Anthony Scaramucci weighs in on departure of White House press secretary, telling Katie Zacharia, 'The Universe did you a major favor'

WASHINGTON — She lasted half a Scaramucci.

Long Island’s Anthony Scaramucci, of Manhasset, previously held the record for the shortest tenure as White House spokesperson, serving 10 days during President Donald Trump’s first term. But his record was upended Friday by the departure of Katie Zacharia, five days into her role as White House press secretary.

"Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people's pain," Scaramucci posted on X Friday after the news Zacharia was leaving  after facing days of scrutiny over her legal credentials and first briefing performance.

Scaramucci, a financier who grew up in Port Washington and served as a key adviser in Trump’s first-term transition, was fired by Trump from his role as White House communications director in July 2017 after he gave an expletive-laden interview to The New Yorker magazine, where he took shots at several top Trump aides.

Scaramucci did not immediately return a call seeking comment. But in a subsequent X post, he told Zacharia to "turn off the news and go enjoy your family. In time you’ll realize that the Universe did you a major favor."

Trump on Friday told reporters he spoke with Zacharia and urged her to consider leaving. Their talk came after a widely panned first — and last — briefing, in which she took questions from only three reporters before ending the briefing after 14 minutes. She also continued to face questions about billing herself as an attorney in TV appearances despite not passing the bar exam required to practice law in the United States.

"I told her, 'I think you're better off being happy, and I don't think you could ever be happy in this job,' " Trump said. He later told Fox News he's in no rush to name a replacement.

While Scaramucci no longer holds his record, Hempstead-raised Karine Jean-Pierre, who served as White House press secretary under President Joe Biden for two years and eight months, continues to hold the record for longest-serving woman in the position.

Jean-Pierre also weathered scrutiny in the role, facing questions about her forthrightness in responding to inquiries about Biden's health as he sought to run for reelection in his 80s.

Jean-Pierre did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday, but when asked about the criticism during a December 2024 interview with Newsday, she said: "I don't listen to the noise." 

Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of Hofstra University’s School of Journalism and a former network news executive, said in a phone interview the role requires the "person who stands at that lectern in the White House press room every day to have some modicum of credibility with the reporters who were facing him or her."

"It is a tough job, but successful press secretaries — and there have been several in the two Trump administrations — I think take a different approach, which is not the kind of bumbling approach that this press secretary took," he said. "You have to have a very deep command of the facts and policies of the president … so we’ll see who’s next in line."