logo
Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.

Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.

USA Today2 days ago

Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break. | Opinion The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party. And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth.
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Karine Jean-Pierre talks exit from Democratic party in new book
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre talks about leaving the Democratic party in her upcoming book slated for release in October.
The Democratic Party continues to self-destruct, and I am here for it.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has teased a tell-all memoir about former President Joe Biden and the administration she served for nearly three years. 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines' is stoking claims that Jean-Pierre is a grifter, profiting off her time in the administration by trashing the former president and the political party that gave her prominence.
Knives are out among Democrats for one of their own who has now betrayed them.
Like other books that have recently exposed details about Biden's poor health, Jean-Pierre's book raises questions about the White House cover-up that attempted to hide the president's mental and physical decline from voters.
It also calls into question Jean-Pierre's honesty: Why did she wait until now, when she can profit from it, to tell the truth about the former commander in chief?
Former White House colleagues turn on former Biden press secretary
Democrats are now a minority party in America. The GOP controls the White House, the Senate and the U.S. House along with a majority of governor's offices and state legislatures. The Democratic Party has lost Americans' trust because of its leaders' penchant for gaslighting, not just about Biden's health but also on issues like immigration, border security and the economy.
Jean-Pierre, who now claims to be an independent, certainly isn't helping her former colleagues rebuild that lost trust.
Details from the book are still sketchy, but Jean-Pierre should provide readers with an inside look at what happened after Biden's disastrous debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a year ago this month.
Jean-Pierre's coworkers have already reacted to the book with contempt.
"Former colleagues expressed confusion at how Jean-Pierre seemingly intends to paint Biden as a victim while pinning her own decision to leave the party on his 'broken' White House," Politico reported, citing multiple former Biden administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Opinion: Biden's cancer diagnosis raises the question: Was he ever in good enough health?
Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Commerce Department's communications team during Biden's presidency, took umbrage with Jean-Pierre's assertion that the Democratic Party betrayed Biden.
'Kamala Harris and the entire Biden/Harris campaign did hero's work to avoid losing 400 electoral votes and giving Republicans a supermajority in Congress, which is what would have happened if he stayed on the ticket,' Legacki told Politico. 'It's more productive to focus on that, and thank Biden for doing the responsible thing by stepping aside, than it is to pretend this was an unwarranted act of betrayal.'
But party insiders continuing to squabble over whether a now former president was or was not betrayed by fellow Democrats entirely misses the larger point.
Opinion: Guess who Americans want to run the economy? Hint − it's not Democrats.
Far too many Democrats, Jean-Pierre included, worked hard to deceive Americans. Their willful lack of self-awareness about their gaslighting and dishonesty is why the party has shown no signs of recovering from the last disastrous election cycle.
Karine Jean-Pierre's book about Biden isn't the first
Jean-Pierre's book will be far from the first to address the deception at the heart of the Biden White House.
On May 20, journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson released "Original Sin," which describes in detail Biden's cognitive decline and the mind-boggling efforts with which his inner circle and the Democratic Party tried to hide the truth from Americans.
Opinion: Texas woman's death would have been prevented if Biden had secured the border
Conservatives had long been suspicious about Biden's health, but journalists with White House access failed to ask tough questions then.
Now that it's too late to make a real difference, those who were silent when it mattered most are more than ready to profit from belated exposés about the former president's failing health.
The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party.
And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

‘Coward' Elon Musk Mocked On His Own Platform After Bending The Knee To Trump
‘Coward' Elon Musk Mocked On His Own Platform After Bending The Knee To Trump

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

‘Coward' Elon Musk Mocked On His Own Platform After Bending The Knee To Trump

Elon Musk went into damage-control mode early Wednesday as he tried to mend fences with President Donald Trump after their spectacular falling-out last week. And his critics are mocking his public show of fealty on his own platform. Musk spent some $291 million during the 2024 election cycle, most notably to help Trump, according to and became a constant presence by his side. Once in office, Trump put Musk in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut government spending. But Musk left his role, attacked Trump's signature 'big, beautiful bill' as a 'disgusting abomination,' and went scorched-earth against his one-time ally in a series of posts on X last week. Musk wrote that Trump won't release the files of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein because the president is named in them, shared a post in support of impeaching Trump and replacing him with Vice President JD Vance, and floated the creation of a third political party. Trump, in turn, threatened repercussions for Musk's businesses and warned him of 'serious consequences' if he backed Democrats for office. But Musk blinked on Wednesday. He wrote that he regretted some of his posts about Trump and said some of them 'went too far.' He also deleted many of those messages. His critics fired back: 'They Went Too Far': Elon Musk Just Walked Back Some Of His Explosive Criticism Of Trump Trump Reveals What's Next For That Tesla He Bought From Elon Musk Trump Mocked After Suffering Awkward Brain Fart While Trying To Insult Biden

