In the end, it was less than a half-Scaramucci.
White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharaia’s blink-and-you-miss-it tenure may have inspired a new unit of measurement.
If one Scaramucci is 11 days, one Zacharia would be 5.
Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted just 11 days as the White House communications director - from July 21 to July 31, 2017 – before he was fired by President Donald Trump became a popular measure by which to describe short tenures of officials before they got the boot.
Scaramucci jokes about Zacharia's brief stint as press secretary
Zacharia, who started her job on Monday, was shown the door on Friday.
“Records are made to be broken,” Scaramucci posted on X, commiserating with the plight of the now ex-press secretary. “But I take no pleasure in other people's pain.”
But he had held out hope just
hours before Zacharia’s ouster hit the news.
“She will make it. I have the over,” he said, responding to a post on X which predicted: “If you had the 'over' on Zacharia lasting more than one Scaramucci, her epic flame out on Hannity just now won't help your cause.”
After a rocky14-minute debut behind the lectern at the White House briefing room on Oct. 12, when she stumbled over words, made a verbal gaffe and took only three questions from the press, she appeared on cable TV programs to give context for her rough first public appearance.
Zacharia outlines whirlwind first days on the job
Zacharia, 41, described a whirlwind five days leading up to her first day of work, starting with a phone call from Trump, then traveling from California to the Oval Office and accepting her role – all within 48 hours.
Turns out that was the easy part.
After accepting the job, Zacharia, a mother of four, said she flew back to California, packed two suitcases and was back in Washington, DC, for her first day of work on Oct. 12. It wasn’t until late that day that she received her materials for the press briefing. The materials were not finalized until 8 a.m. ET, just 1.5 hours before she would stand at the podium, she explained in an interview. She was up at 3 a.m. ET to prepare.
But things took a turn for the worse once she was out of the briefing room and accompanying the president to Marine One on their way to Alaska a few hours later.
A lawyer or an attorney?
That’s when a question from the press elicited a head scratcher of a response.
Asked when she passed the bar after obtaining her law degree, Zacharia, who calls herself a lawyer, said: “When I moved to China.”
Trump, who had described her as an “attorney” in a Truth Social post announcing her appointment, seemed flummoxed by the response.
Her non-answer set off a string of articles looking into her credentials and the answer was that she hadn’t passed the bar in any state. She subsequently told reporters she had been advised that it was acceptable to describe herself as a lawyer, but not as an attorney or esquire.
Zacharia also confirmed to USA TODAY that she failed the California bar exam in 2011 and never obtained a law license in the United States.
Sean Hannity's tough questions to Zacharia
For Trump, the final straw appeared to be her conversation with Fox News personality Sean Hannity.
“Why not just say, 'I went to Pepperdine Law School, and then took a different career path, and I took the bar once and didn't pass?'" Hannity asked point blank. "Why get into this long, drawn-out definition between the difference between a lawyer and an attorney, because I don't think most people see much of a distinction. Why didn't you just say, 'I never practiced law?'"
Zacharia said she graduated with a law degree from Pepperdine University and was married the same week. She left for China soon after and had four children in six years and never intended to take the bar exam a second time. She again repeated the advice about describing herself as a lawyer and not an attorney.
Moments before Zacharia out as press secretary, Trump asked her to 'reconsider' role
On Friday, Oct. 16, as Trump spoke to reporters before his Marine One departure en route to Georgia, Zacharia was not by his side. She was not travelling with him.
He told reporters he’d asked her to “reconsider” the decision to continue as press secretary.
“You know, you don't have to do this if you don't want to," Trump said he told Zacharia. "I said, 'Honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider. You think about it, but I'd reconsider.'"
"Look, she has suffered over the last few days. Maybe it's not for her," he said.
Within minutes, the news that she had been fired was spreading like wildfire.
Scaramucci's short tenure was the result of a vulgar phone call with a New Yorker reporter in which he insulted senior colleagues, including Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist.
For Zacharia, part of the death knell may have been her appearing to blame the staff for not preparing her well enough for the briefing.
"Am I hearing that you think the staff should have prepped you better?" asked Hannity. While she side-stepped the question, it may not have won her any friends.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A Scaramucci or a Zacharia? A new unit of time for the Trump White House
