Katie Zacharia has been Donald Trump’s White House press secretary for only a few days.

According to leaked messages, some people inside the administration are already wondering whether she was ever ready for the job.

One senior Trump official delivered the harshest reported assessment of Zacharia’s first White House briefing:

“She could barely read.”

Another insider said she appeared as though someone had handed her a script at the last minute without giving her enough time to prepare.

And one person familiar with the internal reaction reportedly wondered aloud whether someone inside the White House had deliberately set her up to fail.

The comments, first reported through anonymous-source accounts and later circulated by several outlets, offer a stark contrast with the White House’s public message.

Communications Director Steven Cheung has praised Zacharia as a “wonderful addition to the team.”

Trump himself said she did a “great job.”

Behind the scenes, however, the reported reaction was considerably rougher.

Zacharia’s debut Tuesday lasted roughly 14 minutes.

She relied heavily on prepared remarks, took only a handful of questions and abruptly ended the briefing while reporters continued shouting after her.

During the appearance, she also made a verbal slip in which she referred to Trump as her “husband.”

The mistake was clearly just that — a verbal mistake — but it added to the impression of an unusually shaky first appearance behind one of the most scrutinized podiums in American politics.

One anonymous administration official reportedly saw something bigger in the performance.

According to the leaked account, the person argued that Zacharia’s hiring reflected deeper personnel problems inside a White House facing mounting pressure from the war with Iran and the approaching midterm elections.

“They have no idea who to hire,” the official reportedly complained.

Another Republican communications operative responded to the briefing with a collection of emojis depicting a dumpster fire.

Not every insider was ready to write Zacharia off.

One White House source offered a more sympathetic explanation, arguing that she had never handled anything comparable to a White House briefing and should not have been thrown directly into such a difficult environment without more preparation.

“But it always gets better,” the person said.

That defense might have helped Zacharia weather a bad first briefing.

Then came the résumé controversy.

For years, Zacharia publicly described herself as a lawyer.

She appeared on television discussing legal matters and at times was identified as an attorney.

Her professional biographies also included legal titles.

But reporting this week established that Zacharia never passed the California bar examination after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011.

Reuters reported Friday that Zacharia has now acknowledged that she did not pass the bar exam.

That admission represents an important clarification after days of confusing answers about her credentials.

The controversy began escalating when reporters asked Zacharia which state she had passed the bar examination in.

Instead of naming a state, she responded:

“When I moved to China.”

That answer immediately raised new questions.

Zacharia moved to Beijing after law school and worked at Zhong Lun Law Firm on its international-practice team.

But working for a law firm overseas is not the same thing as being admitted to practice law in either the United States or China.

Zacharia subsequently tried to explain the exchange.

She told The New York Times that she believed the reporter had asked where she went after law school rather than where she had passed the bar exam.

She has also said that she performed international transactional legal work in China with the credentials required for that role.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Zacharia had been told she could perform certain legal-analysis work based on her law degree and international transaction experience.

But the newspaper also confirmed that she had failed the California bar examination.

No public evidence has emerged showing she was ever admitted to practice law in another U.S. jurisdiction.

The distinction matters.

Someone can graduate from law school and work in roles involving legal research or analysis without being a licensed attorney.

But describing oneself publicly as a lawyer or attorney can carry different implications depending on the jurisdiction and the context in which the title is used.

Reuters reported that a watchdog group has now asked California regulators to examine whether Zacharia improperly represented herself as a lawyer.

That does not mean she has been found to have broken any law.

The filing is a request for scrutiny, not a determination of wrongdoing.

Still, it has transformed what might otherwise have been dismissed as a rough first press briefing into a more serious credibility problem.

And credibility is particularly important for a White House press secretary.

The job is built around asking reporters and the public to trust that the person behind the podium is accurately representing the president and the administration.

Now Zacharia is spending her first week defending claims about her own biography.

The timing could hardly be worse.

She took over after Karoline Leavitt left the administration in August.

Zacharia entered the job as a familiar face on conservative television and with relatively limited experience handling the daily White House press corps.

The first briefing immediately exposed that gap.

Then the legal-credential questions followed.

And now reports of private criticism from inside the administration are adding another layer of pressure.

One question remains difficult to answer:

How much of the reported internal anger actually reflects the broader White House?

The most savage assessments come from unnamed officials.

Cheung continues to defend Zacharia publicly.

Trump has not indicated that he intends to replace her.

So claims that the entire administration has turned against her would go beyond the available evidence.

But the existence of anonymous criticism so early in her tenure is politically significant on its own.

Press secretaries normally receive at least a brief honeymoon period.

Zacharia appears to have skipped directly to damage control.

She has had to explain a rough debut.

She has had to clarify her law-school and bar-exam history.

She has faced questions about whether she misrepresented her professional credentials.

And she is now reading reports that people working in the same administration think she looked unprepared.

That is an extraordinary amount of controversy for a press secretary who has barely settled into the job.

The White House says Katie Zacharia is a strong addition.

Some of her colleagues, according to the leaked messages, have a very different assessment.

And after her first week, the person whose job is supposed to control the White House message has instead become one of its biggest stories.