Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is promoting her new book, "Independent," but the effort has drawn ridicule from both journalists and some of her former colleagues, who say they can't stop watching her awkward interviews.
Many former Biden staffers expressed astonishment at Jean-Pierre's inability to answer basic questions and her tendency to ramble while defending former President Joe Biden's fitness for office following his disastrous 2024 debate against now-President Donald Trump, Politico reported.
In interviews with The New Yorker, "CBS This Morning," and "Late Night With Stephen Colbert," Jean-Pierre has left journalists and hosts stunned as she continues to defend Biden, saying she never saw any cognitive decline in him.
"A car crash is fascinating to watch," one longtime Democrat communications strategist told Politico. "She was the top communicator for the president of the United States, and she can't get through basic interviews."
The strategist compared her exchange with The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner to "watching Mike Tyson fight a baby."
Another former colleague said it was "like watching a toddler jump into the deep end of the pool."
Jean-Pierre's book is subtitled "A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines," yet she says she is referring to the Trump White House, not the White House she worked in.
"She doesn't seem to have any idea what she's arguing," a former colleague told Politico, while another dismissed the premise that she left the Democratic Party over its treatment of Biden: "It doesn't really make any sense. Being back out there and regurgitating those three weeks is just unhelpful right now."
When describing the period where many Democrats were trying to push Biden off the ticket, Jean-Pierre told The New Yorker: "There's a period of time that I questioned what was happening and how do we treat our own, how do we treat people who are decent people?
"And then you also have to think about how I'm thinking about this as a Black woman who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, and living in this time where I also don't think Democrats right now, Democrats' leadership, is protecting vulnerable people in the way that it should."
The answer seemed to stun Chotiner.
"I'm a little unclear about what this has to do with Democratic leaders and many Democrats in the country thinking that Joe Biden was going to lose to Donald Trump — which was what the polls all showed — and therefore thinking that he should be replaced," he said.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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