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Joe Biden’s longtime press secretary has quit the Democratic party and is writing a tell-all book about her time in the White House, in another blow to a party still reeling from its defeat to Donald Trump in November.
Karine Jean-Pierre, who was the public face of the Biden administration for two and a half years, will publish Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, in October, the publisher Hachette said on Wednesday.
The publisher said in a press release that Jean-Pierre “didn’t come to her decision . . . lightly” to leave the Democratic party and become an independent.
“She takes us through 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,” the publisher added.
Jean-Pierre’s book stands to be the latest in a series of volumes that have sent shockwaves through Washington and raised uncomfortable questions about the Biden presidency, just months after Kamala Harris’s defeat to Trump.
One recent book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson included damning allegations about the efforts of Biden, his family and closest allies to conceal the extent of his cognitive decline in office.
Days before the book’s release, Biden’s personal office revealed that the 82-year-old former president had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
The revelations come as Democrats are divided over how to move beyond the tumult of last year’s election and launch an effective opposition to Trump.
A RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows just over a third of Americans have a favourable view of the party.
Jean-Pierre’s announcement on Wednesday was seen by some Democrats as an act of disloyalty to her former boss and the party.
But Jean-Pierre defended her decision in a video posted to Instagram on Wednesday, saying: “In an era of misinformation, disinformation, the regressiveness of social policy that we are seeing currently right now, what I have decided to do, and I really have thought long and hard about this, is to follow my own compass, and that is what I have done.”
Jean-Pierre, 50, is a veteran political operative who worked in Barack Obama’s White House and as a senior adviser to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
She was principal deputy press secretary in the Biden White House and was promoted to press secretary in 2022, succeeding Jen Psaki. Psaki now hosts a talk show on cable news channel MSNBC.
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