Karine Jean-Pierre began her debut briefing as President Biden’s press secretary on Monday by acknowledging the unusual nature of her presence behind the White House lectern. “I am a Black, gay, immigrant woman, the first of all three of those to hold this position,” she said.Left unsaid were the other ways in which her path to becoming the president’s chief spokeswoman sharply diverged from that of her predecessors.Ms. Jean-Pierre was born in the Caribbean to Haitian parents, who lived paycheck to paycheck after immigrating to New York City. Her conservative Catholic family, she has written, carried “so many secrets, so much unexpressed pain.” As a child, Ms. Jean-Pierre was sexually abused by a cousin. Her mother went decades without acknowledging that her daughter was a lesbian. And in her early 20s, despondent at a career setback, Ms. Jean-Pierre attempted suicide.She grounded herself in political advocacy work, rising from meeting with constituents in Far Rockaway, Queens, to a job in the Obama White House. But while Ms. Jean-Pierre spent years as an MSNBC pundit and national spokeswoman for the liberal group MoveOn.org, she rarely had to tackle a daily grilling from an adversarial press corps.Ms. Jean-Pierre, 47, starts the job at a particularly difficult moment for the Biden administration, which has struggled to persuade the public to support its agenda. She will need to address record-high inflation, a resurgent coronavirus and looming midterm elections that many Democrats expect to be a shellacking.Her predecessor, Jen Psaki, became a star among liberals for her rarely ruffled demeanor and lively tussles with Fox News journalists. (She is headed to a new gig at MSNBC.) Ms. Jean-Pierre has so far shown a more informal style: less crisp than Ms. Psaki, but also disarming, laughing at herself when she stumbles over a word or two.“There’s something a little introverted about her, which is an odd thing to say about someone who is now the principal spokesperson for the president,” said Patrick Gaspard, a former United States ambassador to South Africa and political director for former President Barack Obama, as well as a mentor to Ms. Jean-Pierre.Mr. Gaspard, who is also Haitian American, said he recognized in her a fellow immigrant navigating an unfamiliar and privileged space. “They have some sense of their capacity and their talent, but are hesitant as they weigh in because they’re not sure if they’re using the right idiom,” he said. “Some blast through and rise to the occasion and become powerful in their own place, and Karine is absolutely an example of that.”Ms. Jean-Pierre worked briefly as Kamala Harris’s chief of staff during the 2020 campaign, once fending off an interloper who accosted Ms. Harris onstage. She became Mr. Biden’s principal deputy press secretary when he took office.Still, she lacks Ms. Psaki’s yearslong relationships with Washington journalists — the sorts of connections that can yield benefits behind the scenes — and the seasoning of press aides who regularly go back and forth with a pack of combative reporters. She was mocked by Fox News this week after tentatively answering a question from the network’s White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, about Mr. Biden’s plans to fight inflation.Ms. Psaki, who has called Ms. Jean-Pierre her “partner in truth,” said in an interview that her successor understood that a press secretary needed to address a broader national audience, not just reporters gathered in the West Wing.“The room is so small, it’s easy as a human being to forget that,” Ms. Psaki said. “Karine knows how to capture a moment, to make a moment, and speak in a way where people sitting at home will understand and relate.”ImageMs. Jean-Pierre, 47, starts the job at a difficult moment for the Biden administration. She will need to address record-high inflation, a resurgent coronavirus and looming midterm elections that many Democrats expect to be a shellacking.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesMs. Jean-Pierre was born on Martinique, then lived briefly in France before her parents immigrated to Queens. (She has two younger siblings, a sister and a brother; one brother, Donald, died before she was born.) Her mother, a retired home health care worker, never learned to read English; her father, a New York City cabdriver, still works part-time, though the taxi medallion he invested in years ago has plummeted in value.Business & Economy: Latest Updates
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Title: Karine Jean-Pierre’s Unlikely Rise to the White House Lectern
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/business/media/karine-jean-pierre-press-secretary.html
Published Date: Fri, 20 May 2022 09:00:28 +0000
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