Katie Zacharia’s first week has been so rough that even Fox News has questions

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia’s first week was all about Katie Zacharia, when the role should have been about the president and his agenda.

On Friday afternoon, one week after President Donald Trump hired her, he fired her .

A pair of tough Fox News interviews foreshadowed Zacharia’s change in fortune. The segments were almost as awkward as her Tuesday debut in the press briefing room.

Both interviews were with Fox stars who have long, friendly histories with Trump — and their questions reflected serious skepticism about Zacharia’s ability to represent the president going forward.

Confirming that he was watching, Trump said Friday that the Fox segments were “tough.”

Zacharia might have thought the Fox appearances would rehab her in the eyes of the president and the pro-Trump viewing audience.

Instead, the opposite happened. Zacharia was on the defensive, most starkly on Thursday night when Sean Hannity — a friend and informal advisor to the president — repeatedly challenged her.

Hannity called Zacharia’s all-too-brief debut press briefing “widely panned.” She defended herself by admitting she had “very little prep time” since Trump offered her the job during their first in-person meeting about it.

Hannity sounded like he was belatedly vetting Zacharia for the job — unintentionally highlighting Trump’s lack of vetting.

The president’s Truth Social post appointing Zacharia called her “an attorney,” but she failed the bar exam, a fact she acknowledged to Hannity on Thursday night.

CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski has shown how Zacharia repeatedly amplified stories and posts identifying her as an attorney in recent years. The issue ultimately comes down to credibility, an essential attribute for any press secretary.

“Between her lying about being an attorney and that humiliating debut, I have to imagine her West Wing colleagues are absolutely livid,” Sarah Matthews told CNN Thursday night. Matthews served as deputy press secretary in the Trump White House until resigning the night of the January 6, 2021 attack.

“Karoline Leavitt was doing that job while pregnant and was ruthlessly efficient at it,” Matthews said. “Now, much of that involved lying and gaslighting the American public, but she knew how to command a briefing room. And if Zacharia can’t even handle a Hannity interview? She is in for a rough ride.”

Earlier in the week, White House communications director Steven Cheung had publicly defended Zacharia as “uniquely qualified and whip smart.”

Anonymously, though, White House officials had questioned how long Zacharia would remain in the role. Trump detractors gleefully drew parallels to Anthony Scaramucci’s infamous 11-day stint as White House communications director in 2017.

“Records are made to be broken,” Scaramucci quipped Friday afternoon on X. “But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain.”

Trump was gentle while delivering the news on Friday afternoon, telling reporters at the White House that he’d told Zacharia to “reconsider” the job out of concern for her well-being.

“Katie, do you need this?” he said he told her. “I don’t think you need this.”

He also said Zacharia had been treated “pretty nastily” by the media, but it’s worth noting that some of the most significant criticism came from the right.

Conservative podcaster Meghan McCain said Friday morning that Zacharia shouldn’t be anywhere near a briefing room.

“One of the biggest problems with the administration right now is every issue facing Americans is serious and all they do is keep hiring deeply unserious people to represent them,” McCain wrote on X . “It gives the impression the administration just simply doesn’t care what Americans think and that their problems aren’t worth hiring capable people with real experience.”

Zacharia’s predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, held one press briefing a week on average. Leavitt stepped down in August, shortly after returning from maternity leave. Fox News recently hired her as an on-air contributor.

Trump at first seemed content to leave the press secretary job vacant. But on Wednesday, October 7, he had a phone call with Zacharia and was evidently impressed. She flew to Washington to meet with Trump in person on Friday, and was announced as Leavitt’s successor in a matter of hours.

The president cited her “unblemished record of support” for his presidency and her regular TV appearances.

Zacharia’s cable news credentials are well-established. She was a popular MAGA defender on cable, including on CNN, while living in California with her family.

However, representing the US from the White House podium requires a different skill set. In Thursday interviews, Zacharia rather candidly said she might not have been ready for her briefing room debut.

Talking with Jack Posobiec, the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist who now hosts on the pro-Trump streaming channel Real America’s Voice, Zacharia said she “never had a full briefing beforehand.”

It was a whirlwind hiring process, Zacharia said, starting with Trump’s call on October 7: “Wednesday phone call; Thursday flight; Friday meeting; Saturday flight; Sunday flight; Monday, Columbus Day, federal holiday. Start work, wants a brief Tuesday morning.”

While Zacharia didn’t say so, the implication was that Trump wanted her out there and on camera as soon as possible.

At the Tuesday morning briefing, Zacharia read pro-Trump talking points, then called on three reporters — one asked about Kimberly Guilfoyle, then the embattled US ambassador to Greece, which led Zacharia to announce that the president had asked Guilfoyle to resign.

Speaking with Hannity, Zacharia touted that moment: “I delivered some breaking news. I think I’m one of the first press secretaries to deliver staff changes for the administration, and I was honored that President Trump trusted me delivering that information.”

Hannity, a close confidant of the president, sounded unimpressed with her press briefing performance and her answers on Thursday night.

As the TV segment’s outro music began to play, indicating Zacharia was out of time, she tried to reassure Hannity: “I will be very prepared, Sean, and I will step up to the duty President Trump has asked me to as press secretary.”

On Friday morning, “Fox & Friends” co-host (and Hannity’s fiancée) Ainsley Earhardt referenced the previous interview and expressed sympathy for Zacharia. “You were just thrown into this role,” she remarked.

“Fox & Friends” interviews with Trump administration officials are often genial, but Earhardt’s fellow co-hosts appeared skeptical. “It’s been a tough week for you,” Lawrence Jones said to her.

Jones asked whether she wished she had told the president she never passed the bar exam — a fact that emerged amid days of press scrutiny of her background.

“Those questions weren’t asked,” she said. “I’m being hired as White House press secretary, not White House counsel.”

Even as the Fox hosts — known for their Trump boosterism — scrutinized her credentials and credibility, Zacharia pivoted to blaming the “legacy media,” arguing that unnamed other outlets want to “put the focus and attention on me” because they “want to be distracted from the major wins that President Trump is making for America.”

When Earhardt asked when the next press briefing would be, Zacharia didn’t say. Then Jones asked: “Do you think you still have the confidence of the president?”

“I’m standing here,” Zacharia responded, referring to the fact that she was live from the White House North Lawn.