By The American Tribune | Created at 2026-10-17 14:00:41 | Updated at 2026-10-17 15:52:48
1 hour ago
President Donald Trump is taking his time choosing another White House press secretary after Katie Zacharia’s brief tenure ended amid questions about her professional background. Trump told Fox News’ Peter Doocy that he was in no rush to name a replacement and had no shortlist of candidates. He also addressed the pressure Zacharia had faced since taking the job. “I just want her to be happy,” the president said.
Doocy spoke with Martha MacCallum after interviewing Trump by telephone while the president was aboard Air Force One, traveling to Georgia for a Republican midterm campaign rally. Zacharia had been announced as the replacement for Karoline Leavitt only a week earlier. MacCallum introduced Doocy’s reporting by asking about his conversation with the president. “Good afternoon to you, Peter. What did he tell you?” she asked.
“Martha, good afternoon. I did just talk to President Trump on the phone,” Doocy said. “He’s aboard Air Force One, heading down to Georgia for another one of these huge midterm rallies today on behalf of the Republicans down there in Georgia, who are in a very purple state.” Doocy added that those Republicans needed help before turning to the president’s plans for filling the White House vacancy.
“But the news: President Trump says that he is in no rush to name a replacement for the press secretary,” Doocy said in the Fox segment. He explained that Trump believed things had been going adequately during the period following Leavitt’s departure. Doocy addressed whether the president had narrowed his search: “As for potential replacements, there’s no short list at the moment.”
Trump was nevertheless receiving interest from people hoping to take the position, according to Doocy. He said “a lot of people have been calling him because he says that people know if you get that job, it makes you a star.” Doocy shifted to the circumstances surrounding the outgoing press secretary. “Things were a little bit different, though, with Katie Zacharia.”
“I just want her to be happy,” Trump said in the remarks that followed. Discussing whether the position suited Zacharia, he added, “Maybe it’s not for her.” Trump said he had told her, “You want to be happy in life,” and expressed his willingness to accommodate her wishes, saying, “I’ll do whatever she wants.”
Watch Doocy discuss Trump’s comments with MacCallum here:
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Doocy described the scrutiny surrounding Zacharia’s professional background during her first week. “Zacharia struggled to explain her resume,” he said, before listing questions about whether she was a lawyer or attorney, her work for a law firm in China, and whether she had passed the bar examination. According to Doocy, Zacharia said those matters hadn’t come up before her hiring. He described them as “things that she says never came up prior to her hiring one week ago today.”
The Associated Press reported that Zacharia acknowledged her departure in a Friday social media post. Her sole White House briefing had taken place Tuesday and lasted approximately 14 minutes. Before taking the press secretary position, she had worked in communications for Trump Media and briefly at the Department of Homeland Security.
Doocy also read a response from Anthony Scaramucci, whose tenure as White House communications director lasted 11 days. He introduced the post by noting that Zacharia’s time in office was less than half as long as Scaramucci’s. “Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” Scaramucci wrote.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.
