Katie Zacharia Posts Fighting Words After Humiliating Exit
The shortest-serving press secretary in U.S. history says you can either be a warrior or a squishy piece of confectionery.
Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
Katie Zacharia appears to have almost immediately forgotten about her stinging defeat as President Donald Trump’s latest mouthpiece.
“You can either be a fighter or a marshmallow,” the shortest-serving press secretary in U.S. history wrote on X on Tuesday night.
She shared a picture of herself posing with boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. aboard Air Force One from his appearance at a MAGA rally in Arizona last week, when she was still part of the president’s entourage.

Zacharia proved last week she couldn't go the distance.
X/Katie Zacharia
Mayweather, 49, retired in 2017 with an undefeated 50-0 record and is widely considered one of the greatest athletes of all time.
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Zacharia, 42, gave a single briefing as press secretary that lasted 14 minutes and 12 seconds before Trump, 80, fired her after just five days on the job.

Trump's own aides have torched him for sending Zacharia out totally unprepared.
Andrew Harnik/Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Behind the scenes, even the president’s own aides have reportedly blasted his decision to send her out in front of the press after she had only a weekend to prepare for the deluge of questions his administration faces ahead of a forecast Republican bloodbath at the November 3 midterms.
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A source familiar with Zacharia’s brief stint at the top of the White House press corps told the Daily Beast that she “got along great and had fun” with Mayweather during the trip to Arizona, describing it as “a highlight from her stint.”
Things began to unravel almost immediately after Zacharia’s press conference last Tuesday, during which she read uncertainly from prepared notes, fielded three questions from MAGA-friendly outlets, and left the room with most reporters’ hands still raised.
She also accidentally called her husband “my president,” corrected herself with a laugh, then struggled to answer a question about American intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.
The heat only turned up when reporters began picking apart her professional background. Trump had introduced Zacharia as “an attorney” in his Truth Social post announcing her appointment.
But Zacharia, a Pepperdine law graduate, never passed the California bar exam or secured a license to practice law in the United States.
“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” Trump is understood to have told her just hours before her departure was announced on Friday.
The Daily Beast has contacted Zacharia for comment on this story.
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