By almost any measure, President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has endured a deeply turbulent beginning.
The missteps surrounding her debut are already being compared, unflatteringly, with Anthony Scaramucci’s brief 11-day tenure as Trump’s communications director and Geraldo Rivera’s famously fruitless search for Al Capone’s vault.
However, senior Trump administration figures tell me they do not believe Zacharia’s future depends solely on her first performance at the podium or the uproar over what critics describe as misleading claims about her legal background.
Their greater concern, they say, is what remains unclear about her past—a background that apparently was not examined in sufficient detail before she was placed in one of Washington’s most visible jobs.
Zacharia, a 42-year-old mother of four, stepped to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room podium with the uneasy presence of someone who had been told moments earlier that the speeding traffic ahead posed no danger.
Her apparent lack of preparation—and possibly experience—was immediately visible to reporters in the room. White House staffers watching from behind the scenes, I’m told, were equally alarmed, observing the performance through their fingers.
The briefing lasted roughly 14 minutes. About half the time was spent reading stiffly from prepared remarks, while the remainder involved questions from only three reporters. Yet even before that heavily criticized appearance, Zacharia was entering an already combustible situation.
Trump had introduced her as “an attorney,” and reporters questioned her about the claim as she stood behind the President before they boarded Air Force One. When asked where she had passed the bar exam, Zacharia answered: “When I moved to China.”
President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has faced an increasingly difficult start in the role
Trump introduced Zacharia as “an attorney” before reporters questioned her credentials as she stood behind him ahead of their Air Force One departure
Zacharia later told The New York Times that she had misunderstood the question and thought the reporter was asking where she went after completing law school.
She did move to China with her husband after earning a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating but did not pass. Reuters found no record showing that she had been admitted to practice law in California, another state or Washington, DC. That has drawn further scrutiny because she has described herself on LinkedIn as the “general counsel” of a US company and referred to herself as a lawyer in several television interviews.
There may be important context behind those claims, and that context warrants examination. But it does not resolve the central question now facing the administration: Why was no one in the White House apparently able to verify her credentials, professional history and the details of her extended time in China?
Zacharia also appears to have been given only a remarkably brief introduction to the demands of the job.
Trump announced her appointment on a Friday, and she faced the press by Tuesday. A single long weekend was never likely to transform a cable-news commentator into a polished White House press secretary. Still, her debut raised doubts about whether those 72 hours had been used effectively.
The administration also had little apparent reason to hurry. It could presumably have gone several more days without a formal briefing. An additional week to learn the White House operation, meet reporters and build relationships might have strengthened Zacharia’s footing, eased internal concern and helped create more favorable coverage before her first appearance.
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The Daily Mail reported that Trump chose Zacharia without consulting White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. If accurate, that could explain why some members of Wiles’s team have shown little enthusiasm about welcoming the new press secretary.
The speed and intensity with which Zacharia’s colleagues began criticizing her anonymously to reporters were striking—even by the standards of a Trump White House.
Trump described her performance as “very good.” But those observing the briefing without a personal stake in the decision to hire her reached a far less favorable verdict.
Both things can, of course, be true: Hostile colleagues and Zacharia’s apparent inadequacies.
The comparison that comes to mind is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin taking Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s invitation to join his ticket: an ambitious politico accepting an extraordinary promotion for which she was unready, with practically no runway to get ready.
There are occasions when the smartest answer to a powerful person offering you a dream job is: Thank you, but no. Zacharia’s failure to recognize such a moment tells us something about her judgment.
While she did not need enemies or skeptics to have a bad first day, folks in those two categories could certainly make the second day considerably worse.
The speed and savagery by which Zacharia’s new colleagues began anonymously trashing her to any reporter with a phone was remarkable, even for a Trump White House
My sources tell me that senior members of Trump’s team are now trading tidbits about her background, particularly regarding her time in China. If anything embarrassing were to surface, they don’t seem particularly inclined to tamp it down.
Finally, the timing for this spectacle is horrible for Team Red. Republicans are facing increasingly frightening midterm prospects and they need help and the White House already has enough intrigue and speculation involving Susie Wiles future, the alleged exploits of Kimberly Guilfoyle and allegations facing former Kennedy Center leader Rick Grenell.
Well, throw another log onto the fire and grab the Jiffy Pop.
This has the feel of the first Trump term, of Peak Scaramucci, days, of Trump against the world, making rash decisions and navigating the fallout.
After all, Trump often prospers amid the chaos. It’s his superpower. The people he hires should be more careful since they surely lack his death-defying capacities.
One longtime and close observer of Trump offers this explanation for Zacharia’s appointment: Trump’s goal is to ‘make the DC establishment howl in hypocritical self-righteous indignation.’
The problem is now this is Trump’s DC. It’s hard to see the upside.
There is, however, one substantial reason Zacharia might survive: Trump hates being told that someone he likes must go.