Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Trump Fires New Press Secretary After Five Days (w/ Judd Legum)

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Five days. That’s how long Katie Zachariah lasted as Trump’s White House press secretary before a disastrous debut, questions about her legal credentials, and a wave of West Wing backstabbing brought her tenure to an abrupt end. Former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews joins Andrew Egger and Judd Legum, whose reporting helped expose Zachariah’s questionable résumé, to explain how it all fell apart, why Trump bears the blame, and what this fiasco reveals about the chaos returning to his White House in the second term.Find your next fall favorites at https://www.quince.com/. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. When Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Bulwark Takes.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Bullwork Takes. We are live in a sort of emergency capacity here on a Friday afternoon on the news that brand new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah, has been fired and or resigned just five days into her new tenure at that position. I am Andrew Reger, White House correspondent with the Bullwork. I'm joined by my colleague Sarah Matthews, herself, a former Deputy Press Secretary at the White House in Trump 1.0. and I'm also very excited to be joined by Judd Legum of popular information who has broken a lot of the news about Katie Zacharias background that has led to the situation that we find ourselves in now. So thanks, Sarah. Thanks, Judd, for coming on on short notice. Of course. Thanks for having me. Let's do the Trump clips because there's just, I mean, this has been such a fast moving story. It's been five days. There have been so many developments in this story. And Judd, I'll let you kind of kind of set the stage. Actually, Before we do the Trump clips, let's go to you, Judd. Can you just kind of talk us through what your reporting has been that has landed Katie Zachariah in such a sort of difficult situation that she really struggled to extract herself from over the last few days? Yeah, well, obviously she's somebody who, I wouldn't say came out of nowhere, but probably wasn't eye on a lot of lists as we were thinking about, well, who's going to be the next person to be White House Press Secretary?

So I was interested in finding out more about her and really one of her principal kind of qualifications she talked about when she was on Fox News, when she was on Newsmax, which is what she was doing primarily before joining the White House, was that she was a lawyer. So initially I was just looking because I know, well, if you're a lawyer, you know, are there any, did anyone, any of her clients filed complaints? You know, is there anything else to find out about her legal career? And I kind of That's when I sort of hit a roadblock and that I couldn't figure out where it was that she actually was barred or practiced. And it just sort of kept on chipping away at that. And eventually after, you know, looking through all 50 states, because I figured probably in California, that's where she lived.

But, you know, you can be barred anywhere. I live in D.C. I'm actually barred in Maryland. And so I thought, well, you know, maybe she's barred in Texas. Went through all the states. couldn't find anything. And, you know, that's kind of the initial report that seems to have caused her, along with her performance, I think, in the first press briefing was a major factor as well. But that seems to have she struggled really to explain why it was that she has called

herself a lawyer for all of these years, even a general counsel, when she had never passed the bar. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to my mind, it was kind of a combination of those two exact things, right? I mean, it was it was the comms, skills on display in the briefing. But then it was also the comms, skills on display, you know, during her repeated attempts to extract herself from the difficulties of this reporting. Man, I'm glad I went to Judd first. Maybe we lost him. Hopefully he'll be back.

The perils of doing these things, you know, from your phone outdoors. But, yes, repeatedly over the last few days, you know, Katie Zacharias asked when she passed the bar, she says, well, I pass it when I moved to China. Later, she tries to walk that comment back, said she didn't really hear. the question very well, said that in fact, she's never passed the bar, said that she's called herself a lawyer, but not an attorney. Then comes out she has repeatedly represented herself as an attorney on social media. The president has referred to her as an attorney. So it was just kind of a mess. It was it was communications malpractice, really, and in a lot of ways, because she kept prolonging

the story herself. Trump himself never really seemed to, he seemed in everything he said, like he had a lot of sympathy for her. He never really stopped taking her side, at least while talking to the press. Let's listen in on Trump himself just today, just before the news broke, that she would no longer be carrying on in this role. Here's the president. You're going to give her, do you want her to stick around ultimately? I'll talk to her when it gets back. We're going over to give a big, big rally, lots of people, big crowds, lots of people, big crowds, you know that. And I'll talk to her tonight or tomorrow. I just said, I think you should reconsider because I think the press is really being very...

