World / Americas

Five days at the podium: the press secretary who broke Scaramucci's record

Katie Zacharia lasted less than half of Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days, undone by questions about the one credential she could not show.

Washington, United States · October 18, 2026

Zacharia, a conservative commentator from Fox News and Newsmax, was picked to succeed Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary. Her first briefing on Tuesday lasted about 14 minutes, and she took questions from just three outlets. First briefings are auditions as much as announcements, and this one told the room, and the president watching it, that the podium was not going to be her natural habitat.

Then the questions turned to her own record. She holds a law degree from Pepperdine, earned in 2011, but this week she acknowledged that she failed the California bar exam and has never been licensed to practise law, despite describing herself for years as a lawyer. For most jobs that gap is an embarrassment. For the job of standing in front of the White House press corps and being believed, it is close to disqualifying, because credibility is the entire currency of the role.

On Friday the president said it out loud. “If I were you, I'd reconsider,” Donald Trump told reporters, adding that the job might not be for her. Hours later she was out, with officials calling it “transitioning out” and another role expected. Five days is less than half the 11 days Anthony Scaramucci lasted as communications director in 2017. Scaramucci responded on X: “Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people's pain.”

The speed of the exit is the story, but the vetting failure is the scandal. A bar exam result is not a hidden fact; it is the kind of thing a functioning hiring process checks before the announcement, not after the first briefing. The White House now heads into the final stretch before the midterms with nobody at the podium, and with a fresh reminder that in this administration the fastest way to lose a job is still to become the story yourself.