TRUMP TO MEDIA: KATIE ZACHARIA WASN’T HIRED TO BE A LAWYER — SHE WAS HIRED TO BE LOYAL
President Trump brushed off the latest media pile-on against his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, telling reporters he never hired her to practice law and that the attacks on her are unfair.
Asked whether he was upset that Zacharia did not disclose she had not passed the bar exam, Trump answered directly: “Well, I wasn’t hiring her to be a lawyer. I was hiring her to be a press secretary. But nobody really went crazy over that. I would say it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
I know many people, many people, many very smart people. Some of them take the bar exam four times, the bar exam four times. But I wasn’t hiring as a lawyer, I hired as a press.”
Trump then made clear why he stands by her. “And she’s been very good, you know, she’s been loyal to me from day one for a long time. But it’s not an easy job and I think she was really treated very unfairly. So I’ll speak to her about it. I told her, I think you’re better off being happy. And I’ve got to tell you, you can never be happy in this job. There’s nothing easy about this job.”
The outrage cycle started almost immediately after Zacharia’s appointment and a rocky first briefing. Critics pointed to her 2011 Pepperdine Law degree, her failure to pass the California bar, her earlier work in China, and the fact that she had previously described herself as a lawyer. To the left and its media allies, that was enough to demand her head. To Trump, it was noise.
His point was simple: the press secretary’s job is communications and loyalty, not legal practice. Plenty of capable people fail the bar on the first try — or the fourth — and still go on to do important work. In Trump’s view, Zacharia has already proven her value where it counts.
The media’s sudden fascination with her résumé looks less like concern for qualifications and more like the usual effort to kneecap anyone who works for him.- PTP