White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has reportedly been fired from her role after a disastrous first week in the job, according to advisers to US President Donald Trump.
Trump reportedly fired Zacharia after earlier telling reporters he had urged her to “reconsider” her role as his top spokesperson.
She was appointed less than a week ago, having held her first press briefing on Tuesday morning, which critics said was littered with embarrassing mistakes.
Budget holidays to Spain and Portugal could become a thing of the past for Britons.
Soaring fuel prices
As the aviation industry enters its first winter since the outbreak of the US-Iran war, have led to airlines calling off hundreds of thousands of flights.
Customers with existing bookings weeks or months away are being informed their departures have been grounded, many of them not even rearranged for another date.
Supply versus demand
The International Air Transport Association revealed the price of a barrel of aviation fuel in Europe has almost doubled from $100 at the beginning of this year to $196.
0.2%
European jet fuel imports are currently operating at a third of their pre-war average, yet consumption in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy fell by just 0.2 per cent last year.
Winter weekend breaks in danger
The winter period presents unique operating conditions as lower demand makes services more prone to higher costs, which now jeopardises the future of festive weekend getaways to popular holiday destinations from the UK, including Portugal and Spain.
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The impact
So, where and whom will be affected this winter?
- EasyJet and Ryanair have announced cuts to their winter schedule rather than run loss-making flights.
- Mike Malik, chief industry officer at Cirium aviation, said smaller airports would be hit hardest.
- In a fuel-shortage crisis, resources mostly reach larger hubs first as “that is where volume and the commercial weight sit”, Malik explained.
Midweek flights also at risk
Ryanair intends to during an “unprofitable winter”. The budget airline is in and the .
Affected passengers have rights to refunds or alternative flights, but airlines generally owe no additional compensation when giving at least 14 days’ notice.
£250 Lidl home power banks to be sold in UK to cut your energy bills
Plans to help UK households save hundreds of pounds on their energy bills using plug-in batteries are a step closer, The i Paper can reveal.
New power banks
Although new power banks will be available to purchase from retailers, households will have to wait until 2028 to be able to install them due to pending safety checks.
- Plug-in batteries will be priced around £250 but will save households money on their bills by storing excess power from solar panels or utilising cheap off-peak electricity rates.
- They are sold by retailers, including Lidl, in countries across Europe, but are currently not permitted in the UK.
- Ministers are hoping to make plug-in batteries legal in the UK following changes to regulations this year that now permit the sale of plug-in solar panels.
- The cost of batteries varies depending on how much electricity they store, but the cheapest on the market in Europe is Lidl’s Tronic Solar Battery at €299 (£252).
How much could you save?
Regen, a non-profit clean energy think-tank, has estimated it will take two-and-a-half years for an average UK household to pay off a plug-in battery via bill savings. Over 10 years a household with high energy use could save up to £2,400.
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British households held back
“With the war in Iran pushing up energy costs, households need help with their bills now. The Government is right to make sure plug-in batteries are safe, but it could move faster on its safety study so British households aren’t left waiting.”
Frank Hodgson, electrification and flexibility lead at Regen
She stood at the lectern for just 14 minutes and only fielded questions from three reporters, far shorter than conferences held by her predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in August.
Losing Trump’s vote of confidence
Earlier on Friday, Trump told reporters he had said to Zacharia: “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.”
“Katie, do you need this?” he added. “I don’t think you need this.” While he praised Zacharia’s support, he said of the job, “maybe it’s not for her”.
He also told reporters she might continue to work for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form”.
“I just want her to be happy,” he said. “Look, she has suffered over the last few days.”
Later on Friday, a White House official confirmed Zacharia is “transitioning out” of the position.
Fox News‘ senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy reported Trump later told him at a rally in Georgia that he is “in no rush to name a replacement for the press secretary”.
Doocy added he understood there is not currently any shortlist of names to take up the mantle, but “a lot of people have been calling him” about the job.
A disastrous first week
It comes after Zacharia was embroiled in a scandal this week over her claims that she had been “an attorney”.
On her first day in the role, Zacharia told reporters she had passed the bar exam, necessary for lawyers in the US to practice law.
But in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, she admitted that she had failed the California bar exam in 2011 and never retook it, though she had graduated from law school at Pepperdine University.
Fox News reporter Sean Hannity also questioned the press secretary’s shaky debut, to which she responded: “Given the fact that I’d been on the job less than maybe eight hours and had a briefing book in the morning, I feel like I did my very best, Sean, to deliver for the American people that day.”
Stilted press briefings combined with allegations that she had misrepresented her legal background amounted to a disastrous first week on the job.
It has been a precipitous fall from grace for Zacharia, who was only announced as the new press secretary on 9 October after making a name for herself as a conservative commentator on Fox News.
She previously worked at Trump Media & Technology Group and had also briefly served as a spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security.
As recently as Wednesday, Zacharia appeared to hold favour with the president, travelling alongside Trump and his closest aide Natalie Harp on board Marine One, to a rally in Alaska.
After just five days on the job, she has become the White House’s shortest serving press secretary, a title previously held by Anthony Scaramucci, who left the communications director role after just 11 days in Trump’s first term.
Looming midterm elections
A Trump adviser said she is expected to leave the White House in the next few days, according to CNN.
Zacharia’s firing marks the end of a tumultuous week for the Trump administration, after the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was fired on Tuesday.
It comes as Trump’s camp has been scrambling to various states to lend a hand to Republican campaigns ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November, which polls suggest could be disastrous for the party.
The president, whose approval ratings are tanking, is holding a rally in Dalton, Georgia on Friday, and has spent the past few days making appearances in Montana, Arizona, Alaska and Ohio.
Zacharia’s exit means Trump is left without his top spokesperson at a critical time for the party and his tenure as president.
Democrats, meanwhile, have reacted with glee to the news of Zacharia’s dismissal, with Gavin Newsom, governor of California, posting a black and white photo of the former press secretary to X emblazoned with the words: “In Memoriam, Tuesday-Friday”.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, wrote: “The White House Press Secretary is gone. MAGA extremists continue to fall apart.”