Friday 16th October, 2026
New York, NY
I was at my desk this afternoon when Emily swung around in her chair and said, “Oh my God...”
One of two things: it’s either a very cute frenchie video on Instagram Reels, or Trump did something.
“What is it?” I asked. “She’s been fired already.”
I didn’t need to ask who. I did need to check my wallet.
I’d lost a bet. When Katie Zacharia was named White House press secretary last week, I gave her 11 days. (A full Scaramucci.) My friend Mike said 21, which in hindsight was adorable.
We were both wrong.
She lasted five days. In that time, she gave one briefing. It ran about 14 minutes. (It felt like 57) She took three questions. Somewhere in there, a reporter asked how she’d balance the job with raising four kids, and she said this, out loud, from the podium of the White House briefing room:
“So my president, excuse me, my husband.” Then she added, “That’s a good one.”
It was. It really was.
There’s a phrase every official reaches for on the way out the door. Politicians use it. CEOs use it. Her own predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, more or less used it in August. You’ve heard it a thousand times:
“I’m stepping down to spend more time with my family.”
So what if, in her farewell address, she did it again?
“I’ve decided to step down to spend more time with my President, err, husb—family.”
I scribbled it on the back of a yellow legal pad with a crappy old pen and sent it to The New Yorker.
Within minutes, they wrote back: we’d like to buy this.
Within minutes! That never happens. I’ve had cartoons sit in that inbox longer than she sat in that job.
So I raced into the studio and drew it up properly, dip pen and ink, by hand, at the drawing board, and turned it around in under 2 hours, which I’m fairly sure is a personal record. No time to fiddle too much. No time to redraw the nose eleven times. You have to send it before the news cycle eats it. (The news cycle ate her in five days. It would have eaten me in four hours.)
I have a rule about political cartoons: make fun of what they do, not what they are. ( I stole that from the writers’ room at the Chris Rock show.)
What she did, in fairness, was turn herself into a giant Barbie who spent more time on her hair than on the briefing book. Or on any book, really.
She was unqualified for the job. She was arguably unqualified for any job. For years she called herself a lawyer: on LinkedIn, on Fox News, in the President’s own announcement of her hire. Reporters went looking for the bar exam she’d passed and couldn’t find one. When they asked her where, she said it was “When I moved to China.” Which is the legal equivalent of “she goes to a different school.”
