In 'Independent,' Karine Jean-Pierre says the two-party system isn't working

Transcript

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Amna Nawaz: Karine Jean-Pierre has spent most of her career as a Democrat, working on four presidential campaigns and serving in the Obama and Biden administrations. But her days as a member of the Democratic Party are over. And that is the focus of her new book, “Independent.”

We spoke recently and I asked her why she’s leaving the party.

Karine Jean-Pierre, Former White House Press Secretary: When I left the administration on January 20 with the president, I was surprised by the amount of people who were coming up to me — and I say this in the book — who were very worried about the state of America and the country and where we were going.

And my thinking was, I had thought about becoming an independent. I kind of laid that out in the book. And my thinking was, OK, if I put out a book with a road map and really lay out my own process and where I am today with the party, my hope is that it would start a conversation that I believe is needed right now.

In this time that we’re in, we need to have a conversation about what happened in 2024. How do we move forward? How do we protect our democracy? And there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that we’re — this political system. We need a two-party system in order to protect our democracy and in order to exercise our democracy.

And I feel like the two-party system isn’t working and I’m not the only one. I think millions of people feel that way. And we need to have that conversation in order to move forward.

Amna Nawaz: You write in the book about the chasm the Democrats allowed to grow between them and everyday Americans, their inadequate messaging during and following the last presidential election.

I have to ask you, though. You were one of the chief messengers, right…

Karine Jean-Pierre: Oh, I agree.

Amna Nawaz: … at the White House. So did you feel that you couldn’t change that messaging or influence?

Karine Jean-Pierre: Look, the outcome of 2024 obviously was not what we wanted. And I think we all have to take accountability for it. I even myself — you’re right. I was at the podium. You were in the room at times when I was the White House press secretary behind that lectern pushing our message of the day.

But it was also a different — the political atmosphere — and you see it even more so today — was really fraught. I think you had people who were disillusioned coming out of COVID, trying to figure out the economy. It’s not working for them, even though we were trying to turn that around. And we did. The president and the vice president certainly did.

But people weren’t feeling that. And we did have a hard time communicating that and connecting with the American people. We would say that. I would say that at the podium when I was asked about polling. And the fact that millions of people who came and voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and didn’t do that in 2024, we have to figure out what happened.

Amna Nawaz: You talk a lot about the sense of betrayal that you felt after that June debate, in which a lot of the party and people started to distance themselves from President Biden and the calls for him to step down began.

You wrote in the book: “He could have survived the debate setback, like Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, other incumbent presidents overcame their own weak first debates when they ran for reelection. Only the Democrats, Biden’s party, my party, didn’t seem to want to give him the chance.”

I think it’s fair to say, I mean, he lost a lot of public confidence too after that debate. You really think he could have survived after that?

Karine Jean-Pierre: I think that people have to understand my position at the time. I was dealing with the reaction of it in a way that most people were not meaning I was the White House press secretary and I had to be out there. I had to respond.

Amna Nawaz: Speaking for him and defending him.

Karine Jean-Pierre: Speaking for him and defending him. And I was watching…

Amna Nawaz: Since you can speak freely now, in the moment, you thought this personally too, that he could have survived it?

(Crosstalk)

Karine Jean-Pierre: Well, I felt the way he was treated was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Objectively — like, put my feelings aside.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Karine Jean-Pierre: Joe Biden objectively had a successful presidential. Joe Biden objectively was a good human who cared about the American people. That’s what people would say.

And yet he was treated as if he was the worst thing ever.

Amna Nawaz: And yet, as a Democrat in that moment, right, as someone who wants to see your party win too, since then we have even seen Vice President Harris come out and say the decision that was left up to him and to Dr. Jill Biden, that it was reckless to leave it up to them to make that call on their own. Do you agree with that?

Karine Jean-Pierre: Here, again, you go back to 2023, coming out of the midterms that was successful for Democrats because it wasn’t a red wave, and he was an incumbent.

And at the time, no one — no one — when he had to make that decision, no one was saying not to run. If anything, people were saying the opposite. He should run. He had a successful midterm.

Amna Nawaz: Or they’re saying it’s up to him, that he will make the decision.

Karine Jean-Pierre: It’s up to him. But it’s up to any incumbent. That’s the thing.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Karine Jean-Pierre: So, for me, it was, you have to — you kind of have to go back in time to the moment when he made that decision. It made sense.

And so I don’t find it to be reckless, but what I will say is, I agree with the vice president. I think she should — she has the right to write this book and to share her thoughts. And she was — I think did a phenomenal job — I say this — as a candidate in those 107 days.

I do believe that these types — like, the power should not be sitting in the White House, that the power should be sitting in the hands of the people, I think in this moment that we’re in. And that’s what I want to make sure that I convey. It should not be on one person on how the direction of our country goes.

Amna Nawaz: I have to ask you too, because since the election, you have seen all of these books and interviews and accounts from people, even in the inner circle who saw the president every day, who said that they had some worries about his age and about potential decline and about his ability to serve a second term.

You say definitively in the book: “I was technically a part of the president’s inner circle and saw Biden every day and saw no such decline.”

And what you are saying and what the accounts we have seen since then do not match up. Both can’t be true. So how should people look at that?

Karine Jean-Pierre: So, here’s what I will say. And I said this at the podium and the president said this. He was aging. No one can deny that. They could see with their own eyes he got older. We all get older. He was definitely aging. He was in his early 80s.

So no one is denying that. And he would say, I don’t talk as — the way that I used to. I don’t walk as well as I used to. He would even make fun of himself. And so we always — you can’t hide that, right?

What I am saying when it comes to his mental acuity, when it comes to someone who understands policy and history, and I would banter back and forth with and answer questions that he had of me, he was someone who was very focused, very aware. And you can be in a room with him for a good amount of time and see, oh, this is the type of president that I want in this space right now in this moment continuing to run this country.

And that’s what I saw.

Amna Nawaz: So, when you have accounts from former chiefs of staff, right, Jeff Zients and Ron Klain, who say that they saw problems with memory or he was out of it in debate prep, you say what to that?

Karine Jean-Pierre: Well, look, I just said he was aging. He was aging.

Amna Nawaz: So, there were those moments too?

Karine Jean-Pierre: There were — what I’m talking about is the mental acuity to be there, to understand history, to understand the policies and to speak to it. No one is not saying — I mean, we saw, right, he would forget names sometimes or we’re not…

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Karine Jean-Pierre: He walks differently. No one is saying…

Amna Nawaz: It was never enough of a concern to you to say that he shouldn’t run again? That’s what you’re saying?

Karine Jean-Pierre: That — well, my whole piece of that is it really was his decision. And my job is — I’m his White House press secretary. My job is to speak for him and to make — whatever decisions that he made, was to speak on those decisions.

I truly believed this is such a personal decision to run any election, and in this — certainly in this reelection. And so, for him, I really do believe it was his decision to make.

Amna Nawaz: So as an independent now, do you ever think you have run for office yourself?

Karine Jean-Pierre: Absolutely not. I think — I talk about that in the book.

I — look, I wrote this book not to run for office. I really did write the book to truly try to meet the moment and figure out how do we move forward in this — in this world that we’re in. And I do believe for me running for office, it’s — you have to feel it. It has to be a calling. And that’s not what’s calling me right now.

Amna Nawaz: Karine Jean-Pierre. The book is “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside Party Lines.”

Great to speak with you. Thank you for being here.

Karine Jean-Pierre: Thank you, Amna. Thank you. I appreciate it.