Look, let’s be honest: 99.9% of the time, ANYONE other than an M.D. who calls himself a “doctor” is an insecure, self-aggrandizing twit. (As is someone with a medical degree who’s never completed his residency, worked as a doctor, or been licensed to practice medicine, but more on that in just a sec.)
Fun fact: Just like Katie Zacharia, the freshly minted (and heavily scrutinized) White House press secretary, I have a law degree — a juris doctorate. That, of course, is a doctoral degree.
And anyone with a doctoral degree is, technically speaking, a doctor.
So I could call myself Dr. Scott Pinsker. (How prestigious!) But I don’t, because I’m not an insecure, self-aggrandizing twit.
Bogarting the prestige of medical doctors by appropriating their title is a PR power-move. “Doctor” Jill Biden — who’s actually listed as “First Lady Dr. Jill Biden” on her husband’s (digital) Presidential Library — isn’t a medical doctor either. She received a 2007 doctoral degree (in education) from the University of Delaware.
Of course, low-information pundits quickly conflated one with the other:
Whoopi Goldberg says Jill Biden should become Surgeon General: “She’s an amazing doctor.” Jill Biden’s doctorate is in education. https://t.co/Y0t2wzZEWO
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 26, 2022
And I’m sure Whoopi Goldberg wasn’t the only one. I’m sure plenty of voters heard “Doctor” Jill Biden and assumed she practiced medicine. It probably gave the Democrats a PR boost, because 74% of Americans admire medical doctors.
Until his legal SNAFUs derailed his career, Bill Cosby insisted on being introduced as “Doctor” Bill Cosby everywhere he went. Not because he played a doctor on TV, but because he had a doctoral degree (in education, too). And how did he earn it?
He wrote a dissertation on Fat Albert.
“Doctor” Bill Cosby went on to receive an utterly mind-boggling 72 honorary doctoral degrees, which makes him one of the most academically accomplished “doctors” in U.S. history! (Of course, most of ‘em have since been rescinded, but he’s retained ten honorary doctoral degrees — plus the one he “earned” for his Fat Albert dissertation.)
That is still 11 doctorates. Hey, hey, hey — that ain’t bad: It’s 11 more than most people.
And it makes “Doctor” Bill Cosby 11 times the doctor of Michigan Senate candidate “Doctor” Abdul El-Sayed!
The controversy over “Doctor” El-Sayed’s dubious claim of doctorhood is spreading like wildfire on social media. Because, just like Katie Zacharia, he’s basing his claim on academics: Zacharia got a J.D. from Pepperdine Law School; El-Sayed graduated from Columbia Medical School.
Neither was licensed to practice in any U.S. state. Ever. Not even once.
Nor is there any record of El-Sayed ever completing his residency.
Yet he called himself a “doctor” — not just on the campaign trail, but in testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate. In fact, he has specified that he’s a “physician” over and over again:
SUPERCUT: Here are 12 times Abdul El-Sayed described himself as a "physician" (he's never had a medical license) https://t.co/jPzwrfiiCj
— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) October 15, 2026
Politico was one of the few mainstream media outlets that covered the scandal:
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed for years has publicly said he’s a physician — but there’s overwhelming evidence that he’s had no experience as a licensed medical doctor.
This April, he gave an interview to a local TV journalist where he talked up his credentials as a physician multiple times. In March, he told a group of Teamsters nurses that he had “been in enough codes to watch who really does the work” and said that same month on a podcast that “I’ve been a doctor my whole career.”
His LinkedIn profile currently says he’s a “physician,” and late last month he called himself “a physician and epidemiologist” at a Council of Baptist Pastors debate in Detroit.
But according to a review of Michigan and New York state medical records, he’s never been granted a medical license in those states. El-Sayed’s hands-on experience treating patients appears to be a short clinical rotation called a sub-internship at a small hospital in Manhattan for four weeks at the end of medical school, he told a podcast in 2022, where he said his “job was to be the, like, worst doctor on the team” and he was “cosplaying a doctor.”
