Karine Jean-Pierre Leads White House Briefing

Yesterday, Wednesday, May 26, Karine Jean-Pierre has become the first openly gay woman to deliver the White House press briefing and only the second Black woman in history to take on the role.

Ms. Jean-Pierre, an American political campaign organizer, activist, political commentator and author, has served as White House Deputy Press Secretary to Jen Psaki since January 2021. She is a former lecturer in international and public affairs at Columbia University. She was previously the senior advisor and national spokeswoman for MoveOn.org and a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. She served as the chief of staff for Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris on the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign.

She previously worked on both of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaigns, ultimately serving as national deputy battleground states director for his 2012 campaign. Jean-Pierre also worked in the Obama administration, serving as the White House liaison to the Labor Department and later as regional director in the White House Office of Political Affairs.

In June 2019, Karine Jean-Pierre, then chief public affairs officer of the MoveOn organizer and host of its forums, stepped in between a protestor and then Presidential candidate Kamala Harris to de-escalate a tense situation that occurred midway through a forum in San Francisco. “I am everything that Donald Trump hates,” she said in a video for progressive organization MoveOn in 2018. “I’m a Black woman, I’m gay, I am a mom. Both my parents were born in Haiti.” Jean-Pierre, who was born in Martinique to Haitian emigrants, grew up in New York City.