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cracks down on Biden's student loan 'scheme,' top Republican says
Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cracks down on Biden's student loan 'scheme,' top Republican says

Fox News

time21 minutes ago

  • Fox News

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cracks down on Biden's student loan 'scheme,' top Republican says

The chairman of a key Senate panel is claiming victory against former President Joe Biden's student loan plans as part of President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill." "The Biden administration was attempting to forgive student loans for people who willingly took on the loan and required the taxpayer, including people who never went to college and would never make what the person who took the loan would ever have the hope to make," Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., told Fox News Digital. "So we end that transfer of that student loan on the taxpayers, and that's probably our biggest savings." Cassidy's committee released its portion of the Trump agenda bill late on Tuesday. A press release for the legislation said it "ends Biden's student loan schemes that transfer debt onto the 87 percent of Americans who chose to not go to college or already paid off their loans" and "also prevents future Democrat administrations from implementing schemes." The bill specifically takes aim at Biden's expansion of Borrower Defense to Repayment regulations and Closed School Discharge regulations, which Republicans have held up as costly policies that shift federal student loan borrowers' burdens onto other taxpayers. Various versions of Biden's plans had previously been struck down in court. The bill would also eliminate federal Grad PLUS loans, a program used by graduate-level and professional students to pay for their studies, which can be used for graduate students' entire cost of attendance. It would instead keep in place a $20,500 annual limit for Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans on graduate degrees, capped at $100,000 total, excluding undergraduate loans. For professional degrees, it keeps a $50,000 annual unsubsidized loan limit and a $200,000 total cap. The legislation is also aimed at cracking down on taxpayer funding subsidizing degrees from lower-performing universities. Colleges that see people with undergraduate degrees earn less than the typical high school graduate in their state, or graduate programs where attendees then earn less than the normal bachelor's recipient, would be blocked from federal student loan programs. "What we've got was a situation where people can borrow more money than they can effectively pay back, and that destroys their life, leaving them with a debt burden which keeps them unable to do other things in life. And there's at least some sense that universities offering these programs know that's the case. And so we attempt to fix that," Cassidy said. "So we have provisions that would say that if the degree being acquired does not end up paying more, the person receiving that degree doesn't get more on average than a person who did not get that degree, then the federal government is not going to lend them money." To encourage more people to pursue non-collegiate degrees, the bill would also establish a Workforce Pell Grant. Pell Grants are currently aimed at low-income students pursuing bachelor's degrees and are generally not repaid. "For example, a student gets a commercial driver's license. They're going to go out and make $100,000 a year after a couple of years of driving, I am told. And so we want to enable those people to accomplish that," Cassidy said. Foreign income would be taken into account when evaluating Pell Grants, while farm and small business assets would not, under the GOP bill. Those and several other measures in the legislation would add up to roughly $300 billion in taxpayer savings, Cassidy said. Senate Republicans are currently working through their version of Trump's massive agenda bill, which passed the House late last month. Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to pass a sweeping bill advancing Trump's agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. They are also working to use it to bring down the national debt – nearing $37 trillion – with the aim of cutting $1.5 trillion in federal spending. Reconciliation allows the party in power to completely skirt the minority, in this case Democrats, by lowering the Senate's threshold to advance from 60 votes to 51. The legislation must adhere to a specific set of rules, however, including measures that deal with the budget, taxation, or the national debt. Both the House and Senate must agree to identical versions of the bill before it gets to Trump's desk for a signature. The House's version passed 215 to 214, and leaders there have implored the upper chamber to change as little as possible. Cassidy acknowledged there were some changes made but was optimistic about how they'll be met in the House. "There's several things, but one thing I think that they're going to like is that we do fully fund the Pell Grant program. You know, we address the shortfall there. And so I think they're going to like it," he said. "It's going to give low-income students access to career education. We need those kind of career type jobs to make sure that all this manufacturing and construction has a workforce to address it. And so we think it helps the needs of society. We think it helps the needs of the student." House and Senate GOP leaders had previously set a goal of having a bill on Trump's desk by the Fourth of July. Cassidy declined to comment on whether that was a feasible benchmark but argued that lawmakers should be ready to extend that timeline – and possibly shrink their summer recess – to get the final product. "As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is to get it right. So if there is a delay, the president said it today – if there is a delay, that's not that big of a deal. The most important thing is we get it right," he said.

