The Biden administration is denying that there was a secret plot to get rid of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Biden Whitehouse is forcefully rejecting claims of calls to get rid of spokesperson Karine Jean Pierre! They say the whole thing is made up!https://t.co/n3BHMvwZFz
— Robbie Mouton (@mcgmouton57) April 28, 2024
The reports, which came from multiple sources with knowledge of the internal plot, said that longtime Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn is part of the plan, and supported by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, has been recruiting potential Democrat replacements to urge Jean-Pierre to resign voluntarily.
However, Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates has told The Post that the claims are false.
“Not only are these claims wildly false, but the reality is the polar opposite. Karine was never approached by anyone with such a message. She spends four hours preparing every day. And neither Jeff nor Anita did any such thing; both have been unflinchingly supportive of her,” Bates said.
The White House sources who spoke to The Post said that Jean-Pierre’s bosses are looking to oust her due to her habit of reading prepared answers from her binder during press briefings. While the sources said the bosses saw her method of answering questions as incapable of doing some quick-thinking pushback and making a solid case for Biden as he seeks reelection, Bates said that the binder is not an issue.
“Every press secretary uses the binder. Why is she being singled out?” he said.
According to The Post sources, Jean-Pierre’s bosses have been trying to get prominent Democrats whom she trusts to convince her that it was the right time to voluntarily resign and that leaving at this time would be beneficial for her career as that would be the same one and half year tenure previous secretaries held.
“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,” a source said, adding that Jean-Pierre “had been in the job for a year and a half at that point, which is a pretty standard tenure for a press secretary in what is admittedly a very demanding job [and] Jeff and Anita [tried] to have folks that she would listen to and trust talk to her about why it might be wise to do that.”
Revealing that “Jeff and Anita were trying to find Karine a graceful exit” rather than forcefully oust her, another source said, “There’s a huge diversity issue, and they’re afraid of what folks are going to say.”
“She has been pretty consistent in telling people from the minute she got the job that she was going to stay through the election. I think Karine has decided to stay come hell or high water and that’s that,” the source added.
According to the sources, Jean-Pierre thinks that she’s “doing an amazing job” through all of this.
