Fox News White House correspondents share shock over Karine Jean-Pierre's party switch
Former Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stunned political circles by announcing she is leaving the Democratic Party and re-branding herself as an independent.
The move, unveiled alongside the upcoming launch of her new book, also shocked the Fox News White House correspondents who covered her closely and set off a firestorm with their Biden-era sources.
"I found her, behind the scenes, to be a very nice person," senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy recalled on "America's Newsroom" Thursday. "But it doesn't seem like anybody that worked with her thinks that, because the knives are out."
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Doocy revealed he's received a barrage of texts from Biden administration figures blindsided by Jean-Pierre’s decision and angered by her criticisms of her former team.
"If you told me a year ago that people that worked for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris would be sending me this, I never would have believed it," he said.
Fox News senior White House correspondent and White House Jacqui Heinrich echoed Doocy's sentiment, saying her sources were equally surprised by Jean-Pierre’s announcement and her disavowal of the administration’s messaging, which she helped bolster for years.
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Jean-Pierre’s political shift comes ahead of her new book "Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines," which promises an insider account of her time in the Biden administration.
The book’s publisher writes that the memoir will focus on the "three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision."
Jean-Pierre often had a visibly tense relationship with members of the press corps and was a staunch defender of Biden. She repeatedly defended the former president against growing concerns over his mental acuity and physical health, which she frequently brushed off as baseless speculation.
In a video promoting the book, Jean-Pierre declared her departure from party politics:
"I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes and not be so partisan," she said.
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Heinrich, however, questioned the authenticity of that transformation, suggesting her actions in office don’t align with her new message.
"I would be really surprised to learn if there was anything independent about Karine Jean-Pierre," she said. "Including her ability to think through things without the answers in a book in front of her, after sitting in that press briefing room for four years."
Heinrich, a board member for the White House Correspondents' Association, asked how Jean-Pierre could now claim "moral clarity" after serving as the face of the White House’s messaging.
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"For her now to suggest that it’s time to move away from the partisanship of this White House and take a real step back from that… I would be curious to know who she's going to paint as the chief messenger of that when she was the face of all of that, when we were in there."
"There was an easy fix," Doocy added. "If she really thought that the White House was ‘broken,’ she could have quit."