WASHINGTON âPresident Biden has promoted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to serve as a senior adviser during his final three months in office â despite internal concern about Jean-Pierre’s performance, which resulted in an unsuccessful attempt to coax her to step aside.
Jean-Pierre’s new position was held by highly influential figures credited with significant policy contributions under past presidents â including Jared Kushner (Donald Trump), David Axelrod (Barack Obama) and Karl Rove (George W. Bush).
“Karine has been a trusted adviser to the President and all of us here at the White House since day one. Her counsel will be critical to get as much done as possible for the American people in the coming months,” White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told ABC News, which reported the promotion Monday.
The new title likely does not include a pay raise â as Jean-Pierre, 50, already earned $180,000 per year, the same as current senior advisers.
Jean-Pierre also will have no known changes in job responsibilities, as she will continue to serve as press secretary.
The senior adviser honorifics “mean nothing and are a joke,” a former Biden White House official told The Post.
Journalists are broadly scornful of Jean-Pierre’s performance as chief White House spokesperson, noting she rarely is responsive to questions at her regular briefings â often tilting her head down to haltingly read prepared answers.
Many reporters see the promotion as the latest in a series of episodes resembling the plot of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the folk tale in which courtiers refrain from questioning a bumbling leader’s ineptitude.
Former Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn, then de facto leader of White House communications strategy, led a shadowy effort last year to remove Jean-Pierre, the first non-white and first openly LGBT press secretary â viewing her as a poor spokesperson for Biden’s since-aborted re-election campaign.
Dunn, who left the White House in July, told colleagues that she was contacting influential Democrats outside the administration to encourage Jean-Pierre to seek other employment, framing it as ideal timing for her career, The Post exclusively reported in April.
Dunn said that Zients, who announced Jean-Pierre’s promotion Monday, was aware of and approved the plot, though he later denied it.
âThere was an effort to have some outside folks who Karine knows and trusts talk to her about why leaving last fall [2023] would have made a lot of sense for her and her career,â one source said at the time.
âKarine doesnât have an understanding of the issues and she reads the [binder] word-for-word. She doesnât have a grasp of the issues and doesnât spend the time to learn.”
That source added: “Thereâs an enormous amount of work that goes into getting ready and consistently she does not put in that level of work.â
Another source said that the press secretary was not simply fired because âthereâs a huge diversity issue and theyâre afraid of what folks are going to say.â
Last December, shortly after word of Dunnâs plan circulated internally, Jean-Pierre received an unsolicited offer to become president of EMILYs List, a major Democratic group that raises money for female candidates who support expanded abortion rights.
Jean-Pierre has been press secretary since May 2022 and had a separate power struggle with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who frequently has shared the podium with her over the past year, though Jean-Pierre has refused to grant his request to call on reporters himself.
Kirby made no secret that he was interested in serving as press secretary himself.
âSometimes he talks to her and she acts as if he is not talking,â a third source told The Post in April. âShe has been pretty aggressive about marking her territory.”
Jean-Pierre is one of six senior advisers to Biden, who is leaving office on Jan. 20.
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