By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-16 12:01:27 | Updated at 2026-10-16 12:35:28
45 minutes ago
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said she earned a law degree from Pepperdine University in California but failed the bar exam.
She told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday that she took the bar exam before moving to China with her husband but considered the results inconsequential because she did not need to pass it to work there.
Zacharia, who has faced scrutiny for calling herself a lawyer, said that she consulted legal professionals who advised her that she could use the term but not call herself an attorney.
“I graduated Pepperdine, got married in the same week, and we had all intent to move out to China,” she said. “I had already pre-registered for the bar exam and basically during the summer, I knew I would be living in China, and the results of the bar were inconsequential, and I sat for it because I didn’t want to have a withdrawal status.”
In the United States, earning a law degree does not qualify graduates to practice law; they must first be admitted to a state bar.
In a previous exchange with reporters outside the White House, Zacharia was asked in which state she passed the bar exam.
“When I moved to China,” she replied, without addressing whether she had passed the bar exam.
President Donald Trump had described her as an attorney in a Truth Social post announcing her appointment as White House press secretary.
When asked whether she took the bar exam for a second time, Zacharia said she did not. In the Fox interview, she said she never intended to practice law after moving back to the United States.
She also addressed past social media posts in which she identified herself as an attorney, saying she had “corrected the record” to clarify that the posts did not endorse the title but were “retweets of a title that had been given” to her.
“When I went to go engage in media and give legal analysis, I consulted attorneys and legal professionals as to whether or not they agreed that I could be labeled a lawyer, both because I had a valid Juris Doctor from a good law school, a reputable law school, Pepperdine Law School, and in conjunction with the fact that I did have actual substantive legal experience,” she said.
Zacharia gave her first White House press briefing on Oct. 13, which lasted less than 15 minutes. After delivering her opening remarks, she took questions from three reporters before announcing the briefing was over.
She directed reporters to ask Trump additional questions as he boarded Marine One for a campaign trip to Alaska.
Zacharia said she felt she had “really stepped up to the plate” by holding the press conference with little preparation time, noting that she received briefing materials only that morning before the conference.
“Given the fact that I'd been on the job less than maybe eight hours and had a briefing book in the morning, I feel like I did my very best to deliver for the American people that day,” she said.
Zacharia was appointed after former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down in August to spend more time with her family following the birth of her second child.
The president gave his approval of Zacharia’s first press briefing performance before leaving the White House for a midterm campaign rally in Alaska on Oct. 13.
“I thought she was very good,” Trump told reporters.
Timothy Frudd contributed to this report.