Yeah, I mean, he says that he told her, I think you should reconsider. He kind of characterizes that as her decision. It's been reported elsewhere that she really was fired. The New York Times has reported this. How do you read this, Sarah? I mean, you've worked in that space. Do you have a theory about whether this was left up to Katie Zachariah herself, or do you think that they just couldn't imagine,

her continuing in that role, given what she's shown so far. Yeah, this was not left up to her. I think that she was forced out the door and the knives were out for her in the West Wing because, I mean, between lying about being an attorney, the humiliating first press briefing, and then of all places fumbling an interview with Sean Hannity, yeah, I mean, if you can't handle an interview with Hannity, then you're not cut out for the role. You just don't have the chops. And so it was very obvious that she was not going to last.

I did not expect it to be less than one scaramucci. I really thought they would at least maybe give her a second briefing to try to prove herself. But here we are. I guess it just like all of that combined. It was just too much. And so I'm not surprised that she was fired. I think that Trump is trying to, yeah, present it in a way that she wasn't necessarily fired because he picked her. We know from inside reporting that Trump kind of went behind Susie Wiles back.

Susie Wiles that's advocating for Scott Jennings, CNN commentator. But Trump likes a female press secretary. And so he decided that he was going to pick her. And I will say that funny enough, my former colleague, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who's CNN commentator and co-host of The View, we had texted months ago when Caroline Levitt announced her departure. and we guessed Katie Zachariah. We thought that she would be the pick. And so it is funny to hear like, she was low on a lot of people's list,

but for people who were inside Trump world at one point, we both knew that she fit central casting, that Trump had posted about her on truth social, that he seemed to be a fan of her, and she was all over Fox News and Newsmax. And so would have been on his radar. And so I didn't necessarily think that she would get picked because I thought she was the most qualified for the job and the best candidate,

I just knew that it was someone that Trump had his eyes on. And so I think that's why he's trying to make it like, oh, well, you know, I just don't want to see her get harassed by the media and it's so tough for her because this was solely his decision and he doesn't want to admit it was a mistake. Yeah, let's just watch a little bit more of this because Trump went on and on about this at the briefing today. Can we play that third clip? I mean, just just him talking about the suffering is that that she has been undergoing.

It's just really striking to hear all this playing out in public. But let's hear a little bit more from the president. What I'm doing is I said when I get back, we're going to talk. Because I don't think that Katie should be made to suffer like he's suffering at the hands of the president. So I will talk to as soon as I get back. Yeah, I mean, that's plenty of that. I mean, the suffering thing is so amazing, not only because the role, is this kind of adversarial role with the press,

and that, of course, any press secretary for Trump is going to be in the line of fire in that way. But also because, like you mentioned, I mean, she really hadn't had any of that in this role so far. Her first briefing was three questions from, I believe it was Breitbart, and then Fox News, and then the Daily Mail, so three right-leaning publications in a row, and then she ended that briefing.

And then it was Sean Hannity last night, Fox and Friends This Morning, Jack Posobics podcast yesterday. I mean, it really was just one, ad showing after another, all under pretty favorable, or at least, you know, home field advantage type scenarios. Obviously, Hannity was not quite as deferential to her in that interview last night as he might have been. But I don't know. Let me go back to you, Judd. I mean, do you think that that there was a world where she could have gotten through, you know, your reporting and this

story about the lawyer attorney stuff, all that stuff, if she'd just shown a little bit more, I don't know, dexterity in these appearances in these five days on the job? Well, I do think she made things progressively worse for herself. As she sort of explained her conduct, I mean, when she went on Hannity and elsewhere, she talked about how she was very careful to call herself a lawyer and not an attorney, when in fact she really was not very careful at all. And whether you were listening to the podcasts or her on TV, she was speaking as an attorney quite frequently.

And but I think even more so, and maybe the reason why the White House decided they need to let this go quickly is beyond what she is talking about and how she is describing herself on TV, which is more of an optics thing than anything else, she claimed to be the general counsel of a California nonprofit. So then you start getting out of the realm of dishonesty and you start getting into the realm of unauthorized practice of. of law where you could actually have some serious repercussions. California actually has strict rules. It is unlawful to even represent that you are a lawyer or an attorney when you are not. But no one's going to really prosecute her for that. I doubt it's probably ever been prosecuted. But you can and people do get prosecuted all the time, but not all the time.

