President Donald Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, is "transitioning out of the role" after he told her to reconsider the job just five days in, according to a White House official.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday he was leaving the decision up to her, claiming that she's been treated "very badly" by the media. However, CNN and other sources reported that Zacharia had been fired from the role.
"I said 'Katie, is this for you?' because she's been treated very rough," Trump said he told Zacharia earlier Friday morning. "Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider."
He added that he felt Fox News host Sean Hannity was "a little bit tough" on her in a recent interview and "she's a nice person."
Trump claimed Zacharia said, "this is a lot tougher" and that he told her, "welcome to the world of Trump."
He told reporters they would speak about her role when he returned to the White House. The president is headed to Georgia for a campaign event.
"Maybe it's not for her," the president added.
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Zacharia's first week as the president's chief spokesperson has been rocky, as she has spent a lot of time defending her legal background.
She was questioned about referring to herself as an "attorney" despite having failed the California bar exam and acknowledging publicly she had been advised not to use that term.
She claimed the results of the bar exam were “somewhat inconsequential” because she would not need to be a barred attorney while living in China when her husband was working there. She also said she wasn't trying to present herself as a lawyer.
Zacharia sat down to do interviews with conservative media outlets, justifying her shaky first press briefing on Tuesday, claiming she didn't have time to get fully prepared beforehand and that the plan was to keep it short.
She told Hannity that she “probably should have stepped aside” instead of taking questions from the press without having much time to prepare.
“I could have just given a brief intro and said, ‘I’m only here to introduce myself, and I want to engage with the press corps,’” she said in the interview.
Before stepping into the position, left vacant a few months ago by Karoline Leavitt as she plans to spend more time with her young family, Zacharia was a communications adviser for the company that runs Truth Social.
Zacharia said she didn't lobby for the job and had wanted to "work for it."
She said she received a call from Trump about the role on Oct. 7 and flew from her home in California to Washington the next day. Zacharia said she met with Trump that Friday and accepted the position later that same day.
If Zacharia formally leaves the role, she will go down in history as the shortest-tenured press secretary.
