Karine Jean-Pierre Would Not Have Done It Any Differently

On any given day over the last two-and-a-half years, outgoing White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would show up to work with no idea how that day might unfold. She might get to announce from the lectern that President Joe Biden had just protected millions of acres of Arctic wilderness, or she might have to defend the decision to allow a Chinese surveillance balloon traverse the country unimpeded, or she might jump on a Zoom on a Sunday afternoon to learn that, contrary to vehement denials — his and hers — her boss would be withdrawing from the race for president. 

Last Thursday was no exception: Jean-Pierre arrived at the White House after a breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ready to work with Biden on the farewell speech he planned to deliver to the public later that afternoon. “I went to do speech prep with him — and then, just like that, everything changed,” she tells Rolling Stone. While preparing for that speech, they got word that, after 15 months of relentless, devastating war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas had finally reached a cease-fire agreement. All that was left to do was to sort out how to deliver the news.

“The president spoke first, and the first thing that he said was: ‘Today is a great day,’ so I was able to say that at the podium: ‘The president said it: Today is a great day.’ …We’re ending this war, and hostages are finally going to come home after 15 months, and we’re going to get that all-important humanitarian aid into Gaza, innocent civilians in Gaza can finally have some peace… It was a great day, and it was my last briefing.”

Jean-Pierre left the White House as the longest-serving female press secretary in U.S. history. Appointed to her position in May 2022, she became the primary spokesperson for the Biden administration just as the drumbeat of questions about his age and fitness for reelection ramped up, and as the rarity of Biden’s formal interactions with the press became more and more conspicuous. A tally published last summer found that Biden had done fewer press conferences and media interviews at that point in his tenure than any of the last seven presidents, by a long shot. (The White House has countered that Biden did frequent, informal gaggles with the press.) 

It was a challenging portfolio, amid a challenging period in her personal life: Jean-Pierre recently acknowledged publicly that her mother was diagnosed with Stage II colon cancer nine months after she accepted the job. Still, she says, “To have stood at that podium, behind that lectern, every day was an amazing day because I got to do that.”

Jean-Pierre spoke with Rolling Stone about the challenges of the job, the pride she took in it, and whether, in retrospect, she would have handled those questions about Biden’s age differently. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

First of all, how are you doing? You’re finally out of the pressure cooker. 

I’m going to be very honest: I’m doing really well. I thought, because I’ve had adrenaline running through my veins for more than four years — every single day, like you said, a pressure cooker; every single day, waking up at 4:30 in the morning, getting home after seven o’clock, when I have mom duties, traveling constantly. I thought I would have this weird thing where I would wake up in the morning like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I doing? What am I doing?!’ I haven’t had that. If anything, my body and my brain are very happy that I’m taking it easy. I’m organizing my storage unit, taking my kid to school, picking up my kid from school, spending time with her, catching up with friends on the phone, just kind of laying low.

You were, for many intents and purposes, the public face of the Biden administration for the last two-and-a-half years. How did that impact your life outside the White House perimeter?

I love to run outside, and that has been harder to do because of the job and how recognizable I am. For the last couple of years, I couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. The grocery store, restaurants, my kid’s school — nowhere. I was recognized everywhere I went. It didn’t matter. In these roles, I don’t have security, Secret Service, so I had to be really mindful. I had a car service that would pick me up from work, so that felt safe, but other than that, you’re kind of on your own. I grew up in New York, and when you grow up in New York, you’re very mindful [of your surroundings].

You’re a Black woman, an immigrant, a queer person — and the first of all of those categories to work as White House press secretary — but your identity also places you at the center of the Venn diagram of all of the groups that the Trump administration has threatened or is already targeting. On his first day, for example, he revoked executive orders banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. How are you processing it? Are you concerned about your safety at all?

I am concerned about not my safety. I am concerned about the communities that I represent. I am concerned about their safety. We’ve done this before. We saw what happened then — separating kids from their mothers, the type of hate that we saw coming out of that administration, our democracy being attacked, people’s freedoms being attacked. I think what you were alluding to is: Everything I am is everything he hates. And that is a very scary thought. Again, I’m fine, but there are vulnerable people out there in the world who need an opportunity, who need some care, some love, the ability to create a better life for themselves, or just make it through life one day at a time. Now they’re being attacked and their protections are being taken away.

