Fox News Reports Press Secretary Is ‘Transitioning Out’

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - US President Donald Trump said on Friday that new White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia should “reconsider” her position, less than a week after she began the job and amid criticism over her first press briefing and her past claims to be a lawyer.

Trump told reporters: “I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’ I said, ‘Katie, you don’t have to do this’... I said to her, ‘Honestly if I were you I’d reconsider.’”

Minutes later, Fox News quoted an unnamed official as saying Zacharia, 41, was “transitioning out” of the White House.

Zacharia’s first press briefing took place on Tuesday. It lasted less than 15 minutes, began with a reading of what she described as Trump’s accomplishments, and included three questions from journalists.

Controversy followed after it emerged that her earlier descriptions of herself as a lawyer were inaccurate. Zacharia had described herself as a lawyer in television appearances and on social media, and had listed herself as general counsel of a California-based conservative nonprofit. On Thursday, she acknowledged that she had failed the bar exam, a prerequisite for practicing law in the US.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday, Zacharia, who graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school in California in 2011, was asked whether she ever retook the bar exam. “I did not,” she replied. “It was never my intent to go into the practice of law,” she said.

In another interview the same day, with Real America’s Voice, Zacharia said she had registered for the bar exam but was “distracted and overwhelmed” by plans to move to China with her husband. “The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn’t need the bar in China,” she said. She added that “many people in the field” had assured her she could “label myself a lawyer” given her law degree.

On Friday, Zacharia told “Fox and Friends”: “I’m being hired as White House press secretary and not White House counsel.” When a host asked whether she still had the confidence of the president, she said: “I hope to be able to build the trust and confidence of everyone around me.”

Zacharia has not yet announced when she will hold her next White House press briefing. She said the timing is up to the White House communications department and Trump, whom she described as “the most hardworking, incredible man.”

Later on Friday, Trump told reporters that Zacharia, a former commentator on Fox News and Newsmax, was “very good.”

Zacharia also drew a response from Beijing over remarks she made on Thursday in an interview with commentator Jack Posobiec. Recalling the 2016 perception that China would soon overtake the US, she said: “I remember this very distinctly, having just come from China, thinking, ‘How is China the next country on the horizon? They don’t even have proper toilets.’” Chinese President Xi Jinping was recently Trump’s guest on a visit to Washington.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded on Friday that Zacharia should “visit China more often.”