Several former Biden officials and staffers have spoken out against ex-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s announcement that she was becoming an independent after serving in a Democratic administration, which came alongside a book announcement.
“Everyone thinks this is a grift,” a former official told Politico.
Jean-Pierre announced Wednesday that her new book, “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” would be released in October.
“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????” a former Biden White House official told the outlet. “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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“It’s hard to believe someone could look at the past year and genuinely think, ‘The party left Joe Biden — that’s why I’m leaving the Democratic Party,'” a former senior spokesperson for the Biden administration told Axios.
“The hubris of thinking you can position yourself as an outsider when you not only have enjoyed the perks of extreme proximity to power… but have actively wielded it from the biggest pulpit there is, is as breathtaking as it is desperate … It’s difficult to see how this is anything but a bizarre cash grab,” another White House communications official told the outlet.
“She made a joke about being an independent last year and now it’s a book. All ideas are monetary — even the dumb ones,” a former Jean-Pierre staffer told Politico.
Politico reported that Gilda Squire, a publicist, worked with Jean-Pierre while she was in the White House and was included on multiple official emails, until her staffers said it was an issue and raised it with the White House counsel office. The outlet noted that Jean-Pierre was the subject of a gushing Vogue profile, in addition to a profile in Women’s Health. The former press secretary also appeared on “The View” in person and from the White House while she was press secretary.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson asked Squire about boosting Jean-Pierre in February 2024 and the publicist said off the record that none of it was true. Thompson reported Thursday, “Internal White House emails obtained later by Axios, however, show that Squire was copied on emails related to Jean-Pierre’s publicity work. The messages included a September 2023 email describing plans for a Vogue magazine profile.”
Former Jean-Pierre staffer, Jeremy Edwards, reacted on X to the book announcement.
“Lol,” Edwards wrote.
Another White House communications official told Axios, “Today Karine lost the only constituency that ever supported her — party line Democrats.”
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White House reporters who covered the Biden administration also criticized Jean-Pierre’s announcement.
“Did she find the manuscript somewhere in that fat binder she toted around? If I were a historian writing about the Biden White House, I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings,” a White House reporter told Fox News Digital.
Another White House reporter told Fox News Digital they were “shocked” that Jean-Pierre had left the Democratic Party.
“I have to pick my jaw up from the floor. It is unbelievable that she, of all people, would choose this path,” the reporter said.
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Jean-Pierre, a veteran Democratic Party operative who also worked for the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign and served as a spokeswoman for the far-left MoveOn advocacy group, said in a post on Instagram that the book was about not always being in a “partisan stance.”
Jean-Pierre repeatedly defended Biden when faced with questions about the president’s decline, and even laughed at a question about his ability to serve past 2024 during an interview in 2022.
Jean-Pierre’s publicist did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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