Katie Zacharia releases first statement since White House firing after disastrous first week
Donald Trump’s ousted press secretary Katie Zacharia has broken her silence after being unceremoniously removed from her role just five days into the job.
Zacharia wrote on Instagram: ‘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. It was an honor to work for him.’
A senior White House official told the Daily Mail that Zacharia is ‘transitioning out’ of the position on Friday.
Earlier, Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he asked her to consider quitting.
‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ Trump said he told Zacharia. ‘Honestly if I were you I’d reconsider.’
‘Maybe it’s not for her,’ Trump added. When asked if he would fire her, Trump responded: ‘No, I want her to have a good life.’
Her tenure is now shorter than Anthony Scaramucci’s famously brief 11 days as White House communications director in 2017.
On Friday, 41-year-old Zacharia was summoned to meet the president. ‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ Trump told her. ‘Honestly if I were you I’d reconsider’
She previously only lasted six weeks as a communications adviser at Homeland Security earlier this year.
A source close to Zacharia told The Daily Mail that she had been effectively set up to fail.
‘Katie is a beautiful person who was brought into an incredibly tough situation with sharp knives from every direction. She was attacked by the left, the right, the media, and it seems like from nearly every room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,’ they said.
The insider also slammed her co-workers for leaking nasty comments about her to the press.
‘Instead of focusing on how to help her succeed, colleagues spent their time texting negative tear downs to the media.’
They noted that Trump needs ‘a team that works together for the good of the administration and the party’ ahead of the midterms, with Zacharia’s ordeal showing off the opposite.
‘What we’ve unfortunately witnessed is a window into the macro political GOP system – where purity tests and greed have destroyed a near perfect launch pad for decades of success, from within,’ they said.
‘She had to learn this the hard way, but contrary to what international news has led people to believe all week – she’s smart, driven, kind and will be fine, and probably better off.’
Zacharia has been press secretary for less than five days. Her tenure has been rocky from the start after a 14-minute debut briefing drew criticism for her nervous stature.
Her debut briefing on Tuesday lasted just 14 minutes and allowed questions from only three reporters. Leavitt’s briefings averaged about 45 minutes.
When reporters asked that day where she had passed the bar, Zacharia said she had passed it when she moved to China.
She later told the New York Times she hadn’t heard the question over the noise of Marine One.
In a tense interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night, she acknowledged that she failed the California bar exam in 2011, never retook it and considered the results inconsequential.
As the segment ended, she promised Hannity she would be very prepared going forward and would step up to the duty the President had given her.
This is a breaking news story.
