White House press secretary ousted from role after five days

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday morning he had encouraged Katie Zacharia to “reconsider” the position following a week of questions surrounding her legal credentials.WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump removed Katie Zacharia from her role as White House press secretary on Friday after just five days in the role, following a rocky start regarding whether she had misrepresented herself as an attorney despite failing the bar exam.A White House source familiar with the matter confirmed Zacharia’s termination, marking the shortest stint ever in the role, closely followed by Anthony Scaramucci’s 11 days in the White House Brady briefing room in 2017.Trump told reporters Friday morning that he had encouraged Zacharia to “reconsider” the job.“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” Trump said outside the White House, recounting his conversation with the now-former press secretary. “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”Trump added that Zacharia may continue working for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”Her termination comes just a week after Trump offered her the job following yearlong stints as a commentator on Newsmax and Fox News. In February, she also spent a month working as a deputy assistant secretary to the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.Zacharia currently holds positions at Trump Media and Truth Social as senior communications adviser, as well as at Pepperdine Law School as a Dean’s Council board member. She has been in her role at Trump Media since June.In response to reporters’ questions as to when and where she had passed a bar exam, Zacharia twice replied, “When I moved to China.” She later told the New York Times that she had misheard the question as where she had gone after law school, pointing to the volume from the Marine One helicopter as the reason.Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University with a law degree in 2011 — while the degree technically marks someone as a lawyer, one still need to pass the bar exam to be licensed to practice law and give legal advice. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she took the California bar exam after graduation but did not pass.During a Thursday night appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity, the usually Trump-friendly commentator pressed Zacharia, calling her 14-minute debut press briefing “widely panned.”Zacharia defended her initial appearance and said she had “very little prep time” as Trump offered her the job during their first in-person meeting about it.She also appeared on “Fox and Friends” Friday morning, where host Lawrence Jones focused on her legal experience.“Do you wish you would have disclosed to the president about the bar and not passing the bar?” Jones asked.“Well, Lawrence,” Zacharia replied, “those questions weren’t asked.”During the first press briefing, Zacharia took her first question from Breitbart reporter Nick Gilbertson — part of the “new media” touted by the Trump administration to bring more conservative outlets and influencers into the briefing room.Zacharia only took two other questions, from Peter Doocy of Fox News and Elina Shirazi of the Daily Mail, before ending the briefing to join Trump on a campaign trip to Alaska.Scaramucci, who has become an outspoken critic of the president since his brief stint as press secretary during the first Trump administration, commented on Zacharia’s termination online.“Records are made to be broken,” Scaramucci posted on X on Friday. “But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain.”Trump has not commented on Zacharia’s termination since his statement Friday morning, leaving her replacement an open question for the time being, with the midterm elections less than three weeks away.Laura Loomer, a close ally of Trump who has been markedly influential in shaping many of the second Trump administration’s policy and personnel decisions, threw her hat into the ring as successor in a post on X.“Hear me out: Press Secretary Laura Loomer,” she wrote.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads