Trump has a new press secretary Katie Zacharia who has the required qualifications for being hired by Trump: a blond woman who used to be a Fox News commentator, is willing to grovel with fawning praise of him, brazenly tell lies on his behalf, and looks unnervingly like a Barbie doll. But her debut was so stilted and robotic and excruciatingly bad that one reporter has christened her as the ‘Zachbot’, a name that might well stick.
Well, that was weird. Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, made her debut on the podium on Tuesday with all the warmth, wisdom and political dexterity of an AI avatar.
Zacharia was all stilted delivery, nervous tics and lack of eye contact. With an eerie lack of emotion, she served up pro-Trump talking points, took only three questions and vanished after 14 minutes. It was like the West Wing had turned into uncanny valley.
The Zachbot’s past is indeed a bit of a mystery. The 41-year-old claims to be a lawyer but later a reporter asked when she passed the bar exam and she gave the unconvincing answer: “When I moved to China.”
…Zacharia has the blond hair, glossy makeup and Fox News aesthetic of her immediate predecessors Kayleigh McEnany and Karoline Leavitt (her name also begins with a “K” – surely a tell to the AI detectors).
…The Zachbot read from prepared notes about Trump’s many great accomplishments, awkwardly glancing up at her audience less than she should, smiling at odd moments and putting the emphasis on all the wrong words. “A great relationship …” (looks down, sighs, sounds like her cat just died) “with Venezuela”.
It was bad. Toe-curlingly, don’t-know-where-to-look bad. At least Leavitt had delivered her propaganda hot. Evidently Trump’s communications team have found new and ingenious ways to torture reporters.
She only took questions from three rightwing outlets and bungled even that.
Katy Tur of MSNOW reviewed her performance.
Questions are also being raised as to whether she actually is a lawyer as she has claimed, since there is no record of her having passed the bar in any state, which is required to practice law. Having a law degree is not sufficient.
Newly-minted White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia has repeatedly identified herself as a “lawyer,” but a report by independent journalist Judd Legum says her name does not appear as a member on any state bar association website, and a review by Mediaite of her claims of working as a lawyer in China do not seem to add up.
…As Legum’s report noted, “[I]t is quite plausible for a law school graduate who is not admitted to practice law in any state to work for a firm in China, since the work may not involve American courts,” but she also repeatedly claimed that she was an “outside counsel to the IFC and the World Bank” during this period, a much less believable claim, that two major international institutions would be willing to hire a brand-new law school graduate with no bar admission.
…There is plenty of evidence Zacharia did attend Pepperdine’s law school and graduate. For starters, she is listed as an alumna member of the school’s “Dean’s Council” as “Katie S. Zacharia (’07, JD ’11);” it is highly unlikely that Pepperdine would not have accurate information on whether it actually granted her a diploma.
But merely graduating from law school and earning a juris doctor degree is not enough to hold oneself out to the public as an “attorney” without also being admitted to a bar association, which generally requires passing a background check and bar exam.
If it turns out that she has not passed the bar exam, she then has yet one more qualification for working in the Trump administration, and that is inflating her credentials.
Jimmy Kimmel went to town on this latest fiasco.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Trump administration: Grifting and incompetence all the way down.
Judd Legum has an update: Katie Zacharia’s disastrous response to Popular Information’s report
Not being admitted to the bar anywhere is to her advantage — she can’t be disbarred for participating in Trumpian unethical doings, like Giuliani was.
I don’t know how much (if anything) she actually learned in law school. But again, if you work for Trump, the less you know, the better off you are.
She really does give off a strong gate attendant vibe in that outfit.
I think where she said, “in the middle of the midterm blitz…with energy and excitement…never seen before in the history of midterms,” I got the distinct feeling that “with energy and excitement” was her notes to herself on how to deliver the line, and like “pause for laughter” she just read it out. Also that sigh before “Venezuela.” Couldn’t tell if she wasn’t sure she could pronounce it, or couldn’t believe she was saying we had great relationship with Venezuela of all places.
Paul Campos of Lawyers, Guns, & Money has an article about her and that briefing called “Men act; women appear“.
He refers to her as “A graduate of right wing cyborg factory Pepperdine Law School” (Campos is a law professor; he has firm opinions about law schools), and mentions:
He also quotes some bits from her Wikipedia page of horrible things she’s said in the past, under the category of “in case you’re feeling sorry for somebody who is clearly out of their depth this should cure you right quick”.
I’m not convinced she can read.
re seachange@5: Maybe The Orange Turd (TOT), could help her out with his third-grade level knowledge of everything. After all, he is a stable genius, which translates to he knows horse shit about everything.
Seen on Bluesky:
.
https://bsky.app/profile/adamparkhomenko.bsky.social/post/3mxtxs72k7c2b
.
The OP asks “who is this💀”, and is answered: “Lisandra Vazquez”.
She also has her own bsky account with more satirical videos:
.
https://bsky.app/profile/lisandravcomedy.bsky.social
.
But most of her stuff is on Tiktok:
.
https://www.tiktok.com/@lisandravcomedy
Just in case you missed it Zacbot has compared the abortion pill to Nazi death camps, and has served on the board of an organization called ‘White Rose,” a radical anti-abortion organization that seeks to remove all immunities and exceptions protecting women who undergo abortions and those who advocate it. I have not researched fully, but read somewhere that they have advocated the execution of those women for murder, and the disqualification of pro-abortion spokespersons for public office. And, of course, they date personhood from the moment of conception, meaning that the state has a duty to insure that a woman’s uterus is hospitable to implantation, making IUD’s an abortion by definition whether or not a woman ever conceives. In keeping with their metaphorical position they base the name of the organization on those who resisted the Nazis. The only thing it seems they more than class is a sense of irony.
Editing error needs correcting… Meant exemptions more than exceptions, and in the last sentence it was supposed to say what they lack is class and irony.
. . . and she got the hook.
.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/16/katie-zacharia-fired-press-secretary
.
People are saying that a Zacharia (out after 5 days) is about half a Scaramucci (out after 11 days).
Excuse me, there has been protracted issues with Freethouhhtblogs.
I can now log in here, but to reach Pharyngula I have to go through your sidebar menue and click on the most recent thread bt PZ Myers.
This is very frustrating considering the *No Kings Day* has gone by without input by the commenters.