Marines in LA, response to Ukraine: Recap of Hegseth hearings
Marines in LA, response to Ukraine: Recap of Hegseth hearings

USA Today

time25 minutes ago

  • USA Today

Marines in LA, response to Ukraine: Recap of Hegseth hearings

Marines in LA, response to Ukraine: Recap of Hegseth hearings Hegseth may also face questions this week about the costly military parade set for June 14 in Washington, D.C. WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing questions from Congress for the first time since he took over at the Pentagon. The Capitol Hill hearings, beginning on June 10, began with clashes with Democratic lawmakers and confrontations over his war on DEI, the recent deployment of troops to Los Angeles protests and the Trump administration's response to the war in Ukraine. More: Amid LA deployment, Hegseth falsely attacks Tim Walz over 2020 George Floyd riots Defense Secretary Hegseth grilled by Congress over LA protests A House subcommittee grilled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over Marines and National Guard being sent to Los Angeles. More: Not that Benning: Hegseth renames Fort Moore, but not for Confederate general, he says Hegseth, a former Fox News host, last faced down Senators during his confirmation hearing in January, when senators on the Armed Services Committee grilled him over reports of his heavy drinking and a sexual assault allegation and his views that women should not serve in combat roles. After nearly six months of Hegseth running the Pentagon, lawmakers have more fodder for questions, including Hegseth's overturning of military diversity initiatives and firing of high-ranking women, his use of Signal to message Yemen attack plans, and the announcement a day earlier that 700 Marines were deployed to Los Angeles to quell protests over deportations. Hegseth testified alongside Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His first hearing, at the House Appropriations Committee, is a budget hearing, but sparks flew, prompted in part by the administration's actions in recent weeks. More: Trump's getting his military parade. Here's what they look like from France to Russia Here's a rundown of what went on at the hearing. Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar sparred with Hegseth about the National Guard troops who have deployed to Los Angeles, saying the troops "have not been provided food or water" by the Defense Department. Calling Aguilar's questions a "disingenuous attack," Hegseth shot back, saying, "We are assured they're housed, fed, water capabilities in real time from my office." He said the troops would stay at least 60 days to "ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we're not going anywhere." Pressed by Aguilar about what authority allowed the Trump administration to send the troops to Los Angeles, Hegseth deflected. "If you've got millions of illegals, you don't know where they're coming from, they're waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers and law enforcement officers – that's the problem," he said. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom "has failed to protect his people," Hegseth said. A question about new restrictions on the use of pronouns and gender identifiers in the military prompted a swift retort from the Defense secretary. "Men are men, women are women" in the military. and people signing up won't get a "woke indoctrination," Hegseth said. He said if they want that, they can go to college. The comments came in response to a question from Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who said it was "not a priority" for people enlisting in the military to use their preferred pronouns. Hegseth said the United States was entering a new "phase" in which the National Guard would "become a critical component of how we secure that homeland." "The National Guard is a huge component of how we see the future," he said. Hegseth has deployed thousands of troops to Los Angeles in recent days to suppress protests against the Trump administration's deportations. He has faced criticism from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats who have said the troops are adding fuel to the fire and are not being put to good use. Responding to an accusation from Rep. Ed Case, a Democrat from Hawaii, that the Trump administration "has illegally sought to destroy" the United States Agency for International Development, Hegseth he had not heard any complaints from other countries over the elimination of the agency and U.S. foreign aid programs because "a lot of them were wasteful and duplicative." "I hear nothing about that because they're not serving U.S. interests." "I don't think you're talking to the right people," Case said. Pressed by Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat representing Ohio, about what he is doing to "not turn your back" on Ukraine, Hegseth said his goal was to achieve peace. He said he would need to "clarify what win means" in the war in Ukraine. "Have you visited Ukraine?" Kaptur hit back. Hegseth said he had not. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, pressed Hegseth over the military's recent deployment of troops in response to protests over ICE arrests in Los Angeles. "This is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in," she said of the Pentagon's deployment of 700 Marines to the region a day prior. Hegseth invoked the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, saying Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz "abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground." "President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor, like it was by Governor Walz... If it gets out of control, it's a bad situation for the citizens of any location." Hegseth said he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine plan to discuss Ukraine's drone attack on Russia and how the United States can avoid a similar attack. Hegseth said the Pentagon would consider increasing counter-drone systems and that "golden dome" – the Trump administration's multi-billion-dollar missile defense plan – would contribute. "I do think it was a bold move, and it represents a new and different way of fighting wars," Caine said. Hegseth said eliminating an office that tests new technologies was a "reflection of the overall approach we take in the department, which is, 'How efficiently do we operate?'" Hegseth said after a review he led along with "our friends at DOGE" - Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, the office was eliminated. The office was "bloated and expanded well beyond" its appropriate scope, he said. In his opening statement, the Defense secretary stayed within the lines of his stated mission of "restoring the warrior ethos." "DEI is dead," he said, nodding to the diversity initiatives he has wiped out at the Pentagon. "We must overcome decades of neglect and decline," he said. "We must fortify our position as the world's most lethal fighting force, and we must act fast." (This story was updated to include video.)

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store