The Katie Zacharia era as White House press secretary appears to be over.
“A senior White House official tells @pdoocy Katie ZACHARIA is ‘transitioning out’ of the press secretary position,” Aishah Hasnie of Fox News posted on X Friday afternoon.
A report in The New York Times said Zacharia was fired.
A senior White House official tells @pdoocy Katie ZACHARIA is “transitioning out” of the press secretary position.
— Aishah Hasnie (@aishahhasnie) October 16, 2026
“Katie’s been treated very badly by the media,” Trump said earlier Friday in a video posted to X. “Very, very badly, I think.
“And I just spoke to her, and I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’ because, you know, she’s been treated very rough,” he said.
Do you believe Katie Zacharia should have retained her position?
Yes, she did a great job
75% (21 votes)
No, she needed to go
25% (7 votes)
“She’s a nice person; a very nice person. I’ve watched her for years on television, but I said, ‘Is this for you, Katie? Because honestly, you don’t need this. You don’t have to be treated this way,” Trump said.
.@POTUS: “@KatieZacharia has been treated very badly by the media — very, very badly. Very unfairly.” https://t.co/DUx6f2ZCMb
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 16, 2026
“I would say the fake news, but just generally the media’s been very rough. She was on Sean Hannity last night, and Sean was a little bit tough,” Trump said.
Trump said that shortly before talking to reporters, he said, “Katie, you don’t have to do this.”
“I said honestly, if I was you, I’d reconsider,” Trump said.
As noted by the Guardian, Zacharia, who graduated from Pepperdine University law school, had called herself a “lawyer.”
News reports this week revealed she never passed the bar exam.
On Friday, she defended herself against criticism, saying questions about whether she passed the bar exam “weren’t asked,” according to The Hill.
But she was under fire from a group called the Campaign for Accountability, which filed a complaint with the State Bar of California.
“Ms. Zacharia has represented herself as a lawyer repeatedly to buttress her reputation and credibility as a television legal commentator and now as the White House spokesperson, yet it seems it was all a lie,” Michelle Kuppersmith, the group’s executive director, said.
Zacharia was formerly in communications for the Trump Media and Technology Group and for a short time was a communications representative for the Department of Homeland Security.
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