Karine Jean-Pierre is leaving the Democratic Party. Her former White House colleagues have some thoughts.
Karine Jean-Pierre's announcement that she's leaving the Democratic Party — timed with the rollout of a new book — has detonated long-simmering grievances among her former White House colleagues about Jean-Pierre's pursuit of celebrity and personal media exposure while serving as then-President Joe Biden's press secretary.
The attention-grabbing ploy lit up Democratic and Biden alumni texting groups and reignited frustrations that burned for years about Jean-Pierre, according to seven former Biden administration officials granted anonymity to describe private conversations.
One former official recalled that Jean-Pierre had joked about becoming an independent even while on the job in the Biden White House, an off-key comment for someone ostensibly serving as a major messenger for the Democratic Party. Another former official said that Jean-Pierre had begun working during the Biden administration with a New York-based publicist and had copied that person on official emails before some of Jean-Pierre's White House colleagues intervened.
'Everyone thinks this is a grift,' the first former official said of Jean-Pierre's book project.
As Biden's press secretary, Jean-Pierre's halting, ineffectual briefings exasperated reporters and routinely offered material for the Republican Party's main account on X. She frustrated colleagues throughout the West Wing for focusing on raising her own profile while leaving the hands-on management of media relations and the White House press shop to other aides.
While it's unclear how she will portray Biden or her time in the White House in the book, titled 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,' several 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.
The teasing of the book project by the Hachette imprint stated that Jean-Pierre will offer her view of the three weeks of turmoil following Biden's miserable debate last summer that culminated with him dropping his reelection bid, a result the book's promotional material blames in part on 'a betrayal by the Democratic party.'
Jean-Pierre's former staffers offered withering criticism of what they see as an opportunistic grift.
'She made a joke about being an independent last year and now it's a book. All ideas are monetary — even the dumb ones,' said one of the former staffers.
Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Commerce Department's communications shop during Biden's term, also took issue with the book's apparent premise.
'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,' she said. '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.'
Democrats, Legacki continued, should shift their focus to the effects of Republican's 'Big Beautiful Bill, which she said would have been even more drastic had Biden remained on the ticket and bolstered the GOP's numbers in Congress.
'People will literally die because of Republican Medicaid cuts. Kids will go hungry because of SNAP cuts,' she said. 'The only reason we stand a chance to reduce the harm inflicted is the Democratic Party did the right thing here. It's completely nuts to be more upset that the Party didn't prioritize Joe Biden's ego and keep him on the ticket than to thank god we averted complete and total disaster.'
A New York-based publicist, Gilda Squire, worked informally with Jean-Pierre while she was in the White House and was, on multiple occasions, copied on official emails before staffers raised the issue, another former official said. Squire previously served as publicity director for HarperCollins Publishers and also did PR for Penguin Putnam Publishing, according to her LinkedIn. And Jean-Pierre was the subject of several lengthy profiles in lifestyle publications, including Vogue and Women's Health and traveled to New York to appear on The View.
According to two of the former officials, Jean-Pierre had been hoping for a post-White House job as a co-host on the show, following the template of her predecessor, Jen Psaki, who departed the job after just more than a year for an anchor job at MSNBC.
But no such opportunity materialized for Jean-Pierre, a factor three of her former colleagues surmised that likely led to the book.
Neither Jean-Pierre nor Squire responded to a request for comment.
While a number of former colleagues kept their comments private, Jeremy Edwards, who served in the press shop under Jean-Pierre, posted a succinct response to her book project on X: 'lol.'
Jean-Pierre wouldn't be the first press secretary in recent years to turn against her boss or former colleagues. Stephanie Grisham, who served as press secretary during President Donald Trump's first term, authored a 2021 book detailing her experience in the White House and how Trump often berated her.
But whereas Grisham was never allowed to brief at the podium, Jean-Pierre was the public face of the administration for two and half years.
One Democratic operative who worked with Jean-Pierre prior to her White House tenure called the sudden turnabout 'the most grift-y thing I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something in Washington.'
'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????' one of the former Biden White House officials said via text. '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.'
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