Jean-Pierre triggers Democratic fury with public split from party
Democrats are furious with former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's decision to publicly leave the party and announce she's a political independent while promoting a book.
Jean-Pierre served as former President Biden's voice to the media for more than two and a half years, and her decision to split from the party at a time when it is particularly troubled has been more than irksome to Democrats.
They not only see it as a form of a betrayal, but as an instance in which one of their own again stuck the knife in the collective party's back, preventing it from moving forward after a terrible election.
It amounted to another bad day for Democrats, who have had a whole host of those since former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential race to President Trump.
'You know how I feel about it. This is how: What the f— are we doing?' one angry strategist said in an interview that was laced with expletives.
'We see Donald Trump and he's ripping up this country and we're focused on the press secretary of the former president who hasn't been there for six months. It's madness.'
Democrats have been annoyed with Biden, who keeps showing up in public to, in their view, give Trump and Republicans a target to go after.
Now there is his press secretary, saying she no longer wants to be a Democrat and taking aim at the former president's critics.
The description of her forthcoming book, titled 'Independent: A look inside a broken White House, outside the party lines,' discusses a 'betrayal' of Biden by the Democratic Party that led him to bow out of the race and back Harris.
Democratic operatives, former Biden aides and donors were all miffed by Jean-Pierre's move to leave the party, particularly as many of them say they still feel misled by the Biden administration and his aides' insistence that Biden's mental acuity was above board.
'The fact that she feels like she can distance herself from the Democratic brand is laughable,' another strategist said. 'Democrats are trying to distance themselves from the Biden White House but here we have Karine trying to distance herself from a pissed off Democratic Party. She's part of the problem. Does she not realize that?'
'Karine is one of the most notable spokesperson of the last 5 years. She is part of the Democratic establishment,' the strategist added. 'That's what makes this feel weird and right out of bizarro land.'
In a release on Wednesday, Legacy Lit, Jean-Pierre's publisher, said that in the book the former White House press secretary would urge Americans to 'embrace life as independents,' suggesting that both the Democratic and Republican parties are broken.
'I'm going to stay until the end, milk it for all it's worth and then s— on all of it,' said a third strategist who was close to the Biden White House. 'Huge profile in courage there.'
On Thursday, Jean-Pierre's book fueled an all-out ambush by former Biden aides and operatives close to the White House who say they felt the former White House Press Secretary was 'in over her head' as one former aide put it 'and required a crazy amount of coddling and hand-holding' as a second former aide said.
'I like Karine but it's comical that she was the face of the White House and the lead communicator because she was anything but that,' the first former Biden aide said. 'She was never a communicator. She's affable and politically astute but she was a field organizer. She wasn't meant to ever be a communicator.
'She was miscast in that role,' the former aide said. 'And that was probably what pissed off a lot of people at the time because she was completely the wrong fit for that job.'
At the same time, there was long-running animosity toward Jean Pierre among some White House aides for building her own profile in the role, which included magazine spreads and appearances on major shows.
'There was this feeling in the building that she used the podium to build her persona and sure that's what a lot of these people at the podium do but she took it to another level,' said a former White House aide.
Axios reported on Thursday that 'concerns' about her self-promotion were so widespread that some aides raised the issue with the White House counsel's office. Some aides 'felt torn between their administration duties and helping Jean-Pierre promote herself.'
News of the book comes as Biden and his closest aides and advisers have come under scrutiny for hiding his mental decline while he served as president.
And the aspect that arguably angered Democrats the most was that Jean-Pierre regularly stood behind the podium and defended Biden and his capabilities as president.
Following the infamous debate that led to his withdrawal from the presidential race, Jean-Pierre said Biden was 'as sharp as ever.'
Since then, Democrats have felt they were misled and that the White House —including Jean-Pierre — wasn't being forthcoming about the president's condition.
'There's spin and there's lying and I'll just leave it there,' one major Democratic donor said.
The donor said Jean-Pierre's book news 'pours salt on a big, gaping wound that is still oozing.'
The first strategist agreed, saying that Jean-Pierre's book is 'a microcosm of a presidency that's ignoring the thing that's right in your face.'
'And it was right in our face,' the strategist added. 'We just didn't want to see it.'
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