Why the White House press secretary is out of the job after just five days

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has reportedly been fired from her role after a disastrous first week in the job, according to advisers to US President Donald Trump. Trump reportedly fired Zacharia after earlier telling reporters he had urged her to “reconsider” her role as his top spokesperson. She was appointed less than a week ago, having held her first press briefing on Tuesday morning, which critics said was littered with embarrassing mistakes. She stood at the lectern for just 14 minutes and only fielded questions from three reporters, far shorter than conferences held by her predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in August. Losing Trump’s vote of confidence Earlier on Friday, Trump told reporters he had said to Zacharia: “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.” “Katie, do you need this?” he added. “I don’t think you need this.” While he praised Zacharia’s support, he said of the job, “maybe it’s not for her”. He also told reporters she might continue to work for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form”. “I just want her to be happy,” he said. “Look, she has suffered over the last few days.” Later on Friday, a White House official confirmed Zacharia is “transitioning out” of the position. Fox News‘ senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy reported Trump later told him at a rally in Georgia that he is “in no rush to name a replacement for the press secretary”. Doocy added he understood there is not currently any shortlist of names to take up the mantle, but “a lot of people have been calling him” about the job. A disastrous first week It comes after Zacharia was embroiled in a scandal this week over her claims that she had been “an attorney”. On her first day in the role, Zacharia told reporters she had passed the bar exam, necessary for lawyers in the US to practice law. But in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, she admitted that she had failed the California bar exam in 2011 and never retook it, though she had graduated from law school at Pepperdine University. Fox News reporter Sean Hannity also questioned the press secretary’s shaky debut, to which she responded: “Given the fact that I’d 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.” Stilted press briefings combined with allegations that she had misrepresented her legal background amounted to a disastrous first week on the job. It has been a precipitous fall from grace for Zacharia, who was only announced as the new press secretary on 9 October after making a name for herself as a conservative commentator on Fox News. She previously worked at Trump Media & Technology Group and had also briefly served as a spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security. As recently as Wednesday, Zacharia appeared to hold favour with the president, travelling alongside Trump and his closest aide Natalie Harp on board Marine One, to a rally in Alaska. After just five days on the job, she has become the White House’s shortest serving press secretary, a title previously held by Anthony Scaramucci, who left the communications director role after just 11 days in Trump’s first term. Looming midterm elections A Trump adviser said she is expected to leave the White House in the next few days, according to CNN. Zacharia’s firing marks the end of a tumultuous week for the Trump administration, after the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was fired on Tuesday. It comes as Trump’s camp has been scrambling to various states to lend a hand to Republican campaigns ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November, which polls suggest could be disastrous for the party. The president, whose approval ratings are tanking, is holding a rally in Dalton, Georgia on Friday, and has spent the past few days making appearances in Montana, Arizona, Alaska and Ohio. Zacharia’s exit means Trump is left without his top spokesperson at a critical time for the party and his tenure as president. Democrats, meanwhile, have reacted with glee to the news of Zacharia’s dismissal, with Gavin Newsom, governor of California, posting a black and white photo of the former press secretary to X emblazoned with the words: “In Memoriam, Tuesday-Friday”. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, wrote: “The White House Press Secretary is gone. MAGA extremists continue to fall apart.”