Karoline Leavitt joked that Katie Zacharia had suffered the same fate as contestants on Donald Trump’s reality show The Apprentice after her successor’s brief spell as White House press secretary came to an end.
Speaking to Bill Maher on Friday, Leavitt was asked whether she had any advice for Zacharia, who held the role for less than a week.
Leavitt said Trump had become known for moving on from people through his television programme, adding: “It’s in his nature to do that type of thing, I guess.”
Maher replied that he hoped he would not be next after making his second visit to the White House to dine with the president. “I still have some things I wanna say,” he added.
Leavitt, who spent the first 18 months of Trump’s second term facing questions from the White House press corps, also expressed sympathy for Zacharia.
“It’s a tough job, it’s a very tough job, people say it’s one of the hardest jobs in Washington,” she said. “I give anyone who steps up to that podium credit because only 37 people in history have been the White House Press Secretary.”
However, Leavitt agreed with Trump’s decision to end Zacharia’s tenure, saying the pressure in the briefing room was “enormous” and that “the press are vicious”.
“As the President said, it wasn’t a good fit. That’s okay, I wish her well, we’re onto the next,” she said.
Katie Zacharia’s brief White House tenure
Trump announced Zacharia’s appointment on October 9, after first contacting her about the position two days earlier. She formally began the job on October 12 and faced reporters for the first time the following day.
Her debut briefing lasted 14 minutes and included questions from only three reporters. Trump later said: “I thought she did excellent. She did very good.”
The appointment nevertheless drew scrutiny over the speed of the hiring process, Zacharia’s limited preparation time and her experience dealing with the White House press corps.
Questions were also raised about her legal credentials after it emerged that she had failed the California bar exam in 2011. She subsequently moved to Beijing with her husband and worked at a Chinese law firm.
Zacharia continued to appear on news channels as a legal analyst, discussing legal and political issues while describing herself as a lawyer, despite never passing the bar exam.
Her briefing was followed by a difficult appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News programme on October 15, hours before she was removed from the post the following day.
Hannity challenged her over the widely criticised briefing and asked why she had taken only three questions in 14 minutes. Zacharia attributed the performance to the rushed appointment and lack of preparation.
Leavitt said the preparation available to her before taking the job had been very different. Trump announced her appointment on November 15, 2024, while he was still president-elect, and she did not give her first briefing until January 28, 2025.
Leavitt was 27 when she took the role, becoming the youngest White House press secretary in history. Her first briefing lasted about 46 minutes.
She announced her departure on August 12, saying she wanted to spend more time with her growing family, but agreed to remain an outside adviser to Trump.
Leavitt also told Maher that Trump had encouraged her despite concerns from others about her age. “Honey, lots of people said you were too young and I told them I was building buildings in Manhattan when I was your age and you can do it,” she recalled him telling her.
She is due to join Fox News as an on-air contributor from November 1, providing political analysis and commentary across the network’s platforms.
