Trump urges new press secretary to ‘reconsider’ taking job: ‘Is this for you, Katie?’

Key points

• Trump told reporters he urged Katie Zacharia to reconsider taking the White House press secretary job.
• Zacharia stumbled through a 14-minute first press briefing and faced scrutiny over her legal credentials.
• She confirmed she never passed the bar exam but calls herself a lawyer, not an attorney.

Donald Trump has urged his new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, to reconsider taking the job after she faced intense scrutiny from news outlets, including the rightwing cable network Fox News. Speaking with reporters outside the White House on Friday, the US president said Zacharia had been treated very badly by the media after she stumbled through a 14-minute press conference on Tuesday and questions arose over her legal credentials.

Trump recalled telling her, "Is this for you, Katie? Because honestly, you don't need it." He added that he would let her decide whether to stay, saying maybe it's not for her and that he wanted her to be happy.

What Fox hosts asked

On Friday morning, during her fifth day as Trump's chief spokesperson, Zacharia appeared on Fox News and was asked whether she still has the president's confidence. She replied, "I'm standing here."

The previous evening, Fox host Sean Hannity grilled her about her first briefing, in which she read from notes and stumbled over words. Hannity, a close Trump ally, asked, "What happened? How did you feel it went personally?" Zacharia said she had little time to prepare and insisted the conservative Daily Mail, one of only three outlets she took questions from, was not known to be a conservative outlet.

I said to her, 'Honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider.'

— Donald Trump

Credentials under scrutiny

Zacharia, who describes herself as a lawyer, admitted she did not pass the bar exam. She graduated from Pepperdine University's law school and had called herself a lawyer, while Trump identified her as an attorney when announcing her appointment. She defended social media posts that also identified her as an attorney by saying they were retweets.

She has said she used lawyer rather than attorney to distinguish herself from a licensed legal adviser. Hannity questioned that distinction, saying he did not think most people see much of a difference. Zacharia replaces Karoline Leavitt, who left her role in August.