But it happens for unauthorized practice of law. So what she was doing at this fixed California? I think was a big problem for her moving forward. I wonder, just with the Hannity interview, and I thought his questions were quite tough, actually, you know, which all the way down to, hey, you know, why did you just say I went to law school and I wanted to, you know,

take a different direction with my career? No shame at all, actually, in failing the California bar. Most people do fail it. It's pretty much the hardest bar in the entire country. So probably some of the way, but the best lawyers in the world have failed the California bar, is my guess. And the fact that he was so tough, I kind of wonder if that wasn't somebody high up

wanted him to be tough. I don't have any reported on that or anything, but it just struck me as odd that he would really, you know, dig in and ask what I thought were some very good questions. Yeah. I kind of agree with that because I think. think that, you know, I made this joke on my Instagram that we thought this administration was against broadcasting live executions. It turns out that's not the case because that interview with Hannity was a doozy. And it makes me think that he was sent in for the kill, that there was

someone higher up, whether at Fox News or in coordination with the White House, saying, hey, yeah, let's give her this actual hard-hitting interview and ask her some tough questions, put her on the spot, see how she does or you know this will be our out because if she you know flails in this interview then okay she's done and i mean he did ask her tough questions and i god it was it was painful honestly to watch and i just think it showed that she was cracking under the pressure and don't get me wrong i know better than most that being white house press secretary is one of the hardest jobs in government if not the hardest job after president and so it is a tough job but like the excuses she was making too during that Hannity interview about why she wasn't prepared for

her first briefing. And she's like, well, it was, you know, the morning after a federal holiday. And I didn't get my briefing materials till late. Okay, well, no one had a gun to your head and forced you to the podium. I believe that when I was working at the White House, Kaley McInanini didn't hold her first briefing for like a week or two until she was kind of settled into the role. And that way she could get prepared and read up on all the materials and actually. actually practice. I mean, my colleagues, when I worked in Trump 1.0, were Kaylee McInney and Caroline Levitt. And one of my main responsibilities was helping prep Kaylee for briefings. And we would spend hours doing murder board sessions. And I will say that those two made it look easy. I think most of the press secretaries in the past have made it look fairly easy.

And then you put someone like Katie Zachariah out there. I mean, they just like fetter to the wolves. I don't know why she would have gone out and done a briefing that quickly, other than maybe because of midterms, they wanted to get her out there. And they thought she could handle it, but clearly not. And like hearing all the excuses from her, it was giving like the dog ate my homework. I mean, no one wants to hear your excuses. If you weren't prepared, you shouldn't have held the briefing. But also just seeing the interviews then that she did after. words with Fox and Friends and Hannity. I just, I don't think that she was cut out for this role. Yeah, the way the thing just kind of picked up momentum as it went, because first of all, I totally

sympathize with her in exactly the way that you say, it is an incredibly hard job. I could never do that job. It just couldn't do it. I would not try or I'd not put myself forward for that. You know, this is, this is as close to that as I will, as I expect I will ever get in terms of just the breadth of material you need to have right at your fingertips, the adversarial nature of the job, you know, the way that the whole person. point is for you to look up there and deliver that material commandingly, you know, confidently, so it doesn't look like you're trying to hide anything or that you're unsure or that the White House is unsure. It is a really tough job. I cannot, I completely agree with you. It's insane that

they trotted her out there so quickly that she allowed herself, allowed that to happen. A lot of what you're saying, though, about this, what both of you guys are saying, it's so much a Trump 1.0 type story in certain ways, right? I mean, just the, the head scratching decisions, the head-scratching way she was brought in in the first place. The very strange way she was, she was brought up there. The fact that there is all this leaking around her, the fact she did not have a lot of friends in the building and that people were happy to start kind of twisting the knife as soon as she came in. I mean, there really is a level of factionalism that we are seeing out of the White House right now that's kind of new, a little bit new for Trump 2.0, just given that when he

came back in, he had his loyalists, he had his people, he knew where he wanted to put him. They ran a pretty tight ship, you know, leaks and personnel-wise, at least in the White House for a while. And I wonder whether that is changing now to a certain extent. I mean, what, let me ask just Sarah, you again, like, what do you, what do you think about that dynamic in all of this? Does this remind you a little bit more of the turmoil of Trump one? Or do you think that's still a little overblown? No, it's definitely, it's giving Trump one. I think that, yeah, during my time there, you couldn't trust anyone. I think there were like two people in the building that I that I trusted and I thought would have my back and everyone else I felt like