Kudos to Politico for at least covering it. Most of its media brethren have ignored the story entirely: They were focusing on a bigger, juicier scandal:
The New York Times: Katie Zacharia Is Trump’s New Press Secretary. But Is She a Lawyer?
Business Insider: The Problem With Katie Zacharia Calling Herself a Lawyer
CBS News: White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Confirms She Never Passed Bar Exam After Saying She’s a Lawyer
Washington Post: Groups Urge Investigation of Press Secretary Katie Zacharia’s Legal Credentials
People Magazine: New White House Press Secretary Confirms She Did Not Pass Bar Exam
PBS: Claim That Trump Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Is a Lawyer Comes Under Scrutiny
CNN: Katie Zacharia Presented Herself as a Lawyer. She’s not
Forbes: Complaint Filed Against Katie Zacharia for Claiming She’s a Lawyer
New Republic: Did Trump’s New Press Secretary Lie About Being a Lawyer?
The Guardian: Trump’s New Press Secretary Faces Scrutiny Over Claims to Be a Lawyer
So when is a lawyer not a lawyer? Is it an academic title or a profession? (Or both?) Is it solely contingent on passing the bar? If so, can you still call yourself a lawyer if you’re suspended, disbarred, retired, or no longer practicing?
What if you have a J.D. and teach law at a university — but you don’t practice and aren’t licensed? Are you still a lawyer or nah?
And what about self-determination and personal identity, my LGBTQ-affirming friends: If Zacharia identifies as a lawyer, who the hell is the media to say she’s not? Hey, if a man can identify as a woman and a woman can identify as a man, why couldn’t a law school graduate — who did legal work in the legal profession — identify as a lawyer?
For liberals, the former is a core belief, yet the latter is a scandal? How does that make a lick of sense?
But much more importantly, why is the media holding Katie Zacharia to a higher standard than Abdul El-Sayed?
Look, I hope Zacharia does well, but if she doesn’t [shoulder shrug]. The White House press secretary is a junior-level position. You don’t make policy; you communicate it. Even if she settles in and lasts the rest of Donald Trump’s presidency, she’ll only be there for a couple of years. She doesn’t lead an agency or vote on legislation.
Yet Abdul El-Sayed is running for a six-year term in the Senate. He’ll vote on legislation that affects every American. And his goal — by his own admission — is to transform America by driving the Democrats “unapologetically” to the left.
Washington isn’t ready for Hurricane Abdul.
[…]
El-Sayed, by dint of his history-making story and enemy-making swagger, is poised to have the biggest impact of any new lawmaker if he wins next month. He told me he’ll leverage what he calls his “movement” to build a platform in the Senate, push his party unapologetically left and become the man to see for Democratic presidential aspirants coming through Michigan, now an early primary state.
How do I know?
He says as much.
“You think my goal is to win — only?” El-Sayed said last week after a long day on the road. “That’s not my goal. My goal is to govern well. We treat getting elected as if that’s some sort of achievement. That’s when the thing starts.”
But instead of scrutinizing El-Sayed, the media is dissecting Zacharia’s legal credentials. It’s a peculiar double standard: El-Sayed calling himself a “physician” because of his college degree is hunky-dory; Zacharia calling herself a lawyer for the exact same reason is shocking, dishonest, and scandalous.
Why, we demand an investigation!
This is why there’s an obvious, straightforward solution for the White House. The new press secretary should pull a Jill Biden: Drop the lawyer title — and start introducing herself as “Doctor” Katie Zacharia.
I mean, how could the media object? A juris doctorate is a doctoral degree. (And it’s probably a whole lot harder to earn, since law schools usually don’t accept dissertations about Fat Albert.) Hey (hey, hey), if it’s fair for Jill Biden to call herself a doctor, then it’s also fair for Katie Zacharia.
And since 74% of Americans have a favorable opinion of doctors and just 25% feel the same way about lawyers, it’s a big PR win for the Trump administration!
Well played, “Doctor” Zacharia. Well played.
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