White House officials criticized late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday after he spent two nights mocking new press secretary Katie Zacharia’s intelligence and appearance.
On Monday, before her first briefing, Mr. Kimmel displayed a gym selfie of Ms. Zacharia on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and joked about her intelligence, according to Fox News. On Tuesday, hours after her debut at the podium, he called her “Malibu Katie” and likened the day to “the first day of kindergarten.” He also suggested she was hired to keep President Trump “awake and interested.”
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement that “Jimmy Kimmel is a no-talent loser who has beclowned himself with tanking ratings and by spewing disgusting lies to his dwindling audience.”
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“He is so devoid of actual talent that nobody with any common sense would ever watch him unless it was to laugh at his miserable failures,” Mr. Ingle continued.
Communications director Steven Cheung said Ms. Zacharia is “uniquely qualified and whip-smart” to explain the administration’s agenda to the public.
Mr. Trump announced Ms. Zacharia’s appointment Friday, calling her a “loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.” She previously served as a senior communications adviser at Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social.
Her first briefing lasted 14 minutes, with questions from three outlets: Breitbart News Network, The Daily Mail and Fox News.
The exchange comes as Ms. Zacharia faces scrutiny over her legal credentials. She said Thursday that she never passed the bar exam, after the Wall Street Journal reported that she failed California’s examination in 2011. She has previously described herself as a lawyer, and Mr. Trump has called her an attorney. Pepperdine University confirmed that she earned a law degree there, CBS News reported.
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