White House Press Secretary Fired After Five Days

Katie Zacharia lost her job as White House press secretary on Friday, just five days after starting, advisers told CNN. Earlier that day, she told reporters, “There are no staffing changes that are happening.” President Donald Trump ended her tenure before she could deliver a second briefing.

A five-day appointment

Zacharia gave her first briefing Tuesday. For much of the 14-minute appearance, she read from a script and stumbled over it repeatedly. She called on three reporters from conservative-friendly outlets. Later media appearances, CNN reported, deepened concerns that she’d become a liability at the White House lectern.

On “Fox and Friends,” host Lawrence Jones asked whether she wished she’d disclosed that she had never passed the bar exam, despite repeatedly claiming to be a lawyer. “Those questions weren’t asked,” she replied. CNN reported that the White House hadn’t vetted her background.

Trump had personally chosen Zacharia, and CNN said he was generally reluctant to admit mistakes. A person with direct knowledge of his comments told CNN that her media appearances convinced him she “wasn’t ready for prime time.”

The White House sent Zacharia on a media tour of friendly outlets, apparently hoping to rally support and show she could handle the job. But some conservative Trump allies questioned whether she could serve as the face of White House messaging. Fox News host Sean Hannity criticized the “abusively biased, corrupt news media” for its treatment of Zacharia Tuesday night, then put her through probing questions in an interview Thursday night. Some Trump media allies also took aim at what CNN described as resume inflation.

Messaging and management

White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote on social media Tuesday morning that Zacharia had made a “tremendous start” and “commanded the room.” A White House press release praised her “commanding” performance and highlighted excerpts. Later that week, Cheung said she’d be remembered as “one of the all-time greats” by the end of Trump’s second term. Trump said Friday that Zacharia was “made to suffer like she’s suffered at the hands of the press.”

Her appointment came after former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on August 12 that she was leaving. CNN reported that the White House considered several candidates, including some who had occasionally criticized Trump, before Zacharia’s name surfaced late in the process. Trump had watched her defend him on cable news, which CNN described as his preferred way of screening job candidates.

A wider record of turnover

CNN said Zacharia’s five-day tenure set a new brevity record for a top Trump White House aide, half the record held by first-term Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci. “A Scaramucci” has become an informal unit for measuring 11 days. Voters were due to judge the administration in the 2026 midterm elections just a few weeks after the firing.

CNN linked the staffing change to other episodes it cited as evidence of a chaotic administration. These included Trump’s aborted plans to run taxpayer-funded political ads and livestream an execution, which the article said more than 80% of Americans opposed; Elon Musk’s apparent latitude to change government operations; and fired employees later reinstated because they did important work or couldn’t legally be fired. CNN also cited Signalgate, shifts in Trump’s tariffs, and the administration’s struggle to maintain a consistent account of the Iran war.

Trump removed officials soon after Senate confirmation, CNN reported, including the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and his IRS commissioner. He dismissed the acting IRS replacement in less than a week. His first national security adviser moved to another job after less than three months because of Signalgate. A CNN poll in July found that 65% disapproved and 35% approved of Trump’s management of the federal government; disapproval stood at 74% among independents and 28% among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.