In a week littered with gripping news stories, we also had one farcical item break open to distract from the inanity by being so comically asinine that it served as a refreshing intra-course sorbet. Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre revealed that she has a book deal, and the explanations behind this effort are as mentally impacted as one can ever imagine. This is a woman who, for years, was a fire hose of misinformation, now complaining about deceptive puddles found everywhere.
She purports to reveal some of the issues with the Biden White House as she also declares her intent to renounce her Democratic Party label, asserting that she is now (allegedly) a free-thinking independent – a word that is both foreign to her and serves as the title of this alleged exposé. Then, for good measure, Jean-Pierre intends to lecture us about the travails of misinformation.
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If this all sounds like a crude and ill-thought-out joke that relies on people having the recollection of a goldfish and lacking in anything resembling truth-based scruples, that is because it is most of those elements, save for this allegedly being a serious enterprise. What we are looking at is a ventriloquist dummy proclaiming it will be speaking its mind.
Alex Thompson of Axios, and of the book currently in the lap of everyone on the beltway subway cars, has a report where a number of former White House operatives discuss what it was like working with KJP and reveal their impressions of her; in a phrase, no one was impressed. They describe a woman who was out of her depth and operating well below her pay grade, needing to be coached and stroked to get through her tasks, all while she was focused on burnishing her image. Just one of the scathing quotes explains plenty.
"The amount of time that was spent coddling [Jean-Pierre] and appeasing her was astronomical compared to our attention on actual matters of substance."
There was no better proof that this was the case than to see KJP on her last day at work. It was on that day in January when news broke of a peace accord being reached between Israel and Hamas. The assembled journos in the briefing room fully expected a conference with State Department officials to detail the events. Except none were coming out.
A beaming Jean-Pierre walked in and promptly fielded a series of questions – about Jean-Pierre. It was learned that she intentionally pushed back on having John Kirby come out, as expected, because she was intent on basking in some adulation. When she was asked about Matt Miller’s role in the peace deal, she stated she did not know who this person was — the spokesman from the State Department. The entire purpose of her final presser was to make herself the center of the discussion, something many of the compliant journalists were more than willing to indulge.
ABC’s @MaryKBruce: “And just on a slightly more personal note, on this, your 306th briefing, What advice do you have for your success?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 15, 2025
KJP: “So I was asked this question, I think, when my successor was — um — was announced and it's pretty much the same, which is, you know,… pic.twitter.com/wXgaFaJpWZ
So yes, Karine’s professional challenges and questionable intelligence were on full display for some time, yet here was Thompson “breaking” news, in a manner. This was a mirror image of the reporting seen with the crafting of his book “Original Sin,” written with Jake Tapper. On their promotional tour, the duo has highlighted how they spoke with over 200 individuals for their book – a sign of dedicated journalism not seen from them in the years prior to the election.
In similar fashion, Thompson attests to having a couple of dozen insiders giving him details on Jean-Pierre. This reflects his book efforts, in that he applied investigative journalism and had sources opening up only after entering the safety of the post-election political window. It is a neutered approach, in that it is hard-pressed for him to describe this report as “news,” given that he is a journalist who came into this information after everyone else was already aware of these character flaws.
Thompson also gets exposed with a sidebar event connected to this report. He later detailed an incident involving a New York PR rep who was involved with KJP. Initially, he spoke with Gilda Squire to ask about being consulted about the image of the John Kirby issue. Squire denied this to be the case, but then Thompson acquired some emails that showed Ms. Squire had, in fact, been looped in on the matter.
The PR Rep had initially stated she wanted their discourse to be off the record, but then Thompson announced that once someone is found to have delivered an untruth, that voids any confidentiality he agreed to.
If you don’t tell the truth, off the record no longer applies.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) June 4, 2025
Here is Gilda Squire’s denial at the time.
“This is unequivocally untrue.” https://t.co/GWBWPcD4cI pic.twitter.com/jfci8Cmz3l
Not to debate the merits of this kind of policy, but if lies mean you lose the benefit of off-the-record protections, this brings up a reality that Thompson's standard appears to be rather fluid. In “Original Sin,” Thompson and Tapper relied upon dozens (hundreds?) of people who were willing to open up to them under the safety of anonymity, for various reasons. Yet the crux of their book is centered on how the Biden administration hid, deflected, and/or deceived journalists and the nation about the diminishing condition of President Silveralert.
That is to say, these are people who admitted to lying about Biden’s mental decline, yet Thompson still granted them the chance to cloak who they were as they spilled details. Apparently, prevarications are acceptable when they serve the needs of his reporting. Or maybe it is more centrally rooted; anonymity is cancelled only if the source is discovered lying – to him.
