Trump personally picked his press secretary. 5 days later, he threw her to the wolves

This is a professional obituary of one of the shortest political media careers in US history: Katie Zacharia lasted just five days as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary before she was fired.

And while Trump tries to spin it as a repositioning for Zacharia, make no mistake: Trump personally hand-picked her for the role and ultimately fed her to a usually friendly news network that no doubt had been told to strip her of any credibility left.

Trump hires a woman he likes to watch on TV

How did Zacharia get the job in the first place? According to Politico, she plotted her media appearances on conservative news networks based on where she thought Trump would be watching. It worked. The president was enamored of her looks, presence, and vocal love for the MAGA movement.

She came from a position at Truth Social, which Trump owns, and where she had made a lot of posts consisting of various conspiracy theories. On October 9, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had hired Zacharia, calling her “a devoted fan and member of MAGA!”

What is more important is that Trump also touted her as an “attorney” in the post – a claim that was quickly disputed and became an important detail in her quick demise.

A disastrous first day

Fast forward to Tuesday, October 13, and Zacharia’s first day in her new position after a long Columbus Day weekend.

But instead of spending the holiday preparing, she struggled visibly on camera, appearing completely unprepared.

Furthermore, her first, and only, White House press briefing lasted just 14 minutes, where Zacharia took only three questions in total.

Knives are out for Zacharia

It only got worse for Zacharia after the disastrous press briefing. When Zacharia shut down her debut briefing after just 14 minutes and three questions, she signaled to the Washington press corps that normal access was off the table.

So the press corps started to dig for dirt after independent journalist Judd Legum started to expose her lies about calling herself a lawyer and attorney even though she never passed the bar exam.

When she did not sufficiently answer those questions outside the White House, standing next to Trump, the murmurs started that maybe she would not have this job much longer.

That became even more evident when she was on Fox News programs Hannity and Fox & Friends, normally two Trump-friendly programs. Here, Hannity immediately started to cut into Zacharia about her being untruthful about her past as a lawyer.

Then it was Fox & Friends’ turn the next morning, where the three hosts showed great disdain for her job performance the day before.

It was clear from the two interviews that somebody had made the call to really go hard at Zacharia. Some argue it was Trump himself, while others argue the call came from his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Zacharia is a by-product of Trump’s media preferences

That was enough for Trump to pull the plug on his new press secretary just five days into the job, making this a new Trump administration low. She broke the “Scaramucci” record by six days, which is named after Anthony Scaramucci who was fired as White House communications director after just 10 days.

Politico reports that Trump was irate about her and told aides that “she had no talent and shouldn’t be on television.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins also reported that Trump was “embarrassed” by Zacharia and that “the main reason he rushed to select her after growing irritated with how long the process was taking to replace Karoline Leavitt was because he wanted more people defending him on TV. When she failed to do so in a sufficient way with Sean Hannity, Trump said he knew she needed to go.”

Meanwhile, Trump stepped out and told reporters before departing for a midterm speech that he urged her to “reconsider” the job: “I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’ Because she’s been treated very rough.”

Behind the scenes, the decision was already executed. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Zacharia was called into Vice President JD Vance’s office, where she was fired while Trump gave his aforementioned remarks. After firing her, Vance invited her and her family to a private dinner with him.

One last mistake

In the end, Katie Zacharia left through the back door, but not before posting a picture with her standing behind Trump, thanking him for the job and expressing what an honor the five days working for him had been.

The picture shows that she made one last mistake. She blurred out a picture on Trump’s desk apparently showing a renovated golf course at the public park in East Potomac, where a judge had just deemed that his administration unlawfully cut down 400 trees.

Katie Zacharia arrived as central casting made by Trump and left as a punchline because of him.

This article is made and published by Daniel Wolfram, who may have used AI in the preparation