Fuming Katie Zacharia slams ‘utterly fake’ rumors she’s vying to get second shot at Press Secretary role after being axed just five days on the job
Katie Zacharia shut down rumors she was trying to impress her way back into the White House Press Secretary job.
Zacharia lasted just five days in her much criticized first run as the face of the Trump administration and held just one press briefing.
Reports circulated on Monday evening that Zacharia, 42, did punditry on Right Side Broadcasting Network on Election Night in an attempt to audition to get the role back.
Zacharia, however, immediately denounced the rumors in a post to social media on Monday evening.
‘Reporters and outlets pushing abject falsehoods from anonymous sources are complicit in the fake news machine—and a big reason Americans no longer trust the media,’ she wrote.
‘I’m not auditioning for the role. Claims that I’m trying to get my old job back as President Trump’s White House Press Secretary are utterly fake.’
However, a trio of sources who are allied with Donald Trump told The New York Post that she has been trying to convince Trump to give her a second chance and hoped he would see her on RSBN and offer her the job back.
Zacharia was also seen at the President’s famous Mar-a-Lago resort this past weekend following the ‘blue tsunami.’
Katie Zacharia shut down rumors she was trying to impress her way back into the White House Press Secretary job with Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles as chief of staff
Zacharia lasted just five days in her much criticized first run as the face of the Trump administration and held just one press briefing
‘She said it out loud. It’s absurd. Truly embarrassing,’ one source claimed.
Zacharia has also been trying to impress new Chief of Staff Stephen Miller after he replaced Susie Wiles this week, the report said.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment.
The reports came as Trump gave an impromptu press briefing on Monday afternoon alongside Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.
The surprise appearance came after Trump joked on Friday that he had offered White the open press secretary job.
Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on whether he has accepted the post recently vacated by Zacharia and Karoline Leavitt, White said he never tells the president ‘no.’
‘I don’t tell the president no to anything,’ he responded. ‘I didn’t say no.’
Trump then shot back that he had jokingly announced White was press secretary last week after what he called ‘a very bad press day.’
‘I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary,’ Trump recalled musing last week.
A trio of sources who are allied with Donald Trump said that she has been trying to convince Miller and Trump to give her a second chance and hoped Trump would see her on RSBN and offer her the job back
The reports came as Trump gave an impromptu press briefing on Monday afternoon alongside Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White
Admitting he was ‘sort of kidding’ with the announcement, Trump noted the press ran with it and immediately ‘wrote the stories.’ Bringing White to the briefing room on Monday was just ‘for a little fun,’ Trump continued.
But at the end of the briefing, White conceded he does not want the role nor any other job in politics.
Zacharia was brutally ousted after less than a week, making her the shortest-serving press secretary in White House history.
Trump initially defended Zacharia after her tough start, accusing the media of treating her unfairly and saying questions over her background were irrelevant.
The president went on to say he asked Zacharia, ‘Is this for you?’ and said he would have reconsidered if he was in her position, telling her: ‘You don’t need this.’
After Zacharia left the post, her predecessor Karoline Leavitt shared a scathingly blunt assessment of her performance, saying the role ‘obviously wasn’t for her.’
‘Look, the White House press secretary is a tough job,’ Leavitt told Fox News.
‘I know that because I did it, obviously, for almost two years, and 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.’
Zacharia became the shortest-serving press secretary in White House history
Leavitt also implied that Zacharia was not prepared enough to take on the high-profile job, recalling that she ‘prepared like heck’ when she started.
‘I poured myself into my preparation. I read, I studied, I talked to every Cabinet member, I talked to the president. I just absorbed as much information as this noggin up here could,’ she said.
Zacharia also faced questions over her legal credentials after it was brought to light that she had failed the California bar exam in 2011.
She then moved to Beijing with her husband and worked at a Chinese law firm.
Despite never passing the bar exam, Zacharia frequently appeared on news channels as a legal analyst, offering commentary on legal and political issues while identifying herself as a lawyer.
Zacharia’s rocky debut was followed by an uncomfortable appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on October 15, just hours before she was pushed out of the job the following day.
Hannity delivered a notably tough grilling, confronting her over her widely criticized briefing, pressing her on why she had repeatedly described herself as a lawyer despite failing the California bar exam.
He challenged her explanation for the short briefing, asking: ‘Why only three questions in 14 minutes?’ before warning her that the White House briefing room would ‘never be a friendly room to you.’
Zacharia defended herself by blaming the whirlwind hiring process and lack of preparation time, but the combative interview added to the scrutiny surrounding her brief tenure.
