How do you measure an implosion? Pounds per square inch? Microseconds? A head of lettuce? A Scaramucci? Well, White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is on a run to shatter the scales.
Just a few days into her new gig as the chosen replacement for former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Zacharia is already on the ropes after a series of embarrassing revelations and on-camera fumbles. In fact, she may be tapping out. Fox News reported on Friday that Zacharia is “transitioning out” of her job as press secretary, just days after her first briefing, citing a senior administration official. The news came shortly after Trump told reporters that she should “reconsider” if she wants the job.
“I said to Katie, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” the president said. “I don’t think Katie should be made to suffer like she’s suffered at the hands of the press,” he added.
The crisis began Tuesday, during Zacharia’s very first appearance at the White House podium, where she delivered what was a stilted, over-rehearsed maid-of-honor-esque speech with the kind of flowery language typically reserved for the bride but instead applied to the president. The whole thing lasted only 14 minutes, the shortest White House press briefing on record. Zacharia still managed to make a Freudian slip for the ages — referring toher husband as “my president.” She took only three questions, and practically ran out of the room to meet Trump for a press gaggle before their departure to an Alaska campaign stop.
Her nightmare wasn’t over. Despite standing far off from Trump’s conversation with reporters, Zacharia was caught in the shrapnel. A reporter asked the president where Zacharia, who has referred to herself as a lawyer in past interviews, had passed her bar exam.
“When I moved to China,” she chimed in.
Now, if you are unfamiliar, Washington, D.C., is full of lawyers. It took all of about five seconds for someone to point out that you cannot actually take the bar exam in China — as it is an in-person, state specific exam.
Zacharia’s statement kicked off a rush by practically every political journalist to figure out what the hell she was talking about. She later claimed that she had misheard the question, and thought she’d been asked where she went after law school. Zacharia did complete her law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011, but failed to pass the bar.
“The results are somewhat inconsequential, because I knew I wouldn’t need the bar in China. […] I didn’t really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on, and I was offered a job at an International practice division of a Chinese law firm,” she told right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec in a subsequent interview. “I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice.”
“And I consulted for a very long time many people in the field, ‘Is it okay and acceptable if I label myself lawyer, not attorney-at-law, not Katie Zacharia, esquire, but lawyer, and provide legal analysis, not legal advice?’ And they said, ‘Absolutely, absolutely,’”
So she didn’t ever become a licensed attorney, just a consultant who knows a lot about the law? She did explore other career avenues though, and according to a report from Wired participated in a multi-level-marketing scheme for a fitness company then called Beachbody — which she described as “sort of a pyramid scheme.” Nevertheless, she has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer.
One would hope that it was just the nerves of her first appearance in a historic government role, and that Zacharia would quickly assume the acidic, combative spin cycle of her predecessors. But seemingly every interview since has been its own kind of disaster.
In an uncharacteristically harsh Thursday night interview on Hannity, host Sean Hannity pressed the new secretary on the questions surrounding her background, providing several opportunities for her to spin a dismissal. Zacharia complained that she did not have enough time to prepare for her first press briefing — which she noted was scheduled early on a federal holiday.
“Am I hearing that the staff should have prepped you better?” asked an incredulous Hannity.
Hannity also questioned Zacharia about unearthed social media posts in which she identified herself as an “attorney,” despite claiming she’d never referred to herself that way. She claimed they were retweets where other people referred to her that way.
On Friday morning, she appeared on Fox and Friends — another favorite of the president’s — where she claimed that she had never been asked about her legal credentials while in talks for the gig.
When asked if there was anything she would do differently, Zacharia replied that she was just “grateful” to be there. The hosts noted that she had had a “tough week.”
“Do you think you still have the confidence of the president,” asked host Laurence Jones.
“Uhm, I- I’m standing here,” Zacharia stuttered, not at all convincingly.
The single qualification for the role of press secretary under Trump is the ability to seamlessly justify the actions of the president. Zacharia is clearly struggling to hold it all together. And if she can barely justify her own background, how does she expect to explain all of the lies of this administration?
It seems she will no longer have to.
