New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia holds her first press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, US, October 13, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
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Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said President Donald Trump is “throwing her under the bus” after Trump publicly suggested Friday that his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, reconsider the job she started Monday.
Minutes after Trump’s remarks, a senior White House official told Fox News that Zacharia is “transitioning out” of the role, which Fox News and TMZ described as a firing. CNN confirmed she had been fired.
Lockhart, who served as press secretary under President Bill Clinton, said there’s an unwritten rule of the job.
“Probably the first rule, as the White House press secretary, is when the president is answering questions about you, you’re in very deep trouble,” Lockhart told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.
Trump told reporters he had advised Zacharia to step back, blaming the media for her treatment.
“If I were you, I’d reconsider,” he said he told her, adding that she has “a beautiful husband and family” and that “you don’t want to go through this.”
Lockhart said Zacharia was a victim of Trump’s decisions rather than mistreatment from the press.
“He is basically throwing her under the bus, threw her under the bus Tuesday by making her go out there or whoever made her go out there. And today, rather than just standing up and saying, this isn’t going to work, he’s blaming everyone but himself,” Lockhart said. “And that happens every day in this White House.”
Lockhart said Zacharia’s tough Fox News interviews, including with the hosts of “Fox & Friends” and Sean Hannity, signaled “where MAGA world is, and the president will follow that.”
Lockhart contrasted Zacharia’s rushed start with his own. He spent two months preparing with the national security and budget teams before briefing reporters, while she took the podium the day after starting the job, at her disastrous debut briefing Tuesday.
“She was set up to fail and she has failed,” Lockhart said. “And there ought to be a little bit of sympathy here for her.”
