Donald Trump wanted another fighter on television. Instead, the woman he rushed to choose as Karoline Leavitt’s replacement reportedly left him embarrassed and ready to send her packing.
Coverage of Katie Zacharia’s briefing rattled the president, according to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. When Trump asked other aides to assess her performance, few were willing to stand up for her.
Her appearance with Sean Hannity reportedly sealed her fate. Collins said Trump believed Zacharia hadn’t defended him forcefully enough and knew she needed to go.
The swift reversal followed a search that had already tested his patience. According to Collins, Trump rushed to select Zacharia after growing frustrated with how long it was taking to replace Leavitt, eager to have more people defending him on TV.
Another questioned whether anyone could replicate her predecessor’s performance: “He’s not going to get another Karoline Leavitt. Bad moving putting her on a decoy plane lol.”
Critics quickly seized on the reported reason for his decision.
“She made Trump look bad so it was the embarrassment she caused him rather than her incompetence that got her fired,” one person wrote.
A third jokingly speculated about aide Natalie Harp’s involvement: “Natalie whispered in Trump‘s ear that she had to go lol.”
The fallout stood in sharp contrast to Zacharia’s enthusiastic welcome.
Leavitt had stepped away nearly two months earlier to focus on her husband and their two young children. To replace her, Trump turned to a conservative commentator already working as a senior communications adviser for Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social.
Trump called it his “Great Honor” to appoint Zacharia to succeed “the fabulous Karoline Leavitt.” Zacharia responded that following Leavitt “is a high standard, and one worth meeting.”
Initially, much of the online chatter focused on how closely the new hire resembled the woman she replaced.
According to The Daily Beast, Zacharia is 41 and a mother of four, making her 12 years older than Leavitt. Yet social media users studying their photos side by side said they could barely tell them apart.
Both sport long blond waves, broad smiles and the polished television look critics have dubbed “Mar-a-Lago face.”
“He has a type, doesn’t he?” one Facebook user wrote. Another dubbed Trump’s communications team the “Trumpford Wives.”
“How can you tell they’re not the same person?” another person asked on X.
But it was Zacharia’s legal credentials that turned her debut into a controversy.
She earned her law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011, a credential the school confirmed when celebrating her appointment. Her résumé included communications work for Trump’s social media company and appearances on conservative television.
The trouble began when reporters pressed her about passing the bar exam. She was asked during her first briefing where she had passed it, Zacharia responded, “When I moved to China.” She later said she had misunderstood the question.
The exchange shifted attention from the administration’s message to its messenger. Trump had introduced Zacharia as an attorney, but questions were mounting over whether her credentials supported that description.
During her subsequent appearance with Sean Hannity, Zacharia confirmed that she had failed the California bar exam and never retaken it. She separately maintained that legal professionals had advised her she could describe herself as a lawyer based on her education and international experience.
For a president who reportedly wanted another forceful television defender, the controversy created an awkward reversal: his new spokesperson was now explaining her own background.
Her appointment had also revived questions about the demands of the job. Leavitt said she left because it allowed too little time with her children. Zacharia had previously attributed her departure from a government communications role to the strain of traveling between Washington and her California home.
She had emerged from a search that included several rumored contenders, among them Alina Habba, Jason Miller, Anna Kelly and Scott Jennings.
Leavitt, meanwhile, has moved into an on-air contributor role at Fox News. The replacement Trump chose to strengthen his television defenses instead became the subject of another damaging news cycle.
