Katie Zacharia Was Sitting Down With The Wall Street Journal When She Was Fired

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Katie Zacharia was sitting down for an interview with The Wall Street Journal when she was abruptly pulled away — and canned.

The Journal gave a play-by-play of the moment right before Zacharia, 41, found out President Donald Trump was letting her go just five days into the gig:

Shortly before 1 p.m., Katie Zacharia was seated behind her new desk in the West Wing, in a cramped office with only a handful of personal touches: a white orchid, a curling iron, a pair of heels tucked away on a shelf next to a cosmetic bag. The new White House press secretary was telling The Wall Street Journal about her plans for the role.

Then Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the president, knocked on her door. “JD wanted to chat with us real quick,” Miller said, referring to the vice president.

As Zacharia left the room, President Trump walked to his new helipad, where he recalled a conversation he had with her earlier in the day: “I said, ‘Is this for you Katie? Because honestly, you don’t need this,’” he told reporters, adding of her decision to accept the role, “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.”

Zacharia never returned—to the interview, or the job.

“I did everything in my power to effectuate a briefing in the limited time and information I had,” she told The Journal Friday night, hours after her firing, according to the outlet. “My goal was to serve President Trump and the American people to the best of my ability.”

The California mother of four was fired after a disastrous debut at the briefing room podium, in which she shakily spoke from a script, took just three questions from friendly outlets and spoke for only 14 minutes.

She had gone on Fox News’ Hannity two days later, where longtime anchor Sean Hannity asked about her performance and about repeated claims she’d never passed the bar exam, despite the president having described her as an attorney.

Zacharia appeared to have no clue the end was near as she chatted with The Journal the next day, the outlet reported.

She described a rough couple of days, with less than 24 hours to get ready for her initial press briefing Tuesday and only having receiving background information the morning of, The Journal reported.

That’s why she read from notes during the briefing, Zacharia said.

“The truth is that I have a hard time saying ‘no’ because I want to be a team player,” she said, adding she was “trying to, in short form, get all of my ducks in a row and step up to the plate.”

She refused to find fault with the White House for putting her in front of the press so soon.

“I’m not going to blame the White House—no.”

Zacharia described how she’d but up late Thursday, celebrating her son’s birthday after her appearance on Hannity, then turned around on three hours sleep for another tough hit, this time on Fox & Friends.

“I’m just running on no sleep and high adrenaline and probably too much caffeine and no food,” Zacharia told The Journal, thinking of the future as she insisted she had no intention of making changes to the press office staff.

“There are no staffing changes that are happening,” she said. “I’m trying to keep everyone cohesive.”

She never even got the chance.

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