Former colleagues of former President Joe Biden’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, are calling her out after she announced she would leave the Democratic Party and release a new book about Biden’s “broken” White House.

“The hubris of thinking you can position yourself as an outsider when you not only have enjoyed the perks of extreme proximity to power — which … bestows the name recognition needed to sell books off your name — but have actively wielded it from the biggest pulpit there is, is as breathtaking as it is desperate … It’s difficult to see how this is anything but a bizarre cash grab,” a former Biden official told Axios. 

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Jean-Pierre stepped into the role of press secretary in mid-2022 and was one of the president’s most visible defenders during his reelection campaign. In the days following Biden’s faltering debate showing, she reassured the public that the president was “as sharp as ever,” despite growing concern over his mental fitness.

With her memoir suggesting that internal chaos and concern over Biden’s cognitive condition were widespread within the West Wing, many former colleagues say Jean-Pierre was part of the problem.

“She had meltdowns after any interview that asked about a topic not sent over by producers,” one Biden White House official told Axios. “She didn’t know how to manage a team, didn’t know how to shape or deliver a message, and often created more problems than she solved.”

Others are convinced this is a part of Jean-Pierre trying to gain celebrity. “Everyone thinks this is a grift,” one insider told Politico.

“She made a joke about being an independent last year and now it’s a book. All ideas are monetary — even the dumb ones,” another White House staffer said.

Sources say Jean-Pierre has been pursuing a media career post-White House, including discussions about becoming a co-host on ABC’s The View. But when that failed, she decided to write a book instead. 

While serving in the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre allegedly copied New York publicist Gilda Squire on emails organizing profile pieces in lifestyle magazines such as Vogue and Women’s Health. Squire pushed back on the assertion, but Axios reportedly has the email proof.

Jean-Pierre announced her new book Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, which will track the timeline from Biden’s rocky debate performance against President Donald Trump to his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, on Wednesday, alongside the announcement she is leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent.

WILL KARINE JEAN-PIERRE SPILL THE BEANS ON BIDEN?

The statement calls the book “a hard-hitting yet hopeful critique” that will look at “what it means to be part of the growing percentage of our fractured electorate that is Independent.”

“We need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes and not be so partisan,” Jean-Pierre said in a video on Instagram.