Trump told press secretary Katie Zacharia to reconsider her role. Officials say she is leaving after five days.
Katie Zacharia is leaving her post as White House press secretary after five days, administration officials said Friday, hours after President Donald Trump said he had told her to reconsider the job.
Trump told reporters outside the White House that he had urged Zacharia to think again and did not believe she could ever be happy in the role. He said the press had been unfair to her and that the administration was “talking about doing something.”
Officials described the departure in different terms. A White House official told CNBC that Zacharia is “transitioning” out of the role, while two U.S. officials told CBS News she is being removed. CBS said The New York Times first reported she had been fired, and that she is expected to take a new role in the administration, citing people familiar with the discussions.
Zacharia started Monday and held her only briefing on Tuesday, which lasted just over 14 minutes, MS NOW reported. The briefing was widely criticized. Scrutiny grew after she acknowledged this week that she had described herself as a lawyer but did not pass the bar exam after law school, NBC News reported. MS NOW said it found no evidence that she had passed. She defended her performance on Fox News, saying she had little time to prepare.
One aide told CBS News that Zacharia spent the week unusually isolated and did not function as a press secretary, and that some White House staff learned of the change from news coverage. A senior White House official told Axios that Trump is a big fan of hers and that what he told reporters is what he said to her privately.
She succeeded Karoline Leavitt, who left at the end of August after serving since the start of Trump’s term in January 2025. Zacharia’s tenure is shorter than that of Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 11 days as White House communications director in 2017, and would make her the shortest-serving press secretary in U.S. history if confirmed, Fox News reported. The White House has not said who will replace her, and Fox’s Peter Doocy reported that Trump is in “no rush” to name a successor.
This report is based on information from CNBC, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, Axios and MS NOW.