Opinion: Katie Zacharia Was the Joke. Trump’s White House Is the Punchline

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images I mean, what even is a “lawyer”? Are we really going to get all upset just because Trump’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-her press secretary, the heretofore utterly obscure Newsmax host Katie Zacharia , claimed to be one even though she never passed the bar ? Since when do people have to “pass a test” to be considered an accredited member of a profession? Yes, I know we make doctors pass a medical board exam, as well as cosmetologists, masseuses, and CPAs, but doesn’t that just prove my point? No, wait, I’m being told it does not prove my point, which is exactly the problem with the whole rigged system! For example, when our president appointed an actual lawyer, former parking lot attorney Alina Habba , to be the interim U.S.

Attorney for New Jersey, the courts ruled her appointment unlawful.

Why are we letting the law stand in the way of legal appointments? The genius of Donald Trump is elevating regular everyday Americans to positions of great power regardless of their qualifications, mental state or even their personal hygiene (even if he does fire some of them days later when their lack of qualifications is made clear, or at least deemed more embarrassing than RFK Jr. eating roadkill by the general public).

Who else but Trump would even think to appoint a podcaster with almost no relevant experience to lead the FBI? Or said vaccine-skeptic roadkill fanatic to head HHS? Or a White Christian Nationalist morning show host to lead the Pentagon? Nobody, that’s who.

Nobody except our president, thank you very much.

So why are people acting weird when the person he specifically hired to communicate with the press demonstrated a decided lack of ability to communicate during her first—and last—press conference? It would be easy to make fun of Katie Zacharia as yet another vacuous hair extension with a Truth Social account, but that would only serve to take away from all the jokes about Natalie Harp .

WE MUST PRESERVE THE NATALIE HARP JOKES! And, honestly, the only reason I’m even suggesting Katie Zacharia is vacuous is because of those first-day jitters at the Briefing Room podium this week, during which she lied about Trump’s crowd sizes, mistakenly called her husband the president, and seemed to encounter the word “Venezuela” for the very first time.

I’m not going to judge her based on one shaky, 14-minute-long performance, even if her boss most certainly did.

Nor am I going to judge her for responding, when asked, that she passed the bar “when I moved to China” because Zacharia later explained that she misheard the question thanks to background noise from Marine One.

Has she also said she’s qualified as a helicopter pilot? Let’s not sweat the small stuff.