Katie Zacharia Out After Five Days as White House Kindergarten Clears Her Cubby

WASHINGTON — The White House kindergarten held its first graduation on Friday. The classroom opened Wednesday.

The graduate was Katie Zacharia, the White House press secretary. A White House official confirmed Friday that she is out after five days on the job. The New York Times first reported it.

President Trump named her to the post on Oct. 9. She held one briefing, on Tuesday. It lasted about 14 minutes and took questions from three reporters.

Mrs. Darlene Hutchens, who runs the classroom, got the news during snack. “We had not finished orientation,” she said. “She never even got to Show and Tell.”

Her nap mat had arrived Thursday. Its name tag was still in the laminator.

This reporter has covered eleven administrations. He has watched press secretaries leave after years, and after months. He had never seen one outlasted by a laminator.

The end came in three steps, all on Friday. Before leaving for a rally in Georgia, the president told reporters he had asked her to reconsider the job.

“I told her, ‘I think you’re better off being happy,’” Mr. Trump said. “I said, ‘Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.’”

He said she had been “brutalized by the media.” He said the two would talk when he got back.

A White House official then told Fox News that she was “transitioning out.” Not long after, a White House official said she had been dismissed.

Mrs. Hutchens recognized the sequence. In her classroom it is called “reconsider your choices,” then “transition time,” then early pickup. “Usually that takes a whole morning,” she said. “And usually there is a parent.”

Zacharia has said she was not fully briefed by White House staff before her first briefing. Mrs. Hutchens has moved the staff to the front row.

The questions about her background never went away. This week Zacharia confirmed she did not pass the bar exam. She graduated from Pepperdine’s law school and had called herself a lawyer on television.

A watchdog group, the Campaign for Accountability, asked the State Bar of California to investigate. Zacharia told Fox News the president never asked whether she had passed.

“I’m being hired as White House press secretary, not White House counsel,” she said. Nobody in the classroom disputed that. Nobody in the classroom had asked, either.

The ceremony was brief. There was a paper diploma, a juice box and one verse of the transition song. Her cubby was cleared out by lunch.

It held a coloring sheet, a box of flash cards and a worksheet from Wednesday’s unit, “Who Is My Husband and Who Is My President.” She may keep it.

The Show and Tell board still has an empty slot for a law license. Mrs. Hutchens is leaving it up for the next student.

Zacharia replaced Karoline Leavitt. As of this writing, this reporter had not seen a successor named. Mrs. Hutchens has ordered more name tags. She ordered them in bulk.

A senior official, who requested anonymity because he was embarrassed, said the White House remains fully committed to the kindergarten. “Enrollment has never been higher,” he said. “Retention is a separate conversation.”

Deep Throat Lozenge, this reporter’s most trusted source, says the lion poster is staying. The seat near the front, by the lion, is still saved.

This reporter’s retirement is now 419 days away. It was 412 this morning.