ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Humiliated Katie Zacharia Stunned by Five-Day MAGA Disaster

“She has suffered over the last few days,“ Trump said. ”Maybe it’s not for her.”

Katie Zacharia was unprepared for the brutal backlash to her disastrous White House debut, which ended with President Donald Trump giving her the boot just five days into the job.

The former conservative commentator, who only began working for the administration on Monday, was already facing questions about her credentials and a widely mocked press briefing when the president told her to reconsider her job on Friday, shortly before leaving for a rally in Georgia.

White House insiders say the president had been unimpressed by her debut, and concerned about the coverage since, so much so that he asked aides for their feedback.

But the California-based mother of four had few established allies to back her inside the West Wing, where even much of the press team had been loyal staff to her predecessor, Karoline Leavitt.

Sources told The Daily Beast that Zacharia was stunned and unprepared for the backlash she had received, telling Trump and others that the week had been much rougher than she could ever expect.

By that stage, however, Trump had made up his mind to “transition” her out of the press secretary’s role.

The president himself confirmed as much when he spoke to reporters on Friday and informed them she had effectively been fired.

ON SECOND THOUGHTS

Trump Drops Bombshell on Press Secretary Katie Zacharia

Farrah Tomazin

“I said, ‘Katie, you know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want,’” Trump said. “She said, ‘This is a lot tougher.’ I said, ‘Welcome to the world of Trump.”

“Look, she’s a nice person, a great person, and she’s been treated roughly,” he continued.

“I said, ‘Do you really want to live like this? I don’t think they’ll ever ease up.’ And you know, Karoline did a very good job and I think Katie maybe would too. But Katie’s off to a start that the news has been so nasty to her. I’ve never seen anything like it, actually.”

“And I said to her, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider. You think about it: but I would reconsider.’”

Zacharia, 41, was previously the communications adviser to Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, and an occasional commentator on conservative outlets like Fox and Newsmax.

She also served as a Homeland Security spokesperson under former secretary Kristi Noem, but quit after a few months, blaming the long commute from California for her departure.

Amid this week’s scrutiny, she has maintained that her debut press briefing was not supposed to unfold as it did.

She says she received her briefing papers only on Tuesday morning and would have preferred a short appearance to introduce herself to the press corps before taking questions.

She ended up facing reporters, but spent most of the time reading awkwardly from a prepared script before taking questions from three conservative outlets and then ending the briefing after just 14 minutes.

Asked by an unsympathetic Sean Hannity on Fox News how she felt her debut went, she replied: “What I feel is I really stepped up to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time.”

But the controversy only intensified this week after Zacharia acknowledged she had failed the California bar exam and had never retaken it, despite repeatedly describing herself as a lawyer.

Trump also appeared taken aback when she was asked on Tuesday where she passed the exam, and she replied “when I moved to China.”

The Hannity interview was striking given his status as one of Trump’s most prominent media allies, prompting speculation that it could have been a coordinated hit job by figures inside the administration.

Zacharia’s departure marks another high-profile exit by a woman from Trump’s administration, coming days after U.S Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle departed and following in the footsteps of former Cabinet officials Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Tulsi Gabbard.

Her firing after just five days eclipsed the previous record-holder for shortest modern White House stint, Anthony Scaramucci, who infamously lasted just 11 days as White House Communications Director in the president’s first term.

“Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” Scaramucci tweeted on Friday.

Trump’s decision to reverse course so quickly has also underscored the tensions inside the White House, with reports that he bypassed Chief of Staff Susie Wiles when selecting Zacharia.

He had liked her television appearances, while she admitted she closely monitored his Truth Social posts to align her TV talking points and capture his attention.

Some have compared the episode to the selection of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s successor in his first term. Sanders, who served as press secretary from 2017 to 2019, had brought longtime associate Hogan Gidley into the press office as her principal deputy and presumed successor.

Play Video

But Trump instead installed Stephanie Grisham, the first White House press secretary to hold no press briefings.

“Donald Trump’s White House is in upheaval as yet another official leaves his administration amid embarrassing scandals and sinking approval ratings,” said Kendall Witmer, deputy communications director for the Democratic National Committee.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Zacharia, who a White House official said was “transitioning out” of her role as press secretary. It is not yet clear what is next for the short-lived press secretary, or how soon Trump will appoint another one.

“She has suffered over the last few days,“ Trump said. ”And you know, maybe it’s not for her.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Farrah TomazinPolitical Correspondent

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.