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Trump’s New Mouthpiece Squirms During Fox Humiliation

The ‘Fox & Friends’ hosts didn’t thank Katie Zacharia for her time or even say goodbye.

President Donald Trump’s Bambi-on-ice press secretary has stumbled through a second humiliating Fox News interview.

After embarrassing herself on network star Sean Hannity’s eponymous show Thursday evening, Karoline Leavitt’s replacement, Katie Zacharia, was back for more.

She dialed in to ‘Fox & Friends’ on Friday morning and delivered the same uhming and ahing that defined her car-crash press-briefing debut.

To her credit, she avoided calling the 80-year-old president her husband this time, but at times she seemed to answer different questions than those asked by the occupants of the curvy couch.

Zacharia attempted to put on a brave face.

Zacharia attempted to put on a brave face.

Fox News

When Brian Kilmeade asked how her first week has gone, the 41-year-old instead ranted about how much people love President Trump and bemoaned how the mainstream media portrays him.

Lawrence Jones had a go, asking about her failure to disclose to the Trump administration that she is not a lawyer, despite repeatedly saying she is.

She conjured up a surprising excuse. “Yeah. Well, Lawrence, those questions weren’t asked. Uh, I’m being hired as White House press secretary and not White House counsel. The conversations and the reason I was, um, the, the reason that I was hired was to represent the president in the press,” she spluttered.

Zacharia, who wore an intense toothy grin throughout the interview, failed the bar exam at Pepperdine University in 2011, after graduating from law school there.

The curvy couch wasn't kind to Zacharia.

The curvy couch wasn't kind to Zacharia.

Fox News

Asked what she would do differently if she had another stab at her debut press briefing, she instead blamed the press for conjuring up a nothingburger. “I’m just so grateful to be here, and I’m really looking forward to be an asset to President Trump and focusing on what he’s doing for the American people. And if the legacy media wants to put the focus and attention on me because they want to be distracted... they wanted to be distracted from the major wins that President Trump is making for America,” she said, adding that she is “looking forward” to next week.

She desperately tried to focus on perceived positives, latching onto the fact that she broke the news that Trump had ousted his Greek ambassador, Kimberly Guilfoyle, over a financial scandal.

“I really am grateful to President Trump for trusting me to break that news. I do believe that really shifted the press conference and also gave me a platform to be able to deal with hard news for him in the future,” she said.

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“Got it,” Kilmeade responded coldly. “All right. Let’s move on,” Jones added. None of the hosts thanked Zacharia for her time or even said goodbye.

Zacharia fared slightly better than she did with Hannity. The veteran host asked why she only took three questions in her briefing on Monday and what she might do differently going forward.

The Fox News host then said, “I can give you some unsolicited advice: That’s never gonna be a friendly room to you.”

As she fumbled over her answer, Fox News began playing her out with music to signal an ad break.

“Yeah, so what I would say is, I would absolutely be very well prepared on the briefing, Sean, and I would love, and I do love questions, and I would love to build a relationship with all of those members of the press corps, so there’s a substantive, ah, component to us having an ability to interact,” she said, as the music played on and drowned her out.

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia holds her first press briefing at the White House.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

She continued: “I will be very prepared, Sean, and I will step up to the duty President Trump has asked me to as press secretary.”

Whether the fade-out becomes the perfect metaphor for her tenure remains to be seen. The official line from the White House and Trump himself is that they’re impressed, but commentators are already comparing her prospects to Anthony Scaramucci, whose appointment as Trump’s White House communications director ended just 11 days after it was announced in 2017.

Scaramucci himself has had fun with it. “Thus far 1/11th of a Scaramucci,” he wrote in a post on X, referencing his own notoriously short term.

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