Katherine Zacharia SPOX 1026

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mma

“Excellent, excellent pick”: Here are the right-wing media figures who praised the now-ousted White House press secretary Katie Zacharia

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Helena Hind & Sage Hodil

Published 10/16/26

President Donald Trump has fired Katie Zacharia from her position as White House press secretary after a five-day tenure that included a press briefing widely seen as disastrous and a series of damning reports undermining her purported legal credentials.

Before her termination, right-wing media figures praised her as “a terrific pick,” testified to her supposed legal skills, and told their audiences “she would absolutely crush” the role. Following her first and only press conference, right-wing media personalities acknowledged “a bit of nerves” from Zacharia, but said she did “a great job” and praised her “extremely direct” answers and the brevity of the press conference.

Zacharia was fired five days into the job as White House press secretary after her “brutal” performance

• • President Donald Trump fired Katie Zacharia as press secretary after only five days on the job. On October 16, Trump reportedly asked Zacharia to “reconsider” her role and told reporters outside the White House, “Maybe it’s not for her.” Trump had announced her appointment on October 9, and she held her first press conference on October 13. Trump reportedly hired Zacharia after he “had grown somewhat infatuated with Zacharia’s appearances on Fox News.” [CNN, 10/16/26, 10/13/26; The New York Times, 10/9/26]

• • White House staffers described Zacharia’s debut press conference as “unusual, awkward, stilted” and “uncomfortable.” CNN reported: “Several advisers and officials offered negative reviews of the briefing to CNN, with one characterizing it as ‘brutal.’ Others described it as unusual, awkward, stilted and, at times, uncomfortable.” [CNN, 10/13/26]

• • Zacharia also received scrutiny about her legal career after Trump referred to her as an “attorney,” even though she reportedly never passed the bar exam. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school at Pepperdine University in 2011, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, but she didn’t pass. She took the exam around the time she was planning a wedding and preparing to move to China with her future husband, the person said.” Responding to reporters who asked on October 13 where she had passed the bar exam, Zacharia said, “When I moved to China.” [The Wall Street Journal, 10/15/26]

Who in right-wing media praised Zacharia and claimed she would do a great job after her appointment?

• • Host Buck Sexton suggested he was “maneuvering for months behind the scenes” to get Zacharia appointed and predicted she would be “a phenomenal asset to the Trump administration.” Sexton: “I have been maneuvering for months behind the scenes telling everybody that I know in D.C. and in this Trump White House who will listen that she is the absolute best option here. She will be a phenomenal asset to the Trump administration.” [Media Matters, 10/15/26]

• • Fox News contributor Hugh Hewitt said, “I like this pick for one particular reason: Katie is a Pepperdine-trained lawyer” who has “lots of on-camera time, a lot of experience.” Hewitt then said if Democrats take control of Congress, “it will be useful to have a lawyer's precision in responding to questions from the White House press room about various articles of impeachment or allegations. I think that will be very, very useful for President Trump.” [Fox News, Fox News Live, 10/10/26]

• • In an interview with Zacharia, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy said, “I think you’re going to do a fantastic job.” Campos-Duffy: “The president doesn't get enough credit for how he has found some of the most talented mothers in America to work for him. I just want to say congratulations. I think you're going to do a fantastic job. And I know you personally, I think you're a great person, and you're a wonderful mother, and I'm really — just really proud of you.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/10/26]

• • America’s Newsroom co-anchor Dana Perino said, “The fact that she is a lawyer is a great skill.” Perino continued, “I do think that that could come in very handy for her because almost every story that you all cover in the briefing room does have a legal component.” [Fox News, The Sunday Briefing, 10/11/26]

• • Fox News contributor Joe Concha said that “she has four children, and when you take questions from your kids on a daily basis, it makes the press corps look like cuddly kittens.” Concha went on to say, “She worked in broadcasting as well and has done many many interviews, many many hits. So it’s not like she’s not been in front of a camera before and knows how to answer questions.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends First, 10/13/26]

• • Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said Zacharia was an “excellent, excellent pick” and said she “looks the part, you know, very, very, good looking blonde.” Knowles continued, saying Zacharia “totally looks the part of the great press secretaries under President Trump. And, anyway, I think this is a terrific pick. Someone who's very loyal to the president, very smart, very articulate.” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 10/12/26]

• • Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec: “There’s no question in my mind that she would absolutely crush it.” Posobiec: “She’s absolutely someone who’s got the chops. She’s got the know-how. She’s someone who understands this completely and I couldn’t be more thrilled to hear this news.” Posobiec added later, “I’m looking out across the conservative landscape and really Katie Zacharia — she is the woman for the job. There’s no question in my mind that she would absolutely crush it. There’s no question in my mind that she would absolutely perform to beyond expectations and certainly excel any of what anyone’s thinking.” [Rumble, Human Events Daily, 10/9/26]

Who in right-wing media continued to defend Zacharia after her press conference?

• • Podcaster Benny Johnson on Zacharia’s first press conference: “I like it.”
  • Johnson called her “style” “extremely direct,” saying, “They were very short answers. And I don’t interpret that as nervousness at all. I don’t interpret that as a bad thing. You know, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ is a Shakespearean line. And I like, I like it. So she just gets right to the point, like, here’s the news.” [YouTube, The Benny Show, 10/13/26]

• • Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany offered “kudos” to Zacharia “for coming out and just saying, I’m going to do a briefing, I’m going to do it within 24 hours, and I’m going to drop the news” of Kimberly Guilfoyle being asked to resign. Guest Melissa DeRosa commented, “I thought that she presented well. She didn’t come off as combative like we have seen some of President Trump’s prior press secretaries.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/13/26]

• • Newsmax host Rob Finnerty defended Zacharia from criticism, saying CNN attacked her because she is “young, attractive, blonde, a Pepperdine law graduate, Christian, a married mother of four, meaning she represents everything they hate.” Finnerty invoked media coverage of former President Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “KJP is historic because of her race and her sexual orientation. Ironically, they hate Katie Zacharia for the same reasons: her race and her sexual orientation.” [Newsmax, Finnerty, 10/14/26]

• • Right-wing podcaster Vince Coglianese said Zacharia was “going to find her sea legs very quickly,” adding that she had “first day nerves” that were “deeply humanizing.” He commented: “I would say the thing that she needs right now is just reps. She just needs more reps. Just put these people in front of her. Let them act like psychopaths, and let her get the reps in smacking them down. And then each successive time that she appears in front of the camera, she'll be able to dominate them even more, which is going to be great. So, again, I think she’s going to find her sea legs very quickly.” [Rumble, Vince, 10/14/26]

• • Right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino: “Kate Zacharia just did a great job. It was a short press conference, which is the way to go.” He continued, “She gave an intro, gave the president’s travel schedule, talked about how he’s going to advance the agenda, which I think he’s going to do well for candidates where he visits. You see a bump in polling, draws attention to local races. But I thought she did great. I think it was smart. Keep it short, the first one. There’s always going to be a bit of nerves, folks. I don't care who you are. You could have nerves of steel. You go up there in front of an international audience that’s watching you on day one. But I thought she did fantastic.” [Rumble, The Dan Bongino Show, 10/13/26]

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AN 10 26

Conservative host lays out why Katie Zacharia's lies are a 'big deal'

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mma

Here's the MAGA host taking credit for Katie Zacharia’s appointment to press secretary

Buck Sexton: “I have been maneuvering for months behind the scenes telling everybody that I know in D.C. and in this Trump White House who will listen that she is the absolute best option here”

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Helena Hind

Published 10/15/26

Update 10/16/26: President Donald Trump fired Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary after only five days on the job. Buck Sexton and co-host Clay Travis addressed her firing during the October 16 edition of their show, with Sexton admitting her press conference was “a little shaky” and that her initial hiring was “a shock.” He noted that he knows Zacharia only through the show and he's “actually never met her in person.” He continued, “Not the right role at the right time, you know, she’s got four kids. … Not everybody’s built for the fire.” Sexton floated White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly to replace Zacharia.

After President Donald Trump announced on October 9 that he had appointed Katie Zacharia as the new White House press secretary, right-wing media figure Buck Sexton claimed he had been rallying for Zacharia to get the job.

