Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote in her new book that she saw ‘no such decline’ while working for octogenarian President Joe Biden, trashing Jake Tapper book ‘Original Sin.’
The Daily Mail obtained an early copy of Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, in which she describes why she ditched the Democratic Party.
In it, she remained absolutely faithful to Biden, saying he merely had a ‘cold’ the night of his disastrous June 2024 debate against President Donald Trump.
She recalled how CNN’s Tapper, along with Axios’ Alex Thompson, ‘later wrote a supposed tell-all about Biden … accusing him of a cover-up of his mental decline and how his aides quashed concerns.’
‘I was technically a part of the president’s inner circle and saw Biden every day and saw no such decline. I never read Tapper’s book and don’t ever plan to because that does not track with what I saw in the White House,’ Jean-Pierre wrote.
She recalled how daunting it was to face the White House press corps in the aftermath of the debate.
‘On and on it went,’ she recalled. ‘What cold medications was Biden taking before the debate? Did a doctor give him a neurological scan afterward? Did he have dementia?’
Jean-Pierre expressed that she felt the questions from the press were unfair.
In her new book, ex-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (left) explains why she left the Democratic Party, though continues to vouch for President Joe Biden, slamming Jake Tapper’s (right) book Original Sin, which alleges Biden’s cognitive decline was covered up
‘Were they asking the same questions about Trump?’ she mused.
‘During the campaign, Trump would froth at the mouth for hours on end, bringing up the fictitious movie villain Hannibal Lecter and at one appearance making obscene gestures with a microphone. But no reporter asked to speak to his doctor,’ she later added.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s book Independent hits bookshelves on Tuesday. The Daily Mail obtained a copy
She also slammed the conspiracy theories that were prompted by the announcement after Biden left office that he had prostate cancer.
Jean-Pierre recalled how former Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat who had challenged Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary, had said that Biden timed the cancer announcement to blunt the coming Tapper and Thompson book.
She claimed that even cancer wouldn’t have slowed the 82-year-old president down.
‘Suffice to say, Biden’s cancer diagnosis, regardless of what he knew when, would not have been directly related to his alleged cognitive decline, nor would it have affected his ability to make competent decisions as a world leader,’ she wrote.
Jean-Pierre, who announced she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent in June, in conjunction with saying she was writing a book, wrote that she first flirted with the idea after seeing Biden get pushed out of the race.
She placed a lot of the blame on House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi for leading the charge, but blasted the overall party for eating their own.
Former President Joe Biden is photographed on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump’s inauguration day, addressing staff and supporters at Joint Base Andrews. Jean-Pierre maintains that Biden should not have been pushed out of the 2024 presidential race
Once Vice President Kamala Harris took over the reins, Jean-Pierre said the party failed her, too.
‘Somehow it was unable to help a trailblazing, extremely accomplished former prosecutor who wanted to uplift everyone in our society defeat Trump, a habitual liar and convicted felon who openly embraced the politics of cruelty,’ she wrote.
Her disappointment in the Democrats also came from her own White House experience.
She said she was ‘exasperated with the shady way Democrats do business.’
In the book, she recounted how an unnamed white female superior had orchestrated a campaign to push her out of the press secretary’s job.
Jean-Pierre didn’t respond to the Daily Mail’s request to name the individual.
But Jean-Pierre accused the woman of being a source for negative articles about her in the New York Times, Axios and the New York Post.
‘This woman had once been supportive of me and my career, or so it had seemed. Now she was relentlessly smearing me behind my back,’ Jean-Pierre recalled.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is photographed at her final press briefing on January 15, 2025. In June, she announced she was coming out with a book ‘Independent,’ and that she had left the Democratic Party and become a political independent as well
‘The main reason for the change in how she treated me, going from someone who backed my getting the press secretary job to basically strategizing for me to lose it, had to do with my independence,’ she surmised.
She recalled one episode when the female White House staffer pushed her not to travel with the president on a trip to Israel and Jordan directly following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack.
Skipping the trip would be highly unusual for a White House press secretary, but the woman suggested that a ‘man who had experience in war-torn regions, could go in my place.’
During much of Jean-Pierre’s tenure, John Kirby, who served as the spokesperson for the National Security Council, held briefings too, as he was more fluent in international affairs.
Jean-Pierre didn’t say if Kirby was the man who was suggested to go in her stead.
She also floated that there was a racist element in this treatment.
‘I wasn’t the only woman on the White House staff who had negative experiences with this person. She had spoken dismissively to female members of the administration, especially those who were also people of color,’ Jean-Pierre wrote.
‘A white woman once said to me that it was uncomfortable being on emails with her and witnessing her tone and the way she addressed women of color,’ she added.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appears at an event last month, previewing her book. In the book, she recounts how a white female Biden staffer orchestrated a plot to push her out of the press secretary’s job
As of today, Jean-Pierre, now an independent, says the Democratic Party is still failing.
She recalled how ridiculous they looked trying to combat Trump when he gave his first address before a joint session of Congress in early March.
Jean-Pierre wrote, ‘as Trump figuratively shot himself in the foot, what did Democrats do?’
Jean-Pierre recounted how Rep. Al Green yelled at Trump and got ejected from the chamber, while a group of Democrats wearing ‘Resist’ T-shirts walked out. Others held up whiteboards saying ‘Save Medicare’ and ‘Protect Veterans.’
‘The Dems couldn’t even unite around what color to wear to make a statement, with some female lawmakers wearing pink, while members of the Congressional Black Caucus donned black,’ she noted.
Despite still being politically liberal, she said all of these experiences led to her decision to leave the Democratic Party.
‘The party’s unwillingness to defend Biden, the chasm Democrats allowed to grow between them and everyday Americans, their inadequate messaging during and following the last presidential election, and the way the party takes Black women for granted has made my remaining an official part of that political coalition untenable,’ she said.
Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines will be released Tuesday.