Can you paint a picture for me of what the last year has been like for you? A year ago this week, Biden would have just wrapped up the New Hampshire primary. 

I have to sit down and reflect and really process the last year, the last four years, the last two-and-a-half years in this role — I am the longest serving female press secretary, as of today, to ever hold that position. But these jobs are unpredictable. We are living in an unpredictable climate… I think what has gotten me through it is, obviously, working for the former administration, for Biden. But it was really hard. It was an up-and-down situation. 

You mention ups and downs. Let’s start with the ups: What was your best day on the job? 

Every day I got to drive through the gates of the White House, walk through the West Wing lobby, go to my office, which was a stone’s throw away from the Oval Office — my office connects the Oval Office and the press briefing room — and I got to sit in that office for two-and-a-half years. There is nothing like it. Sometimes I’d walk through the West Wing lobby, I’m like, Wow. I can’t believe you’re doing this. Sometimes I had to pinch myself. My daughter is 10. When I was 10 years old, I would have never dreamed of that.

What was the worst?

When the president decided to step down from running for office. That was a hard day. On a Sunday, early afternoon, we got asked to jump on a call. (“We” meaning senior staff from the White House, senior staff from the campaign.) It was a really quick call, an impromptu call. He had Covid, and so he had been quarantined in Delaware. If it was really, really bad, obviously, that’s not how I would have found out. But I remember when his name popped up — when the president popped up on the Zoom — I remember thinking: “This can’t be good. What is about to tell us?” Once he started, I was like, Wow. My heart just sank. 

But there’s a two-sides-of-the-coin situation here. He steps down. That was devastating. But then he does this other thing, which was to pass the torch over to the vice president, Kamala Harris. It was ‘Wow!’ We go from heartbroken to: Hey, now we’re about to nominate the first Black woman presidential nominee, and potentially have the first Black woman president — the first woman president. So it was one of those things where it was like, ‘What is happening?!’

That was a difficult day. But then you saw his patriotism. You saw how he put country first, that he wanted to really bring the party together by doing that. But that was a tough day. I can still feel my heart just sinking — not even sinking, dropping.

Obviously, there were weeks of chatter after the debate about whether or not he would remain the nominee. You didn’t expect he would drop out?

I don’t know how closely you watched my briefings, but, no. I was at the podium, and many of us were out there saying he was not going to drop out. He said it himself. He wasn’t going to. Look, I think the only person who can tell that story about what happened is him. I’m sure he will do that when he feels that the time is right. But, for me? No. Every conversation that I was having with him was, We’re moving full-steam ahead.

You fielded questions about Biden’s age and health from the beginning of your tenure at the podium. Were the press corps’ questions about Biden’s age and health substantive in the end? Is there anything you would have done differently in handling them?

Historians will certainly look back at all of this, and I think it’ll be interesting to see how that part of the administration is looked at. This is a president who showed that he was able to govern in the way that many presidents who had two terms were not able to govern. The president that I saw was a president who pushed us hard, asked the tough questions, really wanted to make sure we were either talking about what he was doing in a way that was connecting with the American people — that was my role as a press person — or, for the policy people, coming up with creative, out-of-the-box ideas to figure out how to deal with issues. That’s what I saw. That’s what I experienced. I was out there, pushing back, I was laying out why we believed this was the best person to do this job, and why he’s done this job well, and why he is up for the job. 

But, going back to the press part for a second, I’ve said this at the podium, and I truly, truly believe it: Freedom of the press is incredibly important. It is the cornerstone of our democracy. There are moments where I do not agree with them, and they do not agree with me, and we have this healthy back and forth. And that’s what we did: That’s what I did for my two-and-a-half years, that’s what we did as an administration for four years. We pushed back when we thought that the way something was reported was not accurate, and they pushed back when they wanted more answers and more information. And that is what makes this country so beautiful. That is what makes democracy work.