According to Sexton, he had been “maneuvering for months behind the scenes telling everybody that I know in D.C. and in this Trump White House who will listen that she is the absolute best option here.” He later added that he “tried to bring it up when we were in the White House with Trump” but was interrupted by a phone call from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (On September 28, Sexton and his co-host Clay Travis met with Trump in the Oval Office and had "conversations with key White House figures and insiders such as Marco Rubio, Karoline Leavitt, Natalie Harp, Stephen Miller, and Susie Wiles.”)

Citation

From the October 9, 2026, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Sexton floated Zacharia for press secretary in August, saying, “Personally, I think she would be fantastic in the role.”

Zacharia’s first press conference on October 13 reportedly sparked internal turmoil at the White House, with one staffer calling the press conference “brutal” and others describing it to CNN as “unusual, awkward, stilted and, at times, uncomfortable.” It has since been reported that even though Trump referred to her as an “attorney,” Zacharia never passed the bar exam.

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AN 10 26

The rapid administrative implosion of White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the MAGA movement's self-proclaimed "meritocracy" . Concluding abruptly on Friday after a mere five days in office , Zacharia’s unprecedentedly brief tenure collapsed under the weight of an agonizingly inept debut at the briefing room podium and a full-scale resume fraud scandal that unraveled in record time.

The final act of her brief employment unfolded on the South Lawn, where President Donald Trump signaled her departure to reporters. Trump recounted an internal conversation where he subtly nudged his press secretary toward the door, framing her removal not as a firing but as an act of administrative mercy. “I said, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,’” Trump remarked, pushing her under the bus while publicly bemoaning how she had "suffered at the hands of the press.” Within hours, media reports confirmed she was officially out.

The trajectory toward her ouster began during Tuesday's introductory press briefing, where she was tapped to replace Karoline Leavitt . The performance was an unmitigated disaster that left seasoned journalists dumbfounded. Zacharia spent the bulk of her truncated 14-minute appearance reading stilted, fragmented opening remarks with her eyes glued to her notes, prompting The View’s Ana Navarro to brutally observe that "second graders read better" . Network hosts were so unimpressed by the spectacle that MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle cut away from the briefing after less than three minutes. In a bizarre rhetorical slip, Zacharia momentarily referred to Trump as her husband before taking just three questions and abruptly fleeing the room.

However, the primary catalyst for her firing was the immediate unraveling of her professional biography. Both Zacharia and the president had repeatedly marketed her to the public as a credentialed "attorney." Yet, an independent record search quickly revealed an embarrassing flub: there is no record of Zacharia ever holding a license to practice law in California or any other American jurisdiction. Documentation confirmed that while she graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, she failed the California bar exam. Legal experts quickly warned that by presenting herself as "general counsel" for Ric Grenell’s conservative advocacy group, Fix California, Zacharia may have actively violated the law regarding the unauthorized practice of law.

When initially cornered by reporters on the tarmac about where she had actually passed the bar exam, Zacharia offered the incoherent, evasive excuse: "When I moved to China."She later claimed she had misheard the question due to the deafening roar of Marine One.

Ultimately, her attempts to spin the crisis on friendly television networks sealed her fate. During a Thursday evening appearance on Fox News, host Sean Hannity confronted her with her own falsehoods, pressing her on the extensive history of media appearances and social media posts where she claimed the attorney title. Her defense—sheepishly suggesting that the posts "were retweets"—failed to contain the political fallout. By Friday morning, a defensive Zacharia appeared on television to complain that the “legacy media” was making her an unnecessary subject of conversation . Hours later, she was gone. Zacharia's five-day tenure stands as a definitive cautionary tale of MAGA cronyism, accelerating what critics describe as America's deepening intellectual crisis at the highest levels of government.

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FAILS? OLD BAD SOC MED DELETED?

AN 10 26

Trump's new secretary caught in embarrassing flub over claim to be 'lawyer'

Experts warn Katie Zacharia violated the law on her second day

MS NOW cuts off Katie Zacharia's first press conference in just 3 minutes

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AN 10 26 COUPLE OTHER DAFT COMMS SAME DAY

A conservative commentator for CNN who has long been reported "thirsty" for a job working for Washington Republicans just got publicly insulted for not being picked as President Donald Trump's new press secretary.

"Sorry you lost your race too, @ScottJenningsKY," Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for United States Senate in her state earlier this year, posted on X on Friday.

