secretary. And all of it has detracted from the administration’s midterms message.

“There is a certain irony that the problem of her having difficulty taking a lot of hostile questions is best solved by sitting down with reporters and taking a lot of hostile questions,” former Justice Department spokesman and now crisis communications adviser Mark Weaver told RCP. “That’s the crisis communications technique we would normally recommend in a situation like this, but it does not seem to be available to the White House right now.”

He also noted that the past week shows the value of vetting credentials, capabilities, and providing lead time for a new hire, even if it takes longer.

“Sometimes admitting a small mistake can tell your audience that you’re being humble and genuine, and that would be their best path right now,” Weaver said. “Admit a minor mistake in the rollout. Let her rebuild and carry on.”

It’s unclear what will be next for Zacharia. A source familiar with her conversations confirmed to RCP that the president accurately described his meeting with her on Friday. The source also said administration officials are “warm” toward her, noting that Zacharia and her family had dinner with the Vice President JD Vance and the second family at their residence Friday night.

Trump said previously that he wanted more people promoting the White House ahead of the midterms, but the search for another press secretary might not continue until after November 3.

“The reality is that it’s up to the president,” a source in the White House press shop said. “Nobody else can choose the person in this role but him, but he feels really warmly and fondly about Katie.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.