Former press secretary Katie Zacharia said Tuesday she was not prepared for the “hostility” of her interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that presaged her ouster from the White House.
Zacharia made her fateful appearance on “Hannity” a few days after she started the job. She had already been dogged by a rocky first press briefing and a revelation that she had failed the bar despite calling herself a lawyer and sharing others’ descriptions of her as an attorney.
Hannity asked about her “widely panned” press debut that had “only three questions” before he zeroed in on her legal bona fides. He asked why she didn’t simply admit upfront that she hadn’t passed the bar and hadn’t practiced law.
“Katie, I was shocked by the Hannity treatment, if I’m being honest,” Rob Finnerty of Newsmax said Tuesday. “I don’t think he does that if he doesn’t get the green light from somebody, perhaps at the White House. I don’t know. But what do you make of this narrative that Fox did this on purpose? That the “Hannity” interview and that the “Fox & Friends” interviews were set up deliberately to not go well for you?” (Fox News denied the accusation to Mediaite and praised Hannity’s “authenticity.”)
Zacharia was fired hours after the “Fox & Friends” interview on that Friday, just five days into the job.
“I’m just as perplexed about what happened, specifically with Sean Hannity,” Zacharia replied, noting that Hannity’s team had contacted her earlier in the year about working for him as a “man on the street” interviewer in California.
Finnerty expressed doubt that Hannity and crew “had any interest in your educational background” previously, which Zacharia confirmed.
“Will you ever go back on Sean Hannity’s show?” the Newsmax host asked.
“Look, I never bow away from a fight or back away from a fight, Rob,” she answered. “I’ve been on CNN. I’ve debated some of the most hostile ... guests. And I have been able to do it with grace, with dignity, and walk away and even maintain decorum.
Zacharia said if she had been aware the interview might be confrontational, like an appearance with CNN’s Jake Tapper could be, she would have put on her boxing gloves.
She continued: “But because I had had a very friendly rapport with Sean and he had even made very backing statements about me on Tuesday, Oct. 13, really coming to my defense, I was not prepared for the hostility that I received.”