President Donald Trump reportedly told advisers that newly appointed White House press secretary Katie Zacharia had “no talent” and “shouldn’t be on television” shortly before her removal from the role, according to insiders who spoke with Politico. The criticism came just five days into her tenure and followed Zacharia’s inaugural press conference, where she struggled to answer reporters’ questions, stumbled over her words, and read from a document rather than speaking off the cuff. The episode underscored the demands of a job that serves as the administration’s chief on-camera spokesperson, where daily exposure to reporters leaves little margin for error and on-air performance is inseparable from the role itself.

Trump told reporters earlier in the day that he had urged Zacharia to reconsider remaining in the role.

“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider,” Trump said. “Katie, you know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want. She said, ‘This is a lot tougher.’ I said, ‘Welcome to the world of Trump.’”

A senior White House official told Fox News that Zacharia is “transitioning out” of the position. She has not yet spoken directly with the about her dismissal, and attention now turns to who will fill the post — and whether Zacharia offers her own account of the five-day run.

With a tenure of just five days, Zacharia makes history as the shortest-tenured White House press secretary, surpassing the mark of Anthony Scaramucci, who previously held the record with an 11-day stint as White House communications director in 2017. The two are distinct posts within the White House’s media operation — the communications director oversees strategy while the press secretary faces reporters directly — but both have proven precarious, and Scaramucci’s 2017 exit had stood for nearly a decade as the benchmark for brief West Wing tenures.

Scaramucci addressed her ouster on social media. “Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” he tweeted.

Her rocky week began with a press conference that many considered disastrous and did not improve in her subsequent media appearances. She appeared in segments on Fox News, where she was questioned about allegedly misrepresenting herself as a lawyer — a line of scrutiny carrying particular weight for a press secretary, whose effectiveness rests on credibility with the reporters covering the administration day to day.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Thursday, Oct. 15, Hannity asked her, “You went to Pepperdine law school, but you did not pass the bar exam, correct?” She responded: “Correct.”

During her first press briefing, when asked to name the state where she passed the exam, Zacharia replied, “When I moved to China.” She later told The New York Times in a phone call that she had misunderstood the question.

After failing the California bar exam, Zacharia reportedly relocated to Beijing following her time at Pepperdine University. While there, she worked as an associate on the international practice team at the Zhong Lun law firm. In a separate interview with Real America’s Voice, Zacharia said she viewed the results of her bar exam as “somewhat inconsequential” because she knew she would soon be moving overseas.