Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre revealed in her new memoir that she never thought Kamala Harris could win the presidency, saying the country “just wasn’t there yet,” as reported by Fox News.
In her book Independent, Jean-Pierre writes that she was not surprised by the outcome of the 2024 election, which saw President Donald Trump reelected.
“When I woke up, it was over. Harris had lost. I received calls from friends who were distraught or numb with disbelief. But I wasn’t surprised by the outcome,” she wrote.
“The truth was, I never really believed Harris could win. I’d been in the body of a Black woman all my life. I’d stood at the podium in the White House briefing room, traveled in my chocolate skin through rural towns, and all my experiences of blistering stares and racist assumptions left me unable to see this country electing a president who looked like me.”
Jean-Pierre’s memoir also outlines her decision to leave the Democratic Party, accusing party leadership of betraying former President Joe Biden.
“It was deeply disturbing that after shoving Biden aside in a disgraceful display, the party’s elders couldn’t summon enough know-how to help an intelligent, accomplished attorney like Harris defeat an ignorant former reality TV star,” she wrote.
“The party had to redefine its mission, and figure out a way to move forward without publicly tearing apart our standard bearers or leaving their successors dangling in the wind.”
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She described feeling pessimistic about Harris’s chances due to what she called the sexism and double standards she encountered during her own time in the administration.
“Harris and so many others had fought and hoped so hard. I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe. But in the end, I was proven right. The United States just wasn’t there yet,” she wrote.
“Once again, and this time not because of an electoral artifact embedded in the Constitution, we had elected Trump.”
Jean-Pierre also said Harris deserved the opportunity to run without interference.
“Bypassing Harris would have also been disrespectful to Black women overall, the ride-or-die foot soldiers of the Democratic Party who’d long done the work but too often got bypassed or overlooked once the campaigns that needed their votes and labor were in the rearview mirror,” she wrote.
Biden, who appeared on The View following the election, said he believed sexism and racism contributed to Harris’s defeat. “I wasn’t surprised, not because I didn’t think the vice president was the most qualified person to be president. She is,” Biden said.
“I was surprised because they went the route of, the sexist route, the whole route. I mean, this is a woman, she’s this, she’s that. I mean, it really, I’ve never seen quite as successful and a consistent campaign undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country, and a woman of mixed race.”
Harris has since written her own memoir about the 2024 campaign, insisting on her book tour that President Trump “does not have a mandate” and describing the election as the “closest” of this century.
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