Karine Jean-Pierre Is Done With the Democrats
In a new book, the former White House press secretary reveals why she became an Independent — and what really led to Biden’s exit.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the first Black woman and out lesbian to serve as White House Press Secretary, has left the Democratic Party to become an Independent, according to a forthcoming new tell-all book.
Jean-Pierre, who took over as former President Joe Biden’s press secretary following the departure of Jen Psaki, is expected to provide details of the weeks preceding Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race in Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.
The book is set to be published by Legacy Lit, a Hachette Book Group imprint, later this fall.
Jean-Pierre was critical of Democrats’ response to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June 2024, which ultimately led to Biden’s withdrawal from the race. She has previously called the pile-on from elected Democrats demanding that Biden scuttle his re-election bid a “firing squad.”
“I had never seen anything like that before,” she said during a discussion hosted by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School in February. “It was truly, truly unfortunate. And I think it hurt us more than folks realized.”
In the book, Jean-Pierre is expected to reveal intimate details of the three weeks leading up to Biden’s exit from the presidential race, with particular focus on “the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.”
Independent is likely to rub salt in the still-fresh wounds of the Democratic Party following its defeat last fall. Much scrutiny has been placed on Biden’s decision to seek a second term and questions about his mental acuity, including accusations that people within the administration sought to hide his deterioration from the public.
That scrutiny — and the assumption by many that he was mentally unfit to seek re-election — has been further exacerbated by Biden’s recent announcement that he has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer which has spread to his bones.
The publisher claims that Jean-Pierre did not arrive “lightly” at her decision to leave the Democratic Party, billing the book as a “hard-hitting yet hopeful critique” that will make the case for why it “can be worthwhile to carve a political space more loyal to personal beliefs than a party affiliation” — a reference to a growing number of Americans who increasingly no longer identify with either major party.
Jean-Pierre is expected to offer “clear arguments and provocative evidence as an insider” about the importance of dismantling misinformation.
“I think we need to stop thinking in boxes, and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan,” Jean-Pierre said in a video posted on June 4 to her Instagram account.
Former Biden administration officials have already clapped back at the former press secretary, with one unnamed official telling Axios that she was “one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I’ve ever worked with.”
“She had meltdowns after any interview that asked about a topic not sent over by producers,” the official said. “She didn’t know how to manage a team, didn’t know how to shape or deliver a message, and often created more problems than she solved.”
A former Biden communications official dismissed the book as a “bizarre cash grab,” accusing her of using her former position to sell books while being skeptical of her attempt to cast herself as an “outsider” given her role as a senior advisor to the president.
“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,'” another former senior administration spokesperson said.
Jean-Pierre has thus far not responded to those criticisms.
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