Joe Biden’s former press secretary is giving one epically cringe-worthy performance after another. And her former colleagues can’t look away.
Karine Jean-Pierre, while promoting her memoir, has floundered when asked about the former president’s exit from the presidential race, his stance on Israel and whether Kamala Harris had a shot at the White House.
Some former West Wing staffers are privately texting one another wondering why she can’t answer questions about her own book with greater clarity or coherence. Others are bristling at her emphasis on identity politics.
Most just hope that she will be ignored, another bad news cycle with a short shelf life that doesn’t do lasting damage to an already tarnished brand.
“The truth is that Karine has always been an independent voice throughout her career in politics, so I don’t find her views all that surprising,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director under former President Barack Obama. “But in the end I think people who hear about the book will consider it to represent one woman’s view and it won’t have any impact on the party one way or another.”
As the Democratic Party struggles to put together a compelling message for 2026 and build a formidable bulwark against President Donald Trump, Jean-Pierre provides an unhelpful reminder of the 2024 election cycle and the Biden presidency. The rollout raises questions about why she was elevated to serve as Biden’s top spokesperson and invites a fresh look at the broader dysfunction of the past administration.
“A car crash is fascinating to watch,” said one longtime Democratic communications strategist. “She was the top communicator for the president of the United States and she can’t get through basic interviews.”
The strategist, like over a dozen former Biden officials and allies interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to speak with candor, likened Jean-Pierre’s interview this week with The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner to “watching Mike Tyson fight a baby.”
Jean-Pierre did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Jean-Pierre’s difficulty in media interviews, many noted, were reminiscent of her unsteady, muddled responses over 2.5 years at the briefing room lectern.
“It’s like watching a toddler jump into the deep end of the pool,” said a person who worked with Jean-Pierre inside the Biden West Wing.
But few of the Democrats interviewed for this story understood her book’s premise, or why she didn’t seem to seek feedback from her former colleagues or enlist them in efforts to promote the book.
One former White House colleague questioned how well Jean-Pierre herself understood her own book after she appeared to reverse herself in claiming to The New Yorker that her book’s subtitle framing the story as “A Look Inside a Broken White House” referred to the Trump White House, not the one she worked in under Biden. “She doesn’t seem to have any idea what she’s arguing,” the former colleague said.
And several questioned her decision to focus on Democrats’ painful summer of 2024 at a moment when the party continues to dig out of the electoral rubble and find a way forward.
“It’s a sad commentary on where things are,” a third former Biden White House official said. “The premise of the book doesn’t really make any sense, it’s sort of illogical. Being back out there and regurgitating those three weeks: it’s just unhelpful right now and we need to be focusing on the things Democrats need to be doing to fight back against Trump.”
In the interview with Chotiner, Jean-Pierre, who was the first openly gay and Black White House press secretary, said Democrats were trying to undermine Biden in the three weeks before he dropped out of the presidential race and noted that she looked at that era through her own experience.
“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,” she said.
Chotiner, like other interviewers in recent weeks, pressed her on what her comment had to do with Democrats thinking Biden would lose to Trump. Jean-Pierre replied, “Nobody knows what would’ve happened.”
Palmieri, a veteran Democratic communications strategist, shrugged off Jean-Pierre’s relitigation of what happened during last year’s campaign. “It’s not helpful to trod back over this territory, but it’s been over a year and I think the American people have already made their judgments about how President Biden left the race,” she said.
At least one former Biden administration official, Jeremy Edwards, went public to pan the New Yorker interview as “objectively bad.” Others mostly shared via private texts their shock that Jean-Pierre would subject herself to a grilling from Chotiner, known for tough interviews.
“She should have at least Googled who she was getting on the phone with,” one former colleague said.
Several Democrats have bristled at Jean-Pierre’s emphasis on so-called identity politics, seeing it both as a shield against questions about her book’s coherence and as out of step with the moves by some in the party to recalibrate after Trump won with a campaign geared toward criticizing that rhetoric.
“The interviews use a vernacular, which we now acknowledge doesn’t work—very identity focused. It’s bringing us back in time and we need to be going forward and focused on communications that we know will work in this era,” said the third former Biden White House official.
Other former senior Biden administration officials, including several people of color, expressed similar concerns. “Every time she falls back on identity politics instead of actually answering questions, she reinforces the worst stereotype about Democrats,” said the person who worked with Jean-Pierre inside the Biden West Wing.
Some former officials are hopeful that Jean-Pierre’s book will serve as just a reminder of the last administration’s issues and not a representation of the whole Democratic party.
“It’s a clear reminder of the communications struggles within the administration that included Karine but also included the president and vice president. The basic role of a communications professional is to devise a clear, compelling argument and then deliver it effectively over and over. By that standard, she’s 0 for two with this book,” said another former Biden White House official.
Jean-Pierre testified last month as part of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s probe into Biden’s mental fitness while in office and his use of the autopen, during which she defended the former president’s competency.
Similarly, Jean-Pierre has shaped her book around defending Biden and his legacy, which has been torn apart by Republicans through the months of investigations. But, some Democrats fear it is adding more to the negativity surrounding the former president.
“She’s contributing to a larger, very sad narrative of JB’s chapter in the history book becoming less about his accomplishments and more about the drama of his presidency and post-presidency,” said a Democratic communications strategist.