Instead the White House chose Katherine Zacharia, who was described by Reuters as "a communications adviser for President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform. Her selection was characterized as one that "would put Zacharia at the center of the White ⁠House's public messaging operation in the final stretch before the elections, when Trump's agenda and his party's control of Congress will be put before voters. Trump's approval rating fell to 32 percent — the lowest of his political career — as his fellow Republicans soured on his handling of the cost of living and the Iran war, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found."

Reuters added, "The selection of Zacharia underscores the close ties between Trump's administration and his broader political and media operation. It comes after Trump Media unveiled in July that for a fee it would give banks and ⁠trading firms 'the fastest' access to posts from influential Truth Social accounts, such as the president's, whose posts often move global markets."

All of this is likely cold comfort for Jennings, who has had more than his fair share of public embarrassments in October. Earlier this month, he attracted controversy for warning Trump that if Democrats win control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections, it would be bad for the country because they would simply investigate him.

"My other advice is that all of these arrangements, whether it’s this one or anything else, you really, really have to dot all your I’s, cross all your T’s and anticipate that every single bit of this is going to be investigated, should you lose control of either chamber,” Jennings said, continuing: “And you have to be ready to be fully transparent about that when that day comes.”

Jennings also came under fire for blaming Trump's economic problems on his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

“His main problem is cost of living and most of the cost-of-living problems that we're dealing with in the country, he inherited," Jennings argued. “We still have a little bit of inflation, but it's largely normalized now. But most of the cost of living, he inherited it.”

He added, “… Certainly to a lot of Americans, you know, when prices spike the way they did during Biden, even going up 2 percent or 3 percent over the last two years, it feels like tacking on even more problems to their lives.”

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dck 10 26

The Thinking Conservative

https://www.thethinkingconservative.com › fix-california

Fix California - The Thinking Conservative News

Election Integrity and Voter Engagement For A Better California. California is a magnificent state and we deserve better than the failed leadership and partisan politics of our elected officials. The first step in taking back our state is making sure the playing field is even and the laws governing our elections are enforced. ~ Ric Grenell, Founder, Fix California About Fix California Fix ...

en.biographykind.com

https://en.biographykind.com › katie-zacharia

Katie Zacharia Biography - Age, Family, Political Career, Net Worth

In 2024, she took on the role of Chief Advancement Officer at Fix California and became Senior Advisor to Ambassador Richard Grenell. She also appears regularly on Fox News and Newsmax, promoting conservative initiatives.

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2026 › oct › 14 › trump-press-secretary-lawyer-zacharia

Trump's new press secretary faces scrutiny over claims to be a lawyer ...

2 days agoZacharia's LinkedIn profile lists her as "general counsel" of Fix California, a conservative group founded by Ric Grenell, a longtime Trump ally and the special presidential envoy for ...

fixcalifornia.com

https://fixcalifornia.com › subscribe › richard_grenell_full_length

richard_grenell_full_length - FIX CALIFORNIA

DETAILS Email PAID FOR BY FIX CALIFORNIA PO Box 276 Rancho Mirage, CA 92270

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Richard_Grenell

Richard Grenell - Wikipedia

Richard Allen Grenell[1][2] (born September 18, 1966) is an American diplomat, public official, and former public relations consultant who has served as the special presidential envoy for special missions since 2025. Grenell additionally served as the acting director of the Kennedy Center from February 2025 to March 2026. A member of the Republican Party, he served as acting director of ...

Entrepreneurship Life

https://www.entrepreneurshiplife.com › katie-zacharia

Katie Zacharia Biography: Age, Family, Political Career, Net Worth 2026

Mar 10, 2026Today, Katie Zacharia is the Chief Advancement Officer at Fix California, a regular contributor on Fox News and Newsmax, an advisor to Ambassador Richard Grenell, and one of the most recognized conservative strategists operating out of the West Coast. She is 42 years old in 2026, and by almost every measure, she is just hitting her stride.

lamorindarepublicanwomenfederated.org

https://www.lamorindarepublicanwomenfederated.org › blog › grenells-fix-california-seeks-to-do-just-that

Grenell's 'Fix California' Seeks To Do Just That

Grenell's is a long game plan to revamp state politics. " Fix California is committed to pursuing longterm solutions that advance conservative ideas and causes throughout the state," Grenell says.

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