Donald Trump's roster of press secretary trainwrecks and faux pas
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That was fast!
With less than a week under her belt as White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia has joined a staggering roster of the dead.
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Donald Trump's roster of press secretary trainwrecks and faux pas Back to video
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Like the piano player in the Grateful Dead, the tenure of a Donald Trump flack is a matter of blink and you’ll miss it.
The wife of a billionaire Trump donor, Zacharia was cooked after a series of bizarre media appearances and troubling questions about her legal background and qualifications.
Trump told reporters: “I’ve watched her for years on television, but I said, ‘Is this for you, Katie? Because honestly, you don’t need this.’”
Here’s a cheat sheet on the commander-in-chief’s other press secretaries.
SEAN SPICER
JAN. 2017 – JULY 2017
411: Spicer packed it in after six months, stepping down voluntarily. He objected to Trump’s appointment of controversial Anthony Scaramucci as the new White House Communications Director.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS
JULY 2017- JULY 2019
411: Left the White House on good terms and Trump was full of praise for her, suggesting she run for governor of Arkansas. She did. And she won.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM
JULY 2019 – APRIL 2020
411: Grisham was famous for never holding formal, televised press briefings. She then became Melania Trump’s chief of staff, resigning on Jan. 6, 2021 over the administration’s tepid response to the Capitol rioting.
KAYLEIGH McENANY
APRIL 2020 – JANUARY 2021
411: A Trump true believer, sticking by DJT until the embers went out. Prematurely declared victory for Trump on Election Night 2020, repeatedly made allegations of voter fraud (without evidence) and was even torpedoed by Fox News for making the claims.
KAROLINE LEAVITT
JANUARY 2025 – AUGUST 2026
411: Another blond! At 27, she was the youngest person to ever hold the job of White House Press Secretary. She left to spend more time with her young family and has since joined Fox News as an on-air commentator.
OCT. 9, 2016 – OCT. 16, 2016
411: In under a week Zacharia was being ripped to shreds on late night TV for her nervous, ham-handed initial 14-minute press conference. In that adventure, she called her husband “my president.”
KATIE 2.0
She read from a prepared script.
“Her reading is good for an 11-year-old. He hired a fourth grader to be press secretary.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
QUALIFICATIONS?
Katie met a number of qualifications for the job: she has blond hair, she can do a thumbs up, and end of list really.” — KIMMEL AGAIN
CHINA BAR EXAM
She claimed she was a lawyer yet never passed a U.S. state bar exam. When pressed by journalists on where exactly she passed the bar, she answered, “When I moved to China.”
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