at any given moment could, you know, put a knife in my back and try to take me out. And so it was this kind of weird way that the Trump 1.0 operated. And it seemed like in Trump 2.0, they had kind of corrected that. But the way that they corrected it was filling the staff with a bunch of sycophants who maybe weren't the most competent or qualified. But they're only qualification was that they were loyal. And so then you weren't getting the leaking and all of the things. And so it's definitely giving that. And I think the way that she was brought in because Trump kind of unilaterally, it seems like, made this decision to hire her that she was doomed from the start. And so I do feel a little sorry for her in that way. But yeah, I just think that

it's very clear that there was an orchestrated effort going on behind the scenes as soon as as she stepped into that building, I think, to try to take her out. Judd, can I just ask you one more thing about your reporting here? Because, I mean, I just, it still just blows my mind that, like, she came in, you know, again, she's not seen as like a, except I guess by Sarah and Alyssa Griffin as like a leading figure for this job necessarily, but she comes in, you know, she's given the thing you're looking into her. I mean, was there ever like a moment where you're like, you're just checking bar after bar after

bar where you're like, it can't possibly be true that this woman's just not a lawyer? Like, am I looking at this from the wrong point of view? I mean, like, what was that like? I was completely in that mindset from the beginning. I mean, as I was saying, my assumption going to was that she was definitely a lawyer. And I was just tried to find out where I could find out more information about how she practiced. And I actually did this four times before I put anything out because I was like, I'm going to be just totally embarrassed by putting this out. So I did it.

Then I did it again. Then I had two reporters who work with me on popular information. And I had each of them go through all 50 states independently to make sure. And we were doing all the different variations. Is there some kind of name that we don't know? But then once I went to the White House with it and they weren't giving me any information, then I sort of became, by the time I published, I was pretty confident at that point. And also for someone who's a lawyer, it's not a tough question.

You just, you say, where are you barred? And there's 50 states and you just name one or two. And that's the end of it. So once you start, you know, once it starts getting complicated, once people start sort of pushing you away, I think, you know, you sort of realize something's not, something's not right here. Yeah. It's amazing the little tidbits of information you pick up following this administration.

I had no idea formerly that, you know, outside people really can't practice law in China. I mean, that was kind of part of her resume was that she had gone to China and and worked on international law for a Chinese law firm there. And not until, you know, really your tweets about it, did I realize not really the way it works? You know, they bring in people from outside for different reasons, but not actually to practice law. So, I don't know, I guess we all have all this now useless Katie Zachariah knowledge bouncing around in our heads, but it was, it was helpful this week at least, this week,

at least. Let me just bounce through a couple of tweets here because there have been some interesting reactions to this news. Let's just take a quick trip down memory lane because here was Katie Zachariah's, I guess now former boss, comms director for the White House Stephen Chung, just three days ago, right after that briefing, a tremendous start for the new White House press sec. She commanded the room and effectively reminded the American people of all the great work President Trump and his administration have done thus far. So, you know, happier days, I guess on Tuesday, that was when that was when that tweet was, but it didn't last, didn't last all that long. And then we got to hear from

the man himself, the mooch, Anthony Scaramucci, who formerly, formerly held the record as the shortest tenured high-profile comm staffer for the White House. I believe he lasted 11 days in Trump 1.0 in that job until he spouted off to a reporter about other people on White House staff, thinking he was off the record, he was not off the record, and that was the end of the mooch. But here he is, records are made to be broken, but I take no pleasure in other people's pain. That's a, that's a magnanimous way to go about it. We are also developing a, sort of like new series of imperial, a new imperial series system of measurement. It is two Zacharias to one scaramucci in terms of, in terms of comstaffers here. Let's do, let's do one more clip from

the president. Can we do one more clip from Donald Trump here? This is, this is, I believe it's clip number five that we have here. Because again, we should just dwell one more time on the fact, all this lawyer stuff is completely beside the point of the actual job that they hired her for. I also just remembered, by the way, that I was supposed to throw to an ad, and I never did. So maybe we ought to do that. This is all very last minute, people. This is, you know, we're throwing this together. She's just out the door.

We're getting people in. Let's do that ad real quick. And then we'll come back for that clip from Trump. This message is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the tea that you somehow always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And that's what Quince does best.

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app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the bulwark takes. It's the best way to support the show. Thanks. Okay, yeah, I almost forgot about that.

I wouldn't have been good. I do want to throw to this clip just real quick because we've been talking about this stuff of Trump weighing in on the lawyer stuff if we've got that one. I work in hiring, but nobody really wet things every day. I would say in bum of me, where you're about it. I know many people, many people, many very smart people.

