Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both have a knack for saying stupid things and sounding less than profound. Their White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has a knack for saying stupid things too. She alienates even the friendliest press outlets with her incompetence.
Karine Jean-Pierre Has a Problem
“That is according to conversations I had … with more than a half-dozen White House reporters who painted a picture of a White House press corps that has grown exasperated with Jean-Pierre and does not believe she is well equipped to handle their inquiries,” CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter in January. “The reporters, who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely, pointed to Jean-Pierre’s insistence on sticking to talking points and an episode last week where a key assertion she made from the podium ultimately did not hold up.”
“She is arguably the least effective White House press secretary of the television era,’ one veteran White House reporter told me on Wednesday, adding that the comparison excluded the Trump White House.”
Reporters complain that she comes to briefings unprepared and frequently has binders filled with administration talking points, in contrast with her predecessor, Jen Psaki, who always had the talking points memorized and was ready to spout them off to reporters.
Karine Jean-Pierre and Her Legendary Flubs
After cocaine was discovered at the White House back in the summer, Jean-Pierre responded to New York Post reporter Caitlin Doornbos’s question about whether the drug belonged to a member of Biden family with a characteristically terse and uninformative response.
“There has been some irresponsible reporting about the family. And so I’ve got to call that out here. And I have been very clear. I was clear two days ago when talking about this over and over again as I was being asked the question,” Jean-Pierre said.
In December, Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly read the misprinted term “bicarmel” when discussing the “Defense of Marriage Act” when the correct term was “bicameral.” She also mispronounced the Nobel Prize as the “noble” prize five times in 40 seconds in November.
On immigration, she falsely claimed that it “had gone down by more than 90% under the Biden administration.”
On another occasion in February, Jean-Pierre attempted to ingratiate herself with her boss, Joe Biden, by telling reporters, “The president is the best communicator that we have in the White House.”
Jean-Pierre So Bad She Might Have Broken the Law
Jean-Pierre seemed to forget that she’s a government employee, and she might have found herself on the wrong side of the law.
U.S. Office of Special Counsel found that she violated the Hatch Act last year when she repeatedly used the term “MAGA Republicans” days before the 2022 midterms.
“One can only imagine how former President Donald Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany would have been pilloried by the White House press corps had she made those sorts of repeated verbal gaffes,” Peter Parisi wrote in The Daily Signal in December.
“One could surmise that the reason Jean-Pierre still has the high-visibility press secretary’s job, to which she was elevated May 13, despite all of the gaffes, is because Biden is legendary for his own innumerable gaffes. He couldn’t very well hold her to a higher standard.”
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
