Weekend Horoscope: Mercury Suggests You "Reconsider," Which Is How the White House Fires People Now

The planets did not align this weekend. They held a 14-minute briefing, took three questions, and were asked to reconsider.

Katie Zacharia started as White House press secretary on a Monday and was "transitioning out" by Friday, the shortest tenure the job has ever recorded. In Washington, five days is not a career. It is a free trial that forgot to ask for your card.

Asked which state she had passed the bar in, she answered, "When I moved to China." That is not a state. It is barely a tense. She had said, "I practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials," then told Fox News she had not passed the bar exam. Credentials, it turns out, are like horoscopes: deeply meaningful until somebody checks.

The firing came in the gentlest dialect available. President Trump told reporters, "Honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider," and added, "Katie, do you need this? I don't think you need this." No slammed door. Just the voice a dentist uses before announcing the tooth has made its own decisions.

Aries: Charge into the new job on Monday. Pace yourself. Friday is a long way off, and for some people it is the exit.

Taurus: A promotion arrives without an interview. Ask for a parking spot anyway. It will outlast you.

Gemini: Someone will ask where you passed an exam. Answer with a place, a date or a feeling, but never all three at once.

Cancer: Dinner with a powerful family is in your stars. NBC reported Zacharia was scheduled to dine Friday with JD Vance's family at the Naval Observatory, the same day she was let go. Bring dessert. Bring a résumé.

Leo: Your boss will praise you in public. Check whether it is in the past tense.

Virgo: Write a farewell so warm it heats the West Wing. Zacharia called the president "a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man." That is six adjectives for five days, one per shift and a spare for the cardboard box.

Libra: Balance returns. A watchdog group has filed a complaint with the State Bar of California, so at least one institution is still reading your paperwork closely.

Scorpio: Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days used to be Washington's smallest unit of time. This week the Mooch was demoted to a long weekend.

Sagittarius: Travel is favored. Trump said, "I'm not sure you can ever be happy in this stuff," while leaving for a weekend trip. Happiness, like the president, was last seen boarding.

Capricorn: An official says your new role will be announced at a later date. Treat it like a tracked package: promised, pending and somewhere in Ohio.

Aquarius: The podium is vacant, and NBC's sources say a new press secretary is highly unlikely any time soon. Two weeks before the midterms, it is the only stand in Washington not running for anything.

Pisces: Do not take criticism personally. The president said, "The news has been so nasty to her. I've never seen anything like it actually." Then he did something about it, though not to the news.

Lucky number: five. Lucky question count: three. And if the stars ask whether you need this, give the answer the West Wing already printed: reconsider.