President Donald Trump last week touted new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia as a “brilliant” accredited “attorney,” only for her to admit Thursday that she never passed the bar examination — and Trump’s rather relevant insults from the past came back to bite him.
Zacharia on Tuesday delivered a shaky debut press briefing and raised serious questions about whether she is actually a lawyer or an attorney, initially claiming to have passed the bar while living in China before admitting she never completed that fundamental requirement.
Her new boss ultimately has a lengthy history of insulting female political figures who haven’t.
“We’re killing her in the polls, because the American people don’t want her,” Trump told reporters in October 2024 about then-Vice President Kamala Harris. “She didn’t pass her bar exam. She’s not a smart person. She’s not a person that should represent our country.”
Trump even went as far as calling her a “moron” — despite Harris passing the bar exam on her second attempt in 1990.
The MAGA leader similarly dismissed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his 2016 presidential campaign against her.
“She went to Washington, D.C., she took her bar exam and she failed, right?” Trump said during a rally at the time. “Oh, she’s a genius. No, no, she failed on a bar exam.” Clinton failed her D.C. bar exam in 1973, but went on to pass the Arkansas bar.
Trump appeared rather excited to announce his new press secretary was “distinguished.”
“Katie is a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney, and a frequent Commentator on outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax,” he wrote last week on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Good luck Katie!”
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press
Zacharia told a reporter twice Tuesday that she passed the bar “when I moved to China.”
She told The New York Times on Wednesday that she couldn’t hear the question over the sound of Trump’s presidential helicopter, claiming, “I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” Zacharia ultimately admitted Thursday that she never passed the bar.
The Wall Street Journal has cited one person with direct knowledge of the matter that Zacharia sat for the California bar after graduating from Pepperdine in 2011, but didn’t pass. She worked at Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing before joining the Trump administration.
At least two nonprofits are now demanding investigations into how Zacharia has represented herself, and while the scandal might privately have embarrassed Trump after his glowing praise, the MAGA leader has notably even accidentally insulted himself from time to time.