What Karine Jean-Pierre Brings to the Podium As the New White House Press Secretary

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This past week, the White House confirmed that current principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will replace Jen Psaki as press secretary and special assistant to President Joe Biden next week. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman and the first openly LGBTQ+ person to serve as the White House press secretary, as Psaki confirmed while congratulating her at the podium last week.

As someone who covered both Jean-Pierre and the White House communications office for much of the last two years as a former editor at LGBTQ Nation, the appointment did not surprise me. I was somewhat surprised when Jean-Pierre didn’t get the job of press secretary when Biden first entered office, and I believe she is the best person to follow in Psaki’s footsteps.

Psaki is leaving of her own accord, fulfilling a commitment she made when accepting the job in January 2021 that she would depart following year. She leaves the position in a more respectable and more transparent state any of her predecessors under the Trump administration.

“Jen Psaki has set the standard for returning decency, respect, and decorum to the White House Briefing Room,” Biden said in the statement announcing the change. “I want to say thank you to Jen for raising the bar, communicating directly and truthfully to the American people, and keeping her sense of humor while doing so. I thank Jen [for] her service to the country, and wish her the very best as she moves forward.”

Psaki earned admiration — and even became an internet sensation — thanks to her quick wits, although her tenure certainly had rocky moments. Still, Jean-Pierre will have a momentous responsibility before her: She is now chiefly responsible for communicating messages on behalf of a president who is growing (or remaining, depending on who you ask) increasingly unpopular, while his party is primed to face a dismal showing in the midterm elections this November.

Jean-Pierre is familiar with the many different challenges being press secretary entails – especially since she’s usually ensconced in the staff seats along the side of the Brady Briefing Room, taking notes. She’s more than qualified thanks to experience on three successful presidential campaigns and working in the Obama-Biden administration, having received guidance from the likes of former New York City Mayor David Dinkins and former Obama White House official Valerie Jarrett (who wrote the foreword to Jean-Pierre’s 2019 book, Moving Forward.)

As a Black woman, lesbian, mom, child of Haitian immigrants (and an immigrant herself, being born on the French West Indies island of Martinique), Jean-Pierre will also serve as a beam of representation for many.

Last April, when she held a press gaggle aboard Air Force One, she became just the second Black woman ever to represent the president as a member of the White House communications staff, as well as the first out gay person. The first was Judy Smith, who (loosely) inspired behind show Scandal and its lead character, Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington.)

That May, she made similar history by delivering a briefing from the White House. After that, she filled in for Psaki on Biden’s trip to Europe while the latter had coronavirus (the first time) in November.

Jean-Pierre’s identity, and her pride in it, is why she once described herself as “everything that Donald Trump hates.” (Trump infamously called Haiti, where Jean-Pierre’s family is from, a “shithole” country.)

Now, less than two years after he was voted out of the White House, she gets to represent that same office.

Jean-Pierre didn’t really dream of being in government, especially since, as she once wrote, “Where my parents are from, politics was associated with corruption.” Meeting Dinkins, though, changed that – and set her on the course that has culminated in this honor.

“I have optimism that this country has so much to offer,” she told the Haitian Times in 2020.

Jean-Pierre came out to her mother at 16, and has described a painful evolution on the issue within her family that mirrors the country’s.

“The revolted look on her face sent me running back into the proverbial closet and slamming the door shut,” she said in June 2021. “After that, my sexuality became a family secret and it would stay that way for years.”

“Just as American society has evolved over the course of the past couple of decades to embrace the LGBTQ community (never forgetting we still have work to do), my family has evolved to embrace my membership in it,” she added. “I’m proud to be an out Black Queer woman and I have been for quite some time. I’m happy to say, my Mother is now proud of ALL of who I am; she loves my partner and she loves being a doting grandmother to the daughter we are raising.”

“My journey towards feeling accepted by myself and loved ones wasn’t an easy one, but it was worthwhile. No matter where you are in your journey, I see you.”

Her appointment doesn’t automatically fix the ostracization and discrimination that Black, LGBTQ, immigrant and/or other marginalized Americans are facing. “Representation” matters but is not the end-all, especially in politics. It is exhilarating, though, for someone that knows the perspectives of those communities now being tasked with speaking to them on behalf of the President. It is also important toward improving Biden’s image and maintaining his repeated desire to have the “most diverse” White House staff in history.

It’s worth saying though that she is, in every regard I can think of, one of the best persons available for this job.

Now, though, she has to do the job, and that is much easier said than done. Biden, especially of late, has made multiple gaffes and mix-ups in public remarks that the White House Communications Office staff then has to try and remedy. That’s not likely to improve going forward, as Biden gets older and will have to make more public remarks, both to the White House press (he only held his first press conference as President earlier this year) and when he likely goes stumping for other politicians this fall.

The White House is also a notoriously tough place to work (with good reasons). Rumors about the ins-and-outs of each day are always spreading – some about other White House staff allegedly trying to “sabotage” Jean-Pierre have flown around DC already. That comes with the territory; but Biden has also repeatedly pledged he will hold his staff to the highest standards, especially in regard to their treatment of others.

Biden was put to the test early on in his administration in February 2021. Junior Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo, who was in a relationship with Axios journalist and MSNBC contributor Alexi McCammond, threatened to “destroy” Politico’s Tara Palmeri if she reported the coupling. Biden suspended him and Ducklo resigned shortly after.

Jean-Pierre (or anyone else) is unlikely to make a mistake that flagrant and embarrassing, but she, too, is in a relationship with a well-known political journalist: her partner is Suzanne Malveaux, a veteran CNN national correspondent and a former White House correspondent during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. There’s no reason to expect that there will be anything close to the conflict-of-interest violations committed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo under the watch of Jeff Zucker. Still, you can expect conservatives and major critics of both CNN and the White House will bring it up, and often – in fact, the New York Post has already written about people raising conflict-of-interest concerns, quoting multiple people online… including this writer.

CNN stated to the Washington Free Beacon that “Suzanne Malveaux will continue in her role as CNN national correspondent covering national/international news and cultural events but will not cover politics, Capitol Hill, or the White House while Karine Jean-Pierre is serving as White House press secretary.”

While Jean-Pierre isn’t a household name yet, she is already popular – while I was editor at LGBTQ Nation, readers voted her a “Hero Defending Democracy” for the publication’s 2021 Heroes Award honors. She also has fierce critics – Jean-Pierre is often maligned for allegedly being “anti-Israel” based on her time as a spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group MoveOn and past criticisms of the lobbying group AIPAC. The Free-Beacon declared her a “veteran anti-Israel activist” and quoted Ellie Cohanim, a former Trump State Dept. official, who claimed this “further proves the point that the Democrat party has become a breeding ground of anti-Israel hostility that goes right up to the White House.”

Meanwhile, President Biden’s administration has remained largely supportive of the Israeli government as he was as Senator and Vice President, although he’s criticized them too, and he’s expected to visit the country before summer’s end. Besides, Biden has previously criticized AIPAC as well – and the lobbying group endorses several Republicans of late who denied Biden’s election even happened.

A lot will be made about Jean-Pierre herself and the job – I mean, that in itself is essentially the job – and she’ll still be the face of an administration with many different crossroads ahead, some of which will be rough and difficult.

Like her, though, I have optimism about Karine Jean-Pierre’s ability to fulfill the duties being bestowed upon her.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.