Some of them take the bar four exams, the bar exam four times, but I wasn't hiring as a lawyer. I hired as a president. 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 much. was really treated very unfairly. So I'll speak to her about it.

I go there, I think you're better of being happy. And I'm got too. You can ever be happy in this gun. There's nothing easy about this job. Man, that's kind of brutal. I want you to be happy. I'm not sure you're going to be happy in this job. She seemed happy right off the, right off the bash.

She seemed it really jazz, really enthused in the briefing room on the first day of it. But I think a little of that shine had worn off. What was the, when she read like the cue, the style cue, out loud when she was like with excitement and energy. So she had a lot of excitement and energy in that first briefing. But really kind of extraordinary that she never told anyone at the White House that she hadn't passed the ball. Or that wasn't at all discovered as part of like her vetting process or just something that she would admit to before taking the job. I mean, that's what I, that was what I thought was very interesting about that, you know, Trump's your response there.

Yeah, when you compare the amount of vetting that goes into hiring some random functionary, you know, at the State Department versus the amount of vetting that apparently goes into hiring the press secretary for the president of the United States, it really is kind of a night and day thing here. I assume they just didn't really do it here because otherwise, presumably they would have done at least as much as Judd did and found that stuff about the lawyer and at least been forewarned, at least been prepared for all of this stuff. Let me just ask you, Sarah.

you know, you have already put yourself forward as some sort of Nostradamus-type figure having, having had the name Katie Zachariah on your mind long before anybody else. Who do you think? Who's coming next? Who should we expect to be the next person in this role, if anybody? I think Scott Jennings is practicing in the mirror his talking points right now. That was Susie Wiles' pick. And clearly Susie was right to try to not want Katie Zachariah. And so I assume that she'll be trying, like I think there's going to be a lot of folks who know. know that Scott can handle an adversarial media. He does it on CNN, you know, with Democratic panelists every night. And the thing is that his only downfall is that he's not a blonde woman. And but he does have the experience and the chops to do it. And would I believe be an effective communicator for the president, especially at a time like this, when you think about the circumstances that Caroline Levitt came

into the role, Trump had just won the popular vote. He's riding on a high. They had total control of Washington. That is not going to be the case for whoever steps into this role next, because they're going to be coming out of time when Trump is deeply unpopular, likely going to lose control of the House and the Senate. And Trump is going to be facing multiple investigations more than likely, and his entire administration will. So they're going to be fielding a lot of, a lot of scandals, a lot of controversy. and dealing with that. So you really need someone who is up to the job. So, I mean, you know, if Scott wants to go get like a blonde wig, then maybe that will

help boost his chances. But I, I just, they'd be hard pressed, I think, to find anyone who I think would be better for the role and have the experience and be able to immediately start than him. But only time we'll tell. We'll see. Like I said, Trump prefers a woman in that role. So there's no one else. that really comes to mind.

And Katie Zachariah, I just knew that Trump was enamored with her by how much he would post her on his true social. So that kind of tipped me off to the idea that, oh, he might pick her because, you know, she fit central casting and everything that he likes. But, yeah, if I had to, but if I was betting woman,

I think Scott's chances just went way up. Do you have any dark horses that you're already combing through the bar records for other than Scott Jennings? not really you know as I said I didn't have a really good beat on this pick and it's sort of it's a little bit out of my uh it's a little bit out of my wheelhouse so I'll just wait and see and then we'll see what we can find out about the next person but I doubt that there'll be anything quite like this yeah you can say that again yeah maybe maybe a little bit like this across certain axes you know we'll see if you can find another blonde woman somewhere that that seems to be the MO right now but you never know you never know we uh Scott Jennings You know, I personally don't think the wig would actually help him out all that much. I think he's better going on natural. But I think we can leave it at that. Thank you so much, Judd, for coming on to talk about your reporting, talk about this story.

Thank you, Sarah, for coming on as well. Thanks to you all out there for watching, for subscribing. We hope you do subscribe to the feed, subscribe on YouTube or Substack to the Bullwork, wherever you happen to be watching this. Subscribe to our stuff online. Judd is over at also on Substack, a Substack Brother. I think that's right, right? You're a substack.

That's correct. that's popular information fellow substacker to get, you know, more White House press secretary firing news before everybody else has it. You can go read his stuff. It's always very good. Thanks to you both. Thanks to everybody out there. And we will see you all next time.