New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia didn't pass the bar exam

The Associated Press

· Posted: Oct 15, 2026 5:25 PM EDT | Last Updated: 15 minutes ago

Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, is defending her legal background, while acknowledging that she did not pass the bar exam.

In an interview with the conservative outlet Human Events on Thursday, Zacharia said she was preparing to take the California bar exam at a time when she had just gotten married and was preparing to move to China to join her new husband, who had been working in private equity in Beijing.

"I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I'd been long distance from for at least a year," Zacharia said.

She said the results of the bar exam, which she did not pass, were "somewhat inconsequential" because she would not need to be a barred attorney while living in China.

Zacharia, who has been under scrutiny for calling herself a "lawyer," said she consulted several legal experts to ensure that title was accurate when offering legal analysis.

"It's unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy or want to put me in a camp. The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney-at-law."

Zacharia said she will not weigh in on legal matters in her White House role.

Showed 'ample deference' to Trump

Zacharia also spoke to Human Events about her start to her new job as press secretary — including her truncated inaugural press briefing on Tuesday.

She said she did not have time to get fully prepared ahead of her first briefing and that the plan had always been to keep it short because U.S. President Donald Trump would field questions from journalists later that morning.

WATCH | Zacharia makes her debut:

"It was absolutely my goal to keep it short, considering he is his own best spokesperson, and he would love — and does love — gaggling with the media as he goes to Marine One," Zacharia said. "So I wanted to give ample deference and not barge into his time."

The initial briefing materials were given to Zacharia on Monday evening, then completed on Tuesday at 8 a.m., less than two hours before she would appear before the White House press corps. She had been up since 3 a.m. preparing, Zacharia said.

"I never had a full briefing beforehand, and I went out and I effectuated the briefing," she said.

Trump called her about job

She also revealed details about how she secured the White House press secretary job. Zacharia stressed that she did not want to be seen as lobbying for the position, which became vacant when Karoline Leavitt announced she would depart the administration to spend more time with her family.

Zacharia, who was a communications adviser for the company that runs Truth Social, said she closely monitored the president's social media posts to determine what was top of mind for him, then would go on air to talk about those topics.

"My philosophy is, I'm on TV enough where if he sees me and he likes me, then I will be recruited for the job. I do not believe that lobbying for that job would have been successful, and I wanted to work for it. I wanted to audition for it."

Zacharia says that U.S. President Donald Trump called about the press secretary position on Oct. 7. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Then on Oct. 7, as Zacharia was preparing to take one of her children to a pumpkin patch, she received a phone call from Trump about the press secretary position.

She promptly flew out the next day from her home in California to Washington, met with the president about the job on Friday and formally accepted the position later that day.