White House Correspondents Reportedly Fed Up With Jean-Pierre: Briefings ‘A Painful Waste of Time’

The White House press corps has, according to a new report, “grown exasperated” with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

For the Wednesday edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter, media correspondent Oliver Darcy spoke with more than a half dozen members of the White House press corps. And they have become increasingly frustrated with a press secretary who, in their view, seldom, if ever, strays from talking points and is even providing false information.

“She is arguably the least effective White House press secretary of the television era,” said one unnamed reporter who Darcy identified as a White House veteran, though this person did exclude Trump-era press secretaries from that dig.

Another White House reporter told CNN, “You just get the feeling that you’re wasting your time and whatever is in front of her in the binder is all she is going to say, no matter how many times you ask the question. It’s just a painful waste of time.”

The correspondents were particularly roiled by Jean-Pierre’s briefings last week. On Thursday afternoon, she repeatedly said that the administration’s search for classified documents had been completed. However, on Thursday night, five additional classified documents were found at President Joe Biden’s Wilmington, DE residence. Jean-Pierre did not disclose the discovery of the documents at Friday’s briefing. The information wasn’t revealed until the White House released a statement on Saturday.

At Jean-Pierre’s next briefing on Tuesday, the press secretary was grilled on whether the discovery of the documents had been concealed from her or she knew about them and intentionally misled the reporters in the room. After multiple, lengthy non-answers, Jean-Pierre finally said she did not know the documents had been recovered ahead of Friday’s briefing.

According to the CNN report, the incident did not go over well with the press corps.

“There is the expectation that when you say something, it’s going to be true,” an unnamed White House correspondent told Darcy. “That’s been the biggest credibility hit for her, it’s answering a question in a way that ends up not being true.”

The White House responded to the article — with an unnamed spokesperson providing a statement.

“A lot of this sounds more like theater criticism than concern about ability to report facts for the American people’s benefit,” the spokesperson said.

Still, one White House reporter’s comment to Darcy suggests that the tension in the briefing room has only just begun to mount.

“The temperature has gone up a lot in the last few days.”