On Friday afternoon, President Trump fired his newly appointed press secretary Katie Zacharia a week after hiring her for the job, and the left wing media turned their existing Zacharia obsession to her departure. But a strange thing happened Saturday morning on CNN's Table For Five, hosted by Abby Phillip, where the screen said Zacharia had been fired, and that the show was LIVE, but it obviously was not.
Phillip and her panel made absolutely no mention of Zacharia having been fired during their segment midway through the show, which despite the screen indicating otherwise, had apparently been taped on Friday, before the firing took place, and well before Phillip's 10pm show, NewsNight With Abby Phillip, where the host and panel did indeed discuss the firing.
Phillip's Friday night show open tease began with a reference to the firing.
PHILLIP: Tonight, fired before most learned how to pronounce her name. Is the press secretary's ouster a sign of the chaos to come in Trump's final years?
After the rest of the open, she began the show's lead segment.
PHILLIP: Tonight, in a new noun in American politics, a Zacharia. Just five days into the job, Donald Trump is firing Katie Zacharia as the press secretary, and replacing the infamous modern record once held by Anthony Scaramucci.
It follows a turbulent week. Questions about her qualifications, rough Fox interviews, a lackluster briefing that we're told embarrassed Trump. Sources say few inside the White House would defend her, and the President told allies that she wasn't ready for primetime.
She then played a clip of Trump:
TRUMP: And I said to her, honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider. She has suffered over the last few days. And I'm not saying, you know, I mean, maybe it's not for her. But I said, you want to be happy in life.
PHILLIP: Not long after that, she was out of the job. A reminder, this chaos is 18 days before an election.
Chaos is what took place the next day on Phillip's Table For Five. On Saturday's show open, Phillip teased the segment with, "Also, as questions emerge about the new press secretary's qualifications, is her selection reverse DEI?" and then played a clip of Zacharia, "I have wanted to work for him for a very long time."
The segment came up midway through the show, and it began with a longer version of the previous clip.
ZACHARIA CLIP : I have wanted to work for him for a very long time. I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well, especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz with energy and excitement never seen before in the history of midterms thanks to President Trump.
Phillip, making no mention of any firing, and before getting to her panel, continued with her DEI nonsense, misleading viewers, while the headline at the bottom of the screen read "KATIE ZACHARIA FIRED AS WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY" and the word LIVE appeared on the screen.
PHILLIP: For years, MAGA has fought against DEI, arguing that merit should trump everything and that the only the only the most qualified should ultimately get the job. So it is interesting that the President gave one of the hardest jobs in government to someone whose qualifications are in serious question. Katie Zacharia is the new press secretary. She was a cable news regular. She briefly worked at DHS and has advised MAGA media, but she also claimed to be a lawyer. But she never passed the bar. When asked, she said she was getting married and she moved to China.
On top of that, officials inside the White House panned her first briefing, calling her stiff and awkward, and wondering how long she'll ultimately last in that job. It is a good question, because Trump doesn't really love these moments of embarrassment.
"Only the most qualified should get the job", "Qualifications are in serious question", "Moments of embarrassment." How brutally ironic.
On Saturday CNN viewers were led to believe that a show that was obviously taped almost 24 hours earlier was LIVE, and they were presented with an outdated version of breaking news, while a planted headline, in an apparently pathetic attempt to override the network's negligence, told them something else.
Viewers deserve not only an apology, but answers. Why was this allowed to happen? Who signed off on it? How high up did it go? Did Phillip fight to redo and update the nearly seven-minute segment at any point on Friday after Zacharia was fired in early afternoon? If not why not? And finally, what other shows are presented as LIVE, but are actually taped?
