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When we think of former White House press secretaries, we think of star power.
The late Tony Snow was the first of the cable news era to seamlessly make the jump to and from the James S. Brady briefing room and back to a broadcast studio as a host or pundit, and then the pattern of press secretaries jumping to television began in earnest: Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino out of the Bush administration. Robert Gibbs and Jay Carney out of Team Obama. Sean Spicer, Sarah Sanders, and Kayleigh McEnany out of Trump’s first term.
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And Jen Psaki was so excited to go to MSNBC while she was working under Biden, she was reportedly in talks while she was still working out of the White House, a big ethical no-no. But no matter: Psaki is now an MSNBC prime-time host, albeit a failing one when considering she is drawing less than half the audience of Rachel Maddow in the same time slot.
Which brings us to Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s second and last press secretary. She curiously was not signed by any network, not even by her old employer, MSNBC, after Trump was inaugurated in January. Instead, KJP decided to write a book about how then-President Biden was actually mentally sharp while also explaining why she had left the Democratic Party as a result of his ouster from the nomination by his own party.
“It is a truly new and valuable contribution to our understanding of the Biden presidency, the Harris candidacy, the Trump phenomenon, and the Democratic Party’s whipsaw fortunes over the last decade,” writes Rachel Maddow in the foreword for Jean’s Pierre’s ironically-named book, Independent. “This is a brave firecracker of a book.”
Over the past week, KJP has appeared on every major network not named Fox News: ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and numerous podcasts. She has been given long blocks to promote her book. From experience, usually this kind of exposure, especially for someone who was the face of the administration, will automatically shoot a book to the top of the charts and comfortably make The New York Times bestseller list. But that isn’t happening with Jean-Pierre, not even close.
At last check, as of Thursday afternoon, her book sits at #401 in the ranking. You read that correctly: KJP was broadcast to millions of potential customers, and those watching probably asked the same question most of us have:
Why would I ever trust this person or find anything she has to say interesting?
Things got dicey for the 51-year-old right out of the gate on CBS’s This Morning earlier this week:
“Have you reflected on why there’s this big disconnect between the millions of Americans at home who are watching him and said, I don’t know if he’s all there. And you saying behind the scenes, wow, he was there?” asked anchor Tony Dukopul.
“So, a couple of things. We were always honest. You couldn’t hide the fact that he was aging,” she responded.
OK, let’s stop right there: In what world was KJP being honest about her boss? This was a president who shook hands with the air on stage, had trouble finding his way off of stages, shared conversations he said he had with world leaders who have been dead for years, forgot the name of his own top cabinet members, and fell down on multiple occasions with cameras rolling. And despite overwhelming evidence that Biden was long gone and polls showing Americans overwhelmingly in agreement regarding his mental state, there was Jean-Pierre at the Brady podium telling us not to believe our lying eyes and ears.
Question from reporter in July 2024: “So, there are growing calls from Democrats, including members of Congress, for the president to step aside for the 2024 election because he’s not capable of serving another four years. What is his response to this?”
Jean-Pierre: “The president did not have a great night. As you all know — and many of you reached out during the debate — the president had a cold. He had a hoarse voice. You all heard it.”
Ok… so since when do colds lead to memory loss and being utterly confused in front of a live audience of 70 million?
She continued.
“But I will say this, and the president said this over the past couple of days — certainly, right after the debate: He knows how to do the job. And he knows how to do the job not because he says it, because his record proves it. Because for three and a half years, almost four years, the rec- — the president’s record has been unprecedented, delivering for the American people.”
Which totally explains why his approval was in the 30s at the time…
Fast forward to this week, when CBS anchor Gayle King asked Jean-Pierre how she could not have possibly seen Biden’s decline.
“You said people said why didn’t members of his inner circle speak up about what many believe was the apparent decline of Joe Biden,” King noted. “You said you are a member of the inner circle, and you never saw the decline. And after that, I wrote: ‘How!?’ You even write, Karine, that you were on the plane with him going to the debate, and you didn’t see anything. It’s so hard to understand!”
“[It] actually was one of those rare trips where I didn’t really see him until after the debate even though I was on the plane,” KJP replied before pivoting to an unbelievable word salad that would make Kamala Harris jealous. “I was his White House press secretary, which means I had a role that saw him practically every day, and traveled with him for more than 95%. We’ve always said, we’re not going to say, ‘Oh, he didn’t age.’ He aged. He poked fun at it. We always owned up. And with age, comes what happens when you get older.”
“We always owned up…”
This is downright insulting. It was KJP herself who pushed the “cheap fakes” video narrative to the press just a few weeks before the debate. In Italy at the G7, Biden wandered away from a photo shoot and had to be guided back to the group of world leaders by Italian Prime Minister Meloni. On another occasion in France, Biden was bent over while standing next to French President Macron, looking for a chair that didn’t exist. No edits. Nothing fake. And Jean-Pierre still pushed the lie to a mostly gullible press.
And she’s still doing it, because when anti-Trumper Tim Miller of The Bulwark noted that Biden spoke to the press far less than Trump, KJP decided to gaslight again with a blowtorch. “That’s not true!” she retorted. “You weren’t paying attention to what we were doing at the White House. The President spoke to the American people a couple times a week!”
Ultimately, nobody is buying what she has to sell. Almost literally.
Post-press secretary life in the 21st Century usually entails gainful employment in media, an elevated profile, and bestselling books as a result.
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But Karine Jean-Pierre will be the rape exception for one simple fact:
She simply can’t stop spinning the unspinnable.
