Katie Zacharia probably expected Sean Hannity to be one of the friendliest interviews she would face during her first week as White House press secretary.

Instead, the Fox News host spent Thursday night pressing her on the two controversies already threatening her new job.

By Friday, Zacharia was out.

The timing transformed what initially looked like an uncomfortable television appearance into one of the final public moments of her extraordinarily short tenure.

Hannity began by acknowledging the obvious.

Zacharia’s first White House briefing had been “widely panned.”

It lasted only about 14 minutes.

She took just three questions.

And within days, the new press secretary had become the story instead of the person delivering the administration’s message.

Then Hannity moved to the controversy surrounding her legal background.

“You went to Pepperdine Law School, but you did not pass the bar exam, correct?” he asked.

“Correct,” Zacharia replied.

Hannity followed up by asking whether she had ever taken the exam again.

“I did not,” she said.

It was the clearest admission Zacharia had given after several days of confusion over her résumé.

Trump had introduced her as an attorney.

Zacharia had repeatedly been described publicly as a lawyer.

But she had never passed the bar examination required for admission to practice law in California and no evidence had surfaced showing that she was admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction.

Zacharia tried to explain.

She said she graduated from Pepperdine Law School in 2011, married around the same time and was preparing to relocate to China with her husband.

Because she expected to live overseas, she said the result of the California bar examination ultimately felt “inconsequential.”

She took the exam once but did not sit for it again.

The explanation clarified the timeline.

It did not erase the larger credibility question.

A law degree and bar admission are not the same thing.

Graduating from law school does not by itself authorize someone to practice law in the United States.

And Zacharia had spent years appearing in media settings where she was identified as a lawyer or attorney.

Hannity also challenged her about social-media posts in which she had been described as an attorney.

Zacharia said the posts were retweets and argued that sharing them did not mean she was personally endorsing the title.

“I think they were retweets,” she said.

That defense became another awkward moment in an interview already focused almost entirely on her own résumé rather than Trump administration policy.

Then Hannity turned to the briefing itself.

He asked Zacharia how she thought it had gone.

She explained that she had been thrown into the role with extremely little preparation.

According to her account, Trump offered her the job only days earlier.

She traveled from California to Washington, returned home briefly, and then flew back to Washington before appearing behind the podium Tuesday.

She said she had been on the job for less than eight hours when she conducted the briefing.

“What I feel is I really stepped up to the plate,” Zacharia told Hannity.

She said briefing materials had arrived late and suggested that, with hindsight, she might have handled the event differently.

That prompted Hannity to ask a potentially uncomfortable question:

Was she blaming the White House staff for failing to prepare her properly?

Zacharia laughed nervously before trying to clarify.

She said she probably should have simply introduced herself to the press corps and postponed substantive questions until she had more time to prepare.

“I probably should have stepped aside,” she acknowledged elsewhere while discussing the briefing.

That admission was notable.

White House press secretaries are expected to walk into a room filled with aggressive reporters and speak authoritatively for the president.

Zacharia was effectively conceding on national television that her first major appearance had happened before she was ready.

Hannity then offered some blunt advice.

“That’s never gonna be a friendly room to you,” he warned.

The message was simple: hostile questioning was not going away.

A Trump press secretary had to be ready for it.

As Zacharia tried to explain that she intended to build relationships with reporters and be better prepared in future briefings, Fox began playing transition music for the commercial break.

She continued talking over it.

The visual was brutal.

The newly installed spokesperson was still trying to explain why her first briefing had gone wrong while one of the most Trump-friendly programs on television was already moving on.

It would turn out there would be very few future briefings to prepare for.

By Friday, Trump was publicly suggesting Zacharia should reconsider whether she wanted the job at all.

“I don’t think Katie should be made to suffer like she’s suffering at the hands of the press,” Trump told reporters.

He said he had personally urged her to think about whether the position was right for her.

Hours later, a White House official confirmed that Zacharia had been dismissed.

Her tenure lasted less than a week.

Reuters reported that her departure is believed to be the shortest tenure ever for a White House press secretary.

The episode even surpassed the famous brevity of Anthony Scaramucci’s 10-day stint as Trump’s communications director during his first administration, though Scaramucci held a different position.

Zacharia’s downfall was not caused by one Hannity interview.

Her problems had already begun.

Her first briefing was criticized.

Questions about her legal credentials intensified.

People inside the administration reportedly expressed doubts about whether she was prepared for the job.

And reporters began scrutinizing claims she had made about her professional background.

But the Hannity appearance concentrated nearly all of those weaknesses into seven uncomfortable minutes.

A friendly host told her the debut had been badly received.

He made her acknowledge she had not passed the bar.

He pressed her on why she had called herself a lawyer.

He questioned whether she was blaming her own staff.

Then he warned her that the White House press corps would never become a friendly audience.

Zacharia insisted she would improve.

“I will be very prepared,” she promised.

“I will step up to the duty President Trump has asked me to.”

She never got much of a chance.

Less than a day after the interview aired, Trump’s new press secretary was no longer Trump’s press secretary.

And what was supposed to be a friendly Fox News appearance ended up looking, in hindsight, like her exit interview.