‘Disgusting’: Ex-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Faces Backlash After Announcing Independence from Democrats In New Book
In a new book about her experience as the official spokesperson for former President Joe Biden, longtime Democratic activist Karine Jean-Pierre makes a surprising plea.
“I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes and not be so partisan,” she said, urging readers to “embrace life as (political) independents.”
Many Americans already have. According to a 2024 telephone survey by Gallup, 43 percent of people now identify as independents, a figure that’s remained steady since 2014. The number of Democrats and Republicans continues to slide, with only 54 percent, split evenly, identifying as a member of one of the two major parties.
But former colleagues of Jean-Pierre are skeptical about her real motives for leaving the party.
“Everyone thinks this is a grift,” a former Democrat official told Politico.
Another party operative, who’s known Jean-Pierre since before her time in the Biden White House, went even further, calling her departure from the Dems “the most grift-y thing I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s saying something in Washington.”
Others interviewed by Politico said Jean-Pierre began plotting her partisan rebranding while still on the job in the Biden White House. One associate accused her of copying a New York-based publicist on official emails during the final days of the administration.
Jean-Pierre’s roots as a Democrat run deep, tracing back to her work as southeast regional political director during Barack Obama’s 2006 campaign for the presidency.
She later served as a senior advisor and national spokeswoman for the liberal advocacy group, MoveOn.org, before joining the Biden administration as Vice President Kamala Harris’ chief of staff. In 2022, she became the first Black person and first member of the LGBTQ community to serve as White House press secretary.
Jean-Pierre’s book, titled “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” is due in October.
“Jean-Pierre didn’t come to her decision to be an independent lightly,” a description of the book from the publisher, Hachette Book Group, stated. It was prompted, Jean-Pierre said, by party leaders who applied pressure to the former president to drop his bid for a second term after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump highlighted an apparent cognitive decline.
“I’d never seen a party do that in the way that they did, and it was hurtful and sad to see that happening, a firing squad around a person who I believe was a true patriot,” she said in a February interview.
Promoting the book Wednesday on her Instagram account, Jean-Pierre said she was inspired by the “number one question” she gets from people: “How do we get out of this? How do we protect our democracy? How do we protect vulnerable communities among us? What do we do next?”
“The way that I see moving forward in this space that we’re in right now is if you are willing to stand side by side with me, regardless of how you identify politically — and as long as you respect the community that I belong to and vulnerable communities that I respect — I will be there with you. I will move forward with you,” she continued.
It’s a vague prescription for fixing the country’s lingering political divide, one Jean-Pierre may have a hard time selling, based on the frosty response her conversion has received so far on social media.
“Self-proclaimed ‘queer historical figure’ Karine Jean-Pierre has now left the Democrat party and is selling a book that no one will buy,” wrote one self-described political analyst and scholar, on X.
Another critic added, “Karine Jean-Pierre really saw Jake Tapper sell 50k books and thought, ‘Hey, I could sell a twelfth of that.’” Tapper is co-author of the blockbuster best-seller Original Sin, which details how Biden officials, despite their concerns over his mental acuity, tried to cover up his condition in hopes of preventing Donald Trump from retaking the White House.
Two former party officials said Jean-Pierre hoped to land a job in the media just like her predecessor as press secretary, Jen Psaki, who currently hosts a nightly show on MSNBC.
But no such job has materialized for Jean-Pierre, and one official doesn’t see her succeeding as a “party unifier,” either.
“SHE was the public face telling us all that this White House was on track and that Biden was amazing. And now she doesn’t even want to be a Democrat????” the former official texted Politico. “She’s making herself the middle ground here when Republicans hate her. She’s not in any position to be a connector of our two-party system, and assuming she could be is just ego.”