White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is a survivor, sort of. According to fresh reporting Friday in The New York Post, an attempt was made — from within Biden's inner circle — to oust the president's spokeswoman last fall over concerns she wasn't performing at the level necessary to pitch Biden's agenda leading up to the 2024 election.
Any loyal Townhall reader will know that Jean-Pierre is...not great at fielding reporters' questions and explaining President Joe Biden's policies. The tell-tale sign of a bad news cycle for Biden: Jean-Pierre kicks off the daily briefing and then tags in someone else to handle the brunt of tough questions, normally the National Security Council's John Kirby.
According to the Post's reporting, sources said that "[d]e facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, told colleagues she had decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on."
"'There was an effort to have some outside folks who Karine knows and trusts talk to her about why leaving last fall would have made a lot of sense for her and her career,'" one Post source explained. It was an attempted coup to "find Karine a graceful exit" due to the "ugly optics" of removing the first black and first openly gay White House press secretary. The Biden White House, after all, is as identity-obsessed as they come.
The Post's source emphasized that forcing out Jean-Pierre presented a "huge diversity issue" and the White House is "afraid of what folks are going to say."
More from the Post's report on the issues Biden aides reportedly had with KJP:
While Jean-Pierre isn’t going anywhere, the issues that brought about Dunn’s failed machinations remain — with both sources saying the press secretary is too reliant on notes to provide the pushback and quick-thinking repartee needed to effectively champion Biden’s cause.
“Karine doesn’t have an understanding of the issues and she reads the book [binder] word-for-word,” said the second source, adding that the situation is made worse by the fact that “she thinks she’s doing an amazing job.”
“She doesn’t have a grasp of the issues and doesn’t spend the time to learn,” this person said.
“These issues are not second nature to people. Israel and Gaza is a perfect example. It’s very nuanced. Jen would have calls with people to feel well-versed enough to go to the briefing.”
“There’s an enormous amount of work that goes into getting ready,” the first source said, “and consistently she does not put in that level of work.”
The White House, unsurprisingly, outright denied the events recounted to the Post by its sources as "wildly false" and insisted that the reality inside the West Wing "is the polar opposite."
So despite the failed coup attempt, Jean-Pierre remains dutifully reading from her binder about Biden's cannibalized uncle (he wasn't), how inflation is coming down (it isn't), and Biden's policies are constitutional (they're not). "She thinks she’s doing a really good job and thinks the president wants her to stay," a Post source lamented. Biden very well may find Jean-Pierre to be a skilled spokeswoman, but if you're comparing her to Biden's rhetorical prowess, the bar's pretty low.