The White House press secretary’s spectacularly short-lived stint is a reminder that the fish rots from the head and that in communication, credibility is key, preparation is priceless, and an awkward answer can be immortal, writes William Smook

It was overtaken by the seismic shift in US politics heralded by the comprehensive drubbing of President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican cronies – even in traditional GOP strongholds – in the country’s midterm elections, but the short-lived tenure revolving-door departure of Katie Zacharia, the White House press secretary, offers cautionary lessons in communications and leadership.

Given the Trump administration’s reliance on bluster and hubris over substance and gravitas, you could be forgiven for asking why anyone expected any outcome other than catastrophe. But even by the standards of the team that brought you the idea that Canada should be the USA’s 51st state and that New Mexico should be renamed New America, this was a shocker. It was, to borrow a phrase from showbiz, a remarkably short run.

Zacharia’s tenure lasted just five days before her departure was announced last month (SUBS: October 2026). In that time, she became the focus of precisely the sort of scrutiny a presidential spokesperson is supposed to manage on behalf of the head of state. Instead of spending her days explaining the administration’s policies, she found herself answering questions about her own professional credentials and whether she was equipped for the job.

The obvious irony is that the White House press secretary isn’t expected to be the most interesting person in the room, but to explain, defend, deflect and, when required, make an administration’s decisions sound more coherent than they might first appear. It calls for astute judgement, a command of the facts, a thick skin, a level head and an aura of aplomb: the ability to handle probing questions without looking as though you’d rather be somewhere else. Perhaps above all, it requires earning and retaining credibility.

Zacharia’s problems with all of the above kicked off almost immediately. Her first briefing on 13 October was memorable for all the wrong reasons: she read haltingly from a prepared script for eight minutes, then held a five-minute question-and-answer session, taking tame questions from three conservative outlets – Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail – before leaving the podium. Her performance was quickly – and predictably – dissected by journalists and commentators.

A press secretary’s first appearance is always an audition of sorts, so it’s essential to prepare and rehearse. It’s precisely the media training that our clients find useful: tell, show, do. Empower, stress-test, provide constructive feedback, repeat until it’s in your muscle-memory. Zacharia’s debut prompted immediate questions about whether she was up to the job. She might have been afforded a little more sympathy were she not a paid apologist for a vocal supporter of despots and torturers, a convicted fraudster and rapist and someone who repeatedly describes her target audience – the media – as enemies of the state.

Still, first-night jitters aren’t unusual in any role, so she might’ve been cut a little slack had her performance steadied. But her memorable debut was merely the curtain-raiser for a full-blown reputational crisis: her legal qualifications. Ms Zacharia had described herself as a lawyer and had been introduced by Trump as an attorney, but she subsequently acknowledged that she hadn’t passed the California bar examination, and reporters questioned whether she was licensed to practise law at all. The distinction between having a law degree, working in a legal environment and being licensed to practise law isn’t an especially complicated one, but it became an increasingly uncomfortable subject for the new press secretary.

Matters snowballed when the questions came not only from the usual suspects in the mainstream media – those pesky, godless pinko liberals who insist on asking damnable questions, just because that’s their job – but also from the friendlies. Conservative television host Sean Hannity pressed her on the issue on air, while Fox News presenters repeatedly questioned the circumstances surrounding her appointment. If the warning lights weren’t already flashing, that should light them up: when even your supposed media allies ponder your capability and credibility, you know your communications strategy needs triage.

The White House, meanwhile, appeared to have missed the memo on vetting a candidate before their appointment rather than after it. This is something employers do, whether they run a spaza shop or build cruise ships, but we’re talking about the Trump administration. Dear Leader had reportedly chosen Zacharia without consulting some senior members of his own staff, and her rapid fall from grace revived familiar questions about loyalty, internecine rivalries and decision-making in the West Wing. File that under Own Goals if you can find space.

Trump said Zacharia had been treated unfairly, but she was out after less than a week. All of this was both avoidable but also on-brand for the perpetually exploding Trump clown-car, and in its own trainwreck way, hers was a spectacular achievement, surpassing even the 11-day Scaramucci. That’s the tongue-in-cheek unit of measurement named after Anthony Scaramucci, who served as the White House Communications Director for that time in July 2017 during the first presidency of Donald Trump, and which has entered pop culture as a satirical benchmark to measure unusually brief tenures or spans of time. A New York Minute, but with egg on face.

The episode illustrates two important lessons. The first is about leadership: taking and trusting counsel and owning your mistakes. The second is about reputation management: you can survive a difficult question, but it’s much harder to survive the impression that you don’t have a convincing answer. In the age of social media, a shaky television appearance is no longer an isolated moment that disappears when the next news bulletin begins. It becomes content. Clips are shared, memes are born and strangers who’ve never watched a full briefing develop strong opinions about the person behind the podium.

None of us knows just how much pressure a White House press secretary operates. But Jen Psaki does, having held that role in 2021 and 2022, and her assessment of Zacharia’s tenure was all the more withering for its cool, measured candour.

The humour, of course, isn’t really about schadenfreude at one person having a bad day. It’s about the machinery of political communication being exposed in public. A carefully managed message can unravel in seconds when the person delivering it can’t confidently answer the questions that matter. And once the internet and social media decide a public figure is a walking punchline, every subsequent appearance risks being judged through that lens. Even a perfectly reasonable answer may be received with suspicion, while every hesitation becomes another potential meme. Reputation, once damaged, has a nasty habit of making even neutral moments look incriminating.

There’s a broader lesson here for leaders and organisations that appoint senior personnel, including spokespeople, primarily because they’re trusted allies. Yes, loyalty matters, particularly in an administration where the press secretary is expected to defend the president under relentless scrutiny. But loyalty alone cannot compensate for a lack of preparation, experience or the ability to think on one’s feet, or for the fact that one appears to have fudged one’s qualifications.

Trump surrounds himself with sycophants, favours unquestioning loyalty over capability, sees anything less than fawning adulation as dissent and routinely shoots the messenger. From both a leadership and reputation perspective, that’s a terrible approach. The Greek philosopher Socrates is quoted as saying, “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear,” but you also need people on your team who’re empowered to speak up when they feel something is a bad idea. Being constantly second-guessed by a contrarian who’s doing it for its own sake can be tiring, even dispiriting. But you also need team members who’ll ask whether an idea is a brainwave or needs rethinking.

The fish, it’s said, rots from the head. The Trump administration will learn not one lesson from the five-day fiasco with which the unfortunate Kate Zacharia will long be associated as collateral damage, but the crowd at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seem oblivious, as demonstrated by Trump’s appointment as White House Chief of Staff the hawkish Stephen Miller, now the most powerful unelected figure in government. Described by one observer as Temu Joseph Goebbels, Miller is the architect of Trump’s far-right immigration agenda, which proved deeply unpopular with voters, and his appointment has been labelled as a middle finger to them following their rebuke of Trump’s policies in the midterms. In leadership and communications, not learning from a snafu is unforgivable.