Washington: Donald Trump’s embattled new press secretary Katie Zacharia is set to leave after just five days after the US president cast doubt on her tenability and encouraged her to reconsider her position.
It follows a poor debut performance on Tuesday (US time) at the White House where Zacharia – a conservative media commentator – read awkwardly from a prepared script, took few questions and fumbled her responses.
She was also caught up in a furore over whether she misrepresented her legal qualifications to the president, having now admitted that she never passed the bar exam despite marketing herself as a lawyer.
Trump told reporters on Friday that he urged Zacharia to rethink the job. “I just spoke to her about it. I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’ Because she’s been treated very rough, and she’s a nice person,” he said.
“I said to her, ‘Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider’. You think about it. But I would reconsider. She’s got a beautiful husband and family. I said, ‘You should reconsider because you don’t want to go through this’.”
Minutes after Trump made the remarks while departing the White House, The New York Times reported that Zacharia had been fired, citing people familiar with the matter.
This masthead contacted the White House for clarification but did not immediately receive a response.
More to come
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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