President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, got off to a somewhat rocky start with her 14-minute debut media briefing on Tuesday.
And now bettors on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are putting money down on how long the conservative commentator will last in the high-profile job.
On Kalshi, bettors gave Zacharia a 38% chance of being out as White House press secretary before January 1 in a wager that had more than $313,000 in trading volume as of early afternoon Wednesday.
Kalshi traders were more bearish over the longer term, putting the chance of Zacharia’s departure before July 1 at 60% and before July 1, 2028 at 96%.
The wager’s trading volume indicated meaningful interest in the tenure of the newly appointed press secretary, though it remained well below Kalshi’s biggest political markets. A market on whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth will be out of a job, for example, had drawn more than $1.4 million in volume.
Polymarket’s site has a similar market about Zacharia, asking whether she would be out as press secretary by the end of the year or by the end of October.
Bettors gave a 38% chance of an announcement by October 31 and a 51% chance by December 31.
When asked for comment on Wednesday, White House communications director Steven Cheung told Business Insider: “Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team.”
“She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary,” Cheung said.
Beyond the hiccups in her first press briefing, Zacharia — who has repeatedly described herself as an attorney — faced scrutiny over her legal qualifications. When asked what state she passed the bar exam in, Zacharia told reporters, “When I moved to China.”
State bar exams are generally administered in person within the jurisdiction.
Zacharia told Business Insider in a statement Tuesday that she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials,” without detailing where she may have passed the bar.
The State Bar of California told Business Insider it didn’t have any records showing that Zacharia, who has lived and worked in the state, was ever licensed to practice law there.
A spokesperson said, “The State Bar of California has no record of Kate Sharon Zacharia or Kate Sharon Black having been licensed to practice law in California.”
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