Joe Biden did not staff his White House press office for a war presidency. The president’s two press secretaries thus far, Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, have not a dollop of military experience between them (though Psaki was State Department spokeswoman for two years during former President Barack Obama’s second term.)
So what does it say that John Kirby, a State Department and Pentagon spokesman during the late Obama and early Biden administrations, has recently been promoted to White House national security communications adviser?
The Washington Examiner put that question to several foreign policy experts, most of whom declined to comment. Christopher Preble, a director at the Stimson Center, quipped that it meant “no one else in their right mind would want the job.”
The previous PR staffing only made sense, given the White House’s priorities. Biden proved willing to take on the reputational damage that his predecessor and rival, former President Donald Trump, was not by exiting Afghanistan, after America’s post-9/11 20-year-long occupation, in the first year of his term.
But now, the president finds his administration involved in what are effectively two proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel, several smaller skirmishes in the Middle East, and an inherited trade war with China. These are challenges that seem to have caught current press secretary Jean-Pierre flat-footed.
For instance, she referred to the “shutdown of the pipeline of Nordstrom 1” in response to a question about a projected energy crisis in the United Kingdom. It was actually Gazprom’s Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany that was shut down, in the sense that sabotage by explosives constitutes a shutdown.
Following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, Jean-Pierre was asked if she was worried about antisemitism — which, in the American understanding, is vitriol directed toward Jews — rearing its head over here.
“We have not seen any credible threats,” she replied. “Muslim[s] and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks, and certainly President Biden understands that many of our Muslim Arab Americans and Palestinian American loved ones and neighbors are worried about the hate being directed at their community.”
Jean-Pierre later said she had “mishear[d] the question” and that “antisemitism is an abomination” in a statement to Politico. It amounted to an unforced error at an especially sensitive time and reinforced the charge of many critics that she was out of her depth in international waters.
Enter John Kirby, stage right. Jean-Pierre tends to call him “Admiral Kirby” because of his past service in the U.S. Navy. The 61-year-old Kirby served for almost 30 years, retiring with the rank of rear admiral. “His naval career included duty at sea and ashore, including deployments to the Middle East and Mediterranean,” according to his Defense Department biography.
Kirby carries himself in press availabilities like he has been around the world a few times and knows what he’s talking about, and he isn’t shy about pushing back against what he believes to be ill-framed questions from reporters. On the subject of Israel’s Gaza offensive, for instance, his voice has been unequivocal.
“This word ‘genocide’ is getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks,” Kirby said at a late November 2023 press conference. “What Hamas wants … is genocide. They want to wipe Israel off the map. They’ve said so publicly on more than one occasion. … And they’ve said that they’re not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October? Murder. Slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That’s genocidal intentions.”
He allowed that there were a regrettably large number of civilian casualties in Gaza and then added, “Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat.”
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Jean-Pierre became press secretary in May 2022 with much fanfare, celebrated as the first black press secretary and in a same-sex relationship to boot. All external signs point to her staying through this year’s election.
Yet, in the event of a second Biden term, it would not be a surprise to many White House watchers if Adm. John Kirby takes the helm.
