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Welcome to The Logoff: White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is out of a job after only five days.
What happened? Zacharia was fired on Friday after less than a week in her new role, after a rocky start that included a halting performance in the briefing room, a scandal over her legal credentials, and a round of less-than-successful cleanup interviews.
The firing makes her the shortest-tenured White House press secretary in history, outstripping even first-term Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who made it 10 or 11 days (figures vary) before getting the boot.
“Records are made to be broken,” Scaramucci posted on Friday. “But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain.” (No word yet on whether the “Zacharia” will emerge as a unit of time, as the “Scaramucci” has.)
What’s the context? Zacharia’s remarkably short stint behind the podium unfolded as the White House is engaged in an unprecedented attack on press freedom: The administration is still trying to ban three media outlets — CNN, MS NOW, and Politico — from the White House, though as of earlier this week, a judge is still blocking the ban from taking effect.
The diminished nature of the press secretary job was on full display in Zacharia’s sole briefing on Tuesday, when she took questions from just three outlets: Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail.
Why does this matter? Zacharia’s no good, very bad week is not likely to leave much of a lasting mark in its own right — other than, perhaps, as pub trivia — but as NBC’s Garrett Haake points out, it’s a very tangible manifestation of a White House that seems to have no idea how to spin itself out of crisis with just weeks until the midterm elections.
Most recently, Trump has landed on flat-out lying about the state of the economy — but like Zacharia’s time as press secretary, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to go all that well.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
The underlying trend — municipal inaction — may be infuriating, but I loved this story about “tactical urbanism” from my colleague Sara Herschander.
As she writes, vigilante activists have taken to painting their own crosswalks, building benches, and even installing makeshift bike lanes in their neighborhoods — and every time they do, “they remind us that it is not actually that hard — or even that expensive — to do many of the simple things that can make our cities safer and more pleasant places to live.”
You can read Sara’s full piece here, no gift link needed. Enjoy, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!
