By: Emily Nixon
On Oct. 16, the White House removed newly appointed Press Secretary Katie Zacharia after only five days. While no official cause has been given for her removal, continued media scrutiny and a short first press conference could be to blame.
“Katie has been treated very badly by the media, very, very badly. Very unfairly, I think. And I just spoke to her about it. I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’” President Donald Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Oct. 16, according to the Associated Press (AP). “I said to her, ‘honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider […] you should reconsider, because you don’t want to go through this.’”
Currently, the Trump Administration has not named her successor, though multiple names have been bet on via Kalshi to fill the position, such as Anna Kelly and Scott Jennings.
Kelly currently holds the roles of White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary and Special Assistant to the President, and Jennings is a senior political commentator for CNN and a Republican strategist.
Kelly is currently leading the bet with a 29% chance of filling the position, while Jennings has a 7% chance, according to Kalshi Betters.
For now, Trump will be the person communicating his intentions and policies with the press until a replacement is appointed.
“President Trump and his team are focused on the midterm elections,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told The Independent. “The President is the best messenger and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he will continue crisscrossing the country to share his commonsense, America First agenda directly with the American people.”
Zacharia’s employment history became a point of question for media outlets and the public. On her LinkedIn profile, Zacharia listed an Associate position within the International Practice Team with Zhong Lun Law Firm in China as experience, and in his Truth Social post announcing her appointment, Trump called her an attorney. The president appoints a person for the role of White House Press Secretary, and the role does not require an appointee to be a lawyer, though many have been considered and placed in the role, according to NPR.
The Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog organization, filed a legal complaint against Zacharia, asking that the California State Bar Association investigate Zacharia “advertising” herself as “entitled to practice law.” In California, presenting oneself as entitled to practice law without the proper certifications is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a fine of $1,000, according to Justia Law. Unauthorized practice of law carries the same classification and possible penalties, according to Esner Gorin LLP.
Zacharia earned a law degree from Pepperdine University; however, she failed the bar exam in California before moving to China with her husband, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
While a law degree allows a person to work in positions such as compliance officers and legal consultants, without passing the bar exam for their respective state, one cannot represent a client in court or formally practice law, according to the Colleges of Law. This “representation” extends to calling oneself “general counsel” and “attorney.”
In an interview on Fox and Friends on Oct. 16, Co-host Lawrence B. Jones pressed Zacharia on whether she regrets not disclosing her failure to pass the bar exam to President Trump. The role of White House Press Secretary is by appointment by the president and does not require an appointee to be a lawyer, according to NPR.
“Those questions weren’t asked. I’m being hired as White House Secretary, not White House counsel. The conversations and the reasons why I was hired was to represent the president in the press,” said Zacharia.
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Oct. 22, Former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the job “obviously was not for [Zacharia].”
“White House Press Secretary is a tough job,” said Leavitt. “Many people say it’s one of the hardest jobs in politics. [It] takes a lot of preparation, and sometimes you don’t know how someone will perform until they go out there.”
In her first press conference on Oct. 13, Zacharia took questions from three journalists, despite the room being full of media personnel, and the conference ended after 14 minutes, only five of which were open for questions from the press. Critics of Zacharia pointed out that she mainly read off a prepared script, and mixed up her husband with the president during her statements.
In a post on X on Oct. 17, Zacharia remarked about her tenure as Press Secretary.
“President Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and the most hardworking man. I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to,” stated Zacharia. “It was an honor to work for him.”
Leavitt shared with Fox News Digital that she will be helping advise Trump in the process of choosing the next press secretary.
“Nobody understands the press better than Donald Trump,” said Leavitt. “He knows he needs someone who is tough, who is smart, who understands his policies, who is loyal, and who can go out there and put up a fight.”