Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the podium job was not for Katie Zacharia after a five-day tenure that ended with a short, visibly nervous first briefing.
The Post reported that Leavitt weighed in on her first successor while speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, offering a plain verdict on the brief White House stint and the search already underway for a steadier replacement.
Zacharia lasted five days as President Trump’s press secretary, the shortest tenure on record, before returning to her California home. She flew in from California for an interview with the president on the Friday before she started, went back to pack, returned to Washington that weekend, completed Monday onboarding paperwork, and faced the briefing room Tuesday morning on what was essentially her first full day.
That rapid arc has now drawn a direct assessment from the person who held the job before her. Leavitt told Fox News the role demands preparation few outsiders fully grasp until they stand at the podium.
“We wish Katie the best. The job obviously was not for her, but we wish her and her family well,” Leavitt said.
“We wish Katie the best. The job obviously was not for her, but we wish her and her family well.”
Zacharia’s first briefing was short and she appeared visibly nervous. Coverage of the performance was harsh, and the tenure ended almost as fast as it began. Her five-day mark now stands as the briefest press secretary run in modern White House history.
National Review reported that the exit came shortly after that October 13 briefing, with President Trump himself urging her to reconsider the post amid the media storm. He told reporters he wanted her to have a good life and said he had told her she would be better off being happy.
“I told her, ‘I think you’re better off being happy,’” Trump said. He added that he did not want her living the kind of life she had led over those three difficult days.
RealClearPolitics detailed further trouble around the brief run: an unprepared first briefing, stumbles even in friendlier media settings, and questions about her prior claims of being a lawyer despite no public record of passing the bar. Trump offered her an off-ramp in real time, telling reporters he had just said she did not have to continue if she did not want to.
After leaving, Zacharia went quiet back in California. She was later spotted working out in a MAGA hat. A source familiar with her thinking pushed back hard against continued criticism from the prior press secretary’s orbit.
“It’s unfair for the former press secretary to continue brutalizing President Trump’s hand-picked successor,” the source told The Post. The same source said Zacharia has refused friendly and hostile interviews alike, declined profile pieces, and wants coverage focused on the president’s work rather than herself.
“Katie has been adamant about not taking any interviews with friendly or hostile press, has declined profile pieces and would like for the coverage to focus on President Trump’s hard work.”
Zacharia herself framed the episode as service, not self-promotion. She told The Post she remains grateful for the chance to back Trump’s agenda and pointed to border security gains, manufacturing and energy investment, and a women’s health initiative launched with the First Lady.
“There is no other president in history like him. He has single-handedly saved America with his effective policies, and no one has been more relentlessly attacked by the media than President Trump.”
In remarks to The California Post she added that she was proud she said yes, stood firm, and kept supporting the president so her children could see what courage looks like under criticism.
Leavitt stepped down from the press secretary post in August to spend more time with her two young children and now works as a spokesperson for the president’s political arm. Her own exit left the briefing room open; Zacharia became the first try at filling it.
Speaking to Fox, Leavitt stressed that serving as Trump’s spokesperson “takes a lot of preparation and sometimes you don’t know how someone will perform until they go out there.” She has offered the president private counsel on the next pick and declined to float public names.
“I’ve offered my help to the president to help him select someone who can serve him and the country well.”
She was clearer about the traits required. “Nobody understands the press better than Donald Trump. He knows he needs someone who is tough, who is smart, who understands his policies, who is loyal, and who can go out there and put up a fight,” Leavitt said. “There’s plenty of people who want the job... It’s just up to the president to make that decision.”
In Manchester she described her own first-day preparation in blunt terms: she prepared “like heck,” poured herself into reading and study, spoke with every Cabinet member, and talked directly with the president. Late last year on Pod Force One with Miranda Devine she had already warned that the briefing room can turn combative, on camera and off, and that the team’s job is to stay professional and deliver facts.
Motherhood and the move to outside political work pulled Leavitt from daily briefings, yet she remains close enough to the president to advise on the next hire. A source familiar with administration thinking said no permanent replacement should be expected before November’s midterm elections.
The episode leaves the White House without a settled public voice at the podium heading into a midterm year. Zacharia’s defenders cast her silence and refusal of profile tours as loyalty to Trump rather than self-protection. Critics of the hire point to the unprepared briefing, the credential questions that surfaced immediately, and the speed of the collapse.
Questions about her law-license claims hit within days of that first briefing and added to the pile-on. Trump’s own comments framed the exit as concern for her well-being more than a public firing spectacle, consistent with the off-ramp language he used with reporters.
Leavitt’s public standard is straightforward: the job rewards toughness, policy fluency, loyalty, and the willingness to fight in a hostile room. Her private counsel to the president stays private. The decision on who stands at the podium next sits with Trump alone.
Five days exposed the gap between wanting the title and surviving the briefing room. The White House now needs a fighter who already knows the difference.