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Joe Biden’s former White House press secretary faced tough questions about his former boss’s 2024 decision-making during an interview on Monday, and he found himself largely avoiding blame and claiming ignorance about the problems that plagued the previous administration.
Karine Jean-Pierre sat down for a few interviews earlier in the week as she kicks off a press tour for her book, IndependentWhich is out on Tuesday. The former Democratic press secretary explained the headline earlier this year, saying she would leave the party in 2024 over institutional failure.
During anti-Trump interview news site bulwark And cbs morning, Jean-Pierre faced some of the toughest questions anyone has faced during the collapse of his presidential campaign in favor of Biden and the disastrous debate in June, when he appeared confused, often lost track of what he was saying and appeared fainter, even whispering, than Donald Trump.
Their appearance coincides with Harris’s own media tour, which began in September as Harris promotes the story of her dominance at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2025.
Jean-Pierre struggled in both situations to defend his old boss’s decision-making, especially under a barrage of questions. bulwark’s Tim Miller on an anecdote from Harris 107 days Memoir in which the Vice President detailed Complaint phone call from Biden before the debate It is believed that his team members were criticizing him. According to Harris, she was unsure whether his own boss At that moment he was deliberately trying to upset her – or, was only doing so unknowingly.
In his interrogation, Miller pressured Jean-Pierre to explain how his former boss prioritized the election over his ego and public image, if he did so at all.
“I look back [the questions of loyalty to Biden] And think, man, wasn’t there too much emphasis on Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s legacy? And to make the party successful, not enough to prepare Kamala Harris to succeed?” Miller asked, noting that many people in Harris’ circle (including the candidate herself) feel this way.
Jean-Pierre responded that she “can’t talk about her experience” before being pressed for an answer by Miller. As an example of how Biden put his own self-interest over Harris after she “stepped down” from the Democratic ticket, Miller said: “That story – he called her before the debate to say that people were treating her badly? Like what’s happening? What’s happening? It’s crazy! It’s a crazy thing!”
“Wait a second, Tim,” he replied. “You’re talking about his experience – I can’t speak to that.”
“But you were around,” Miller replied with some sarcasm.
Jean-Pierre could only respond by saying that Biden’s legacy as his press secretary was not his focus, which he said was on the administration’s work for the American people.
But she was similarly evasive on CBS when asked about something she should be able to talk about: her own impression of the president, when she traveled with him on Air Force One before the campaign-ending debate with Donald Trump in June. Jean-Pierre claimed that he “didn’t really see him until after the debate”, a statement that would be hard to believe coming from any press secretary, but especially from one set to speak for the President, as he had just returned from a trip abroad and was preparing for a major televised confrontation with his political opponent.
Reading Jean-Pierre’s book, Gayle King reported that she had just one simple question in response to the press secretary’s claim that she had not witnessed Biden’s noticeable mental and physical decline, something that appeared to be ignored by millions of Americans not present in the room: “How?”
“So really, I want everyone to know that I take this question incredibly seriously,” Jean-Pierre responded. “I was his White House press secretary, which means my role was such that I saw him practically every day.”
But, he added, “I never saw anyone who wasn’t ‘there.’ I saw someone who was always busy. I saw someone who understood policy; Pushed us on policy. And also understood history.”
His statements, if an accurate portrayal of his experience, only serve to reinforce the narrative that Joe Biden’s presidency and campaign were characterized at the highest levels by the president’s declining mental acuity and ability to present himself to the public, as well as the real extent of the sincerity of the criticism surrounding those issues.
No one inside Bidenworld still has any real explanation for why it was too late to save the party from defeat, unless someone in those circles was listening to the deafening calls for a new candidate, just weeks after the president announced to millions of Americans that his administration “debunked Medicare.”
Those questions are widely believed to have contributed to Harris Decision not to run for Governor of California Next year. He is still considered a possible contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2028, but nearly a year has passed since his defeat without answering tough questions from reporters about his last year in the Biden administration. Other Democrats who held top positions in the former administration are also now avoiding interviews.
The former vice president writes in his book that he thinks Biden’s team – including the press shop of which Carine Jean-Pierre was a member – hung it out to dry, Explaining that she found “anything positive being said about my work or any defense against false attacks [to be] Almost impossible.”
Harris claimed, “Worse, I often learned that the President’s staff was promoting negative stories around me. One story that took hold was that during my first year in office my office was ‘in disarray’ and unusually overstaffed.” 107 days,their mind There was zero-sum: if it is shining, it has dimmed. None of them understood that if I did good, he also did good.
Biden, who recently entered radiation therapy treatment He spoke about his decision to step down earlier this year, due to prostate cancer.
The president said, “I don’t think it would have made a difference” if he had dropped out sooner to allow the Democrats to find another candidate. “Things moved so fast that it was hard to walk away. And it was a difficult decision… I think it was the right decision…[But] It was a difficult decision.”