Katie Zacharia Faces Criticism

Katie Zacharia faced criticism inside the White House after her first briefing as press secretary, where she took questions from three reporters. The briefing followed President Donald Trump’s decision to replace Karoline Leavitt with Zacharia, who had less than 24 hours to prepare and received materials that morning. Officials privately said Zacharia got off on the wrong foot and needed to improve quickly, while communications director Steven Cheung called her uniquely qualified. Zacharia has described herself as a lawyer; state bar checks found no U.S. license record, and she said she practiced international transactional law with appropriate credentials. It remains unclear what legal qualification she meant by her China reference.