President Trump’s new press secretary Katie Zacharia raised eyebrows on Tuesday when she was asked where she passed the bar exam, telling reporters that she did so when she moved to China. Zacharia made the remarks on the White House South Lawn alongside Trump before heading to Alaska with him for a campaign rally. “Where...
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White House spokeswoman defends calling herself a lawyer she failed to become.
As it ran on the front
Give the administration credit for speed. On October 9th, the president picked Katie Zacharia — a conservative commentator and communications adviser to his own media company — to replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the podium in August after having her second child. He called her a "devoted fan." Call it the fastest promotion in that building: a boss rewarding loyalty with the keys to the briefing room.
Four days later, on October 13th, she used them. Her first briefing ran under fifteen minutes — three questions, all from Fox News, the Daily Mail and Breitbart, and then it ended. Call the brevity discipline, fewer words and fewer chances to misspeak — watching her halt her way through her own prepared remarks, struggling just to get through the page, it wasn't discipline at all.…
…(cont) "When I moved to China," she said — an unusual credential for a White House spokeswoman, but loyalty counts for more than paperwork in this building. Nobody asked what happened after the move. Keeping options open.
That same Thursday, talking to the commentator Jack Posobiec, she supplied what China had left out: she had failed the bar exam in California before she ever got there. She still calls herself a lawyer anyway. "I was very careful," she said, about the wording — careful, it turns out, is the word for choosing "lawyer" when the truth is she never passed the exam that makes one.
By the time she sat down with Sean Hannity on Fox News, she was defending both things in the same breath — the brevity of the briefing and the credential she does not hold — as though either still needed defending. The job was supposed to be about how often she faces the press. It has become about whether there is still a podium worth facing, now that nobody at it had to pass anything to stand there.
“They didn't hire a lawyer, they hired a fan, and when the fan couldn't get through her own cue cards they called it discipline instead of what it was. The job used to mean standing up every day and taking it from anybody holding a camera; now it's three friendly questions and a maybe on the rest. The bar exam she skipped isn't the joke — the joke is that nobody standing at that podium has to pass anything before they decide what you get to know.”
“Look, loyalty is a qualification — the president's known this woman for years, and that counts for more than some state exam written by people who've never run a press shop a day in their lives. And the briefing length, that's efficiency, nobody wants rambling, fifteen minutes is downright generous compared to Karoline— wait, did I just compare her unfavorably to Karoline? Forget I said that. The point is she passed the only test that matters, which is loyalty, and as for the lawyer thing, it's just a word, everybody uses words loosely, I use words loosely, that doesn't mean— actually, maybe don't use that one either.”
The receipts
Katie Zacharia defended her debut White House press briefing and addressed California bar exam scrutiny during interview with Sean Hannity.
In an interview with a right-wing influencer, the new White House press secretary also described the harried process that led to her hiring.
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has said she did not pass the bar exam after facing scrutiny about her legal career before becoming the top spokeswoman for US President Donald Trump.
Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after giving birth to her second child Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had picked Katie Zacharia to be the next White House press secretary, lining up a conservative commentator he called a “devoted fan” to be his most prominent spokesperson. Zacharia…
Katie Zacharia tells Guardian her first, widely panned, press briefing followed whirlwind sprint to appoint her to key role Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary says it is “unknown” how much she will engage with the press or hold briefings with reporters, as she faces mounting questions over her legal credentials. In a brief…
President Trump has offered Katie Zacharia, a conservative commentator and communications adviser to the president's media company, the position as the next White House press secretary, a White House official confirmed to The Hill. The New York Times first reported on Friday that Zacharia would be named to the post. Zacharia would fill a…
New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia gave her debut press conference on Tuesday and was quickly panned by critics, including some anonymous Trump administration officials. Zacharia's first briefing, which lasted less than 15 minutes, was marked by halting speech and apparent difficulty in reading her prepared remarks. The Trump…
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia addressed newly raised questions regarding her legal credentials after claiming she is a lawyer, even though she never passed the bar exam. In an interview with conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Thursday, Zacharia confirmed she failed the bar exam in California before moving to China.…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.