Why Trump decided to fire Katie Zacharia as press secretary after just five days: ‘Did anyone vet her?’
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

President Trump fired his new press secretary after a disastrous five-day tenure lacking proper vetting.

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia takes questions during her first briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, on October 13.

Settling in for a seven-hour flight across the continent this week, President Donald Trump offered little indication there was anything wrong.

His new press secretary’s rocky 14-minute debut at the White House podium was being met with decidedly negative reviews. An hour later, she’d offered a perplexing response when asked where she’d passed the bar exam. His own advisers had watched it all with a degree of horror.