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New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia tried to defend herself after a shaky first briefing – claiming she woke up at “3 in the morning” that day and wasn’t given “ample” time to prepare.
Zacharia, 42, told “Real America’s Voice” host Jack Posobiec on Thursday that she had a chaotic week leading up to the Tuesday press briefing, where she appeared visibly nervous. The briefing lasted 14 minutes and she took only three questions from reporters.
“Typically, Jack, briefs are in the afternoon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., where the press secretary has an ample amount of time to have discussed with all the necessary people, get all the right information, be briefed and walk out, and this was a very different incoming, intake,” she said.
“Monday, Columbus Day, is when I got the briefing materials, and then Tuesday morning they were completed. And I woke up at 3 in the morning on Tuesday to prepare what I had, but they weren’t finalized until – we didn’t finalize everything until about 8 a.m.,” she added.
“And I never had a full briefing beforehand and I went out and I effectuated the briefing.”
Zacharia – who was chosen to succeed former press secretary Karoline Leavitt – said she was taking her 5-year-old son to a pumpkin patch on Wednesday when she got a phone call from President Trump.
On Thursday, she flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump on Friday and accepted the job that same day. She then flew back to California on Saturday to pack her suitcases, traveled back to D.C. on Sunday and started the job on Monday, she said.
Zacharia also responded to criticism about the unusually short length of the briefing, saying it was purposeful since Trump was planning to fly out of D.C. that morning.
“Knowing that White House protocol is pretty specific, it was absolutely my goal to keep it short considering he is his own best spokesperson and he would love and does love gaggling with the media as he goes to Marine One, so I wanted to give ample deference and not barge into his time,” she said.
“My original understanding is that my briefing would be at 9:30, end by 10 at least or earlier and that there would be then a quick movement out and we would be going on Marine One at 10.”
Trump personally prepared his new spokeswoman in the Oval Office, making her slightly late, and requested she detail his accomplishments in the briefing and announce his decision to demand the resignation of Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece, a source told The Post.
Zacharia was thrown into the lion’s den on her second day on the job, and her visible nerves quickly became the talk of Washington.
She opened with eight minutes of remarks, leaving just six minutes for questions, and heavily relied on her notes. At one point, she accidentally referred to her husband as the president.
The new press secretary is also facing scrutiny over reports that she described herself as a lawyer – despite never passing a bar exam.
Zacharia failed the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal.
She confirmed the reports during her Thursday interview, saying she was planning to move to China to live with her future husband and “didn’t want to withdraw” from the exam.
On Wednesday, she told the New York Times in a phone interview that she had asked Pepperdine’s president how to describe herself after graduating and was told to avoid the terms “attorney” or “esquire” and instead use “lawyer.”