Katie Zacharia exits the White House press secretary job after just five days

Katie Zacharia is leaving her post as White House press secretary after only five days, one of the shortest runs ever in a top West Wing communications job. Administration officials said Friday that she will shift to a different administration job to be named later.

In a statement Friday evening, Zacharia said it had been an honor to work for the president and heaped praise on him.

A rocky first week

Zacharia, a conservative commentator who once advised the company behind Truth Social, was named to the job last Friday and started Monday. Her first briefing on Tuesday lasted under 15 minutes. She took only a handful of questions and could not answer whether Washington had paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

She also faced questions about her background after it came out that she had described herself as a lawyer even though she never passed a bar exam. On Thursday a senior official confirmed she had not passed the California bar. A watchdog group has asked the State Bar of California to examine whether presenting herself as a lawyer violated state law.

Her call to make

Hours before the news broke, the president told reporters she had been treated harshly by the press. He said he had told her she did not have to keep the job if she did not want it and that he would let her decide. In her place he would reconsider, he said. He added that she had told him the job was a lot tougher.

Zacharia and her family were set to have dinner Friday night at the Naval Observatory home of Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha.

Shorter than the Mooch

Her stay was even briefer than Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days as White House communications director in 2017. Zacharia had replaced Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in late August after holding the job since January 2025.

No successor has been named. Her exit leaves the post vacant with the midterm elections under three weeks away.