It’s been two months since former White House press secretary Jen Psaki packed her bags and the current press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre moved in, giving reporters enough time to offer their opinions of Jean-Pierre’s performance at the stand and how they really feel about her compared to Psaki.
According to Fox News, one reporter said Jean-Pierre can act “uniformed” at times and ill-prepared to discuss the issues of the day.
“If your M.O. is going to be reading prepared answers, you should have a lot of prepared answers so that you're not just deferring to reporters constantly,” the reporter said.
Another said Jean-Pierre doesn’t take the time to answer reporter’s questions throughly, frequently admitting that she just doesn’t have an answer for them.
“She is poorly received as she isn’t taking time to answer questions or banter with reporters on the issues of the day… a press secretary has to share some information, kind of a give and take, but she just doesn’t appear willing to do that yet,” the reporter said.
It was also mentioned that on several occasions Jean-Pierre has wasted everyone’s time because she often tells reporters that she “has nothing from the podium” to say.
White House reporters also complained that she delivers useless information, almost as if she did no preparation at all for the briefing.
“The obvious frustration is that Karine is by the book, literally by the book,” a reporter noted, adding “and that means that unless your question has some pre-prepared response in that book, you're probably not going to get anything new out of her.”
Meanwhile, the reporters also suggested that Jean-Pierre doesn’t deviate from her script, adding that she is easily thrown off if asked a question she didn’t recite an answer for.
“I'm not sure if that's a deliberate strategy by this administration to focus the conversation or limit it, but unless she is prepared and has a prepared response, you're not going to get much out of her. At this point, on some of the more hot button topics, I mean, we're always parsing answers, but now we're parsing non-answers as well,” the reporter said.
Offering advice for the newly minted press secretary, reporters said Jean-Pierre should read up on all the topics and come to the podium being well rehearsed on the topic. Instead, they said she relies too heavily on her notes and taken off guard every time she is asked a question she didn’t prepare for.