WASHINGTON – That’s why he didn’t have time for our questions!
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took a break from her duties as President Biden’s top spokeswoman to model three outfits for a fawning profile in the latest issue of Vogue, drawing harsh criticism from reporters. From the capital.
Wearing a power suit in jarring Republican red and clutching a folder of talking points, Jean-Pierre, 49, posed with a serious look outside the West Wing.
Praised by Vogue as “quite disciplined at work, allowing few distractions”, Jean-Pierre was also photographed lounging in her office in a rainbow-striped Victor Glemaud dress.
In another glamorous snap, she posed on a balcony of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, gazing into the distance in a maroon dress by Tove and gold earrings by Khiry.
The couture photographs were accompanied by a profile declaring that Jean-Pierre had “honed his own technique: disarm with a smile, then state the facts in question.”
“I’m representing the president, so petty is just not on the menu,” he is quoted as saying.
But that “captivating smile” is nowhere to be seen in the glamor shots.
Instead, their expressions look more like a scowl, an expression the White House press has seen just as often.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, 49, took a break from her duties as President Biden’s chief spokesperson to model three outfits for glamor shots in the latest issue of Vogue.Getty Images
“It’s sad that a magazine that purports to be a journalist is profiling a press secretary who has gone out of her way to deliberately silence members of the press corps,” said one veteran White House reporter.
“We should not reward those who actively conceal the facts and seek to undermine press freedom, something that Karine Jean-Pierre and her press office have done on numerous occasions and which the press has rejected.”
“God bless you!” exclaimed another veteran in the meeting room.
“That’s the kind of story you’d see during the Kennedy administration about Jackie O, not something you’d see about a press secretary dealing with serious issues facing the country.”
The second reporter told The Post that he was surprised by “the lack of substance in that article on the issues that concern the press and most Americans.”
Praised by Vogue as “quite disciplined at work, allowing few distractions,” Jean-Pierre was also photographed lounging in her office in a rainbow-striped Victor Glemaud dress.REUTERS
The topic that was least addressed, the journalist lamented, was: “Why is this administration so reluctant to ask difficult questions from the press?”
A third journalist who regularly attends briefings quipped, referring to Jean-Pierre’s habitual non-response: “I understand the question. I appreciate the question. I understand the question. “I will simply refer you to the White House legal team for all questions regarding the content of the KJP Vogue profile.”
A fourth White House reporter added: “This profile was supposed to offer a realistic portrayal, but even Shonda Rhimes’ fiction seems more based in reality than this article.”
In the profile, Vogue quotes First Lady Jill Biden, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and former Press Secretary Jen Psaki as lavishing praise on Jean-Pierre.
“It is sad that a magazine purporting to practice journalism would profile a press secretary who has deliberately gone out of her way to silence members of the press corps,” said a veteran White House reporter.
Zients hails her as “humble” and the first lady touts her “grace, integrity and insight” as the “pioneering” first gay, non-white press secretary.
The compilation makes no mention of Jean-Pierre’s fights with journalists, the fact that he often skips over journalists who don’t share their questions ahead of time, or that his office chaired a since-watered-down press screening initiative that banned the main presidential media outlets. events.
Jean-Pierre’s non-answers
Between January 1 and June 30, Jean-Pierre received 252 questions about the Biden administration scandals, including the House investigation into Biden’s role in his relatives’ businesses abroad, but he gave “answers definitive” to just six, according to a review by the conservative Media Research Center.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the September issue of Vogue. This seems like a good time to point out that Melania Trump never appeared in Vogue while she was in the White House. pic.twitter.com/UO6kb7rqai
—Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 7, 2023
That report came after Jean-Pierre criticized a Post journalist at a July 7 briefing as “irresponsible” for asking if cocaine found on the White House grounds belonged to the Biden family, incorrectly stating that the family was not at the facility the previous Friday. The discovery of Sunday.
Fox News criticized her for “losing control” in her response, stating that she had the opposite effect of what she presumably intended with the blatant detour.
Jean-Pierre has not called The Post in a briefing since, even though America’s oldest newspaper is the fourth-most read online news source in the United States, excluding the aggregator MSN, and has the fourth-most read largest print circulation of US newspapers.
Also not mentioned in the Vogue report: Jean-Pierre’s office presided over a mysterious pre-selection process for journalists who were allowed to participate in large indoor events for the president that under previous presidents were open to all.
Last year she said she was not familiar with the selection criteria and in May told The Post that there were “no restrictions” on events, even though journalists were routinely told there was no room for them to attend events. with many empty seats.
The prescreening process is widely understood to be a way to shape the range of questions posed to Biden and has been gradually softened in recent months following sustained pushback from reporters and leaders of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Still, this week at least one media journalist who had been assigned a seat in the meeting room was denied access to an event in the large East Room, even though there was plenty of space to accommodate him.
Between January 1 and June 30, Jean-Pierre received 252 questions about the Biden administration scandals, but gave “definitive answers” to only six, according to a review by the conservative Media Research Center.REUTERS
Similarly, the profile does not mention query selection in the meeting room itself.
Journalists from the center to the back of the meeting room are often called in only if they tell Jean-Pierre’s assistants what they intend to ask.
She proceeds to reveal the game by tilting her face downward and reading long prepared statements that often elude the point of the investigation.
Anger crosses party lines
Vogue’s humiliating profile glosses over the fact that Democratic officials themselves are often left shaking their heads at their briefings due to a perceived inability to “sell” the administration’s message.
The report came after Jean-Pierre criticized a Post journalist at a July 7 briefing as “irresponsible” for asking if cocaine found on the White House grounds belonged to the Biden family. REUTERS
Democrats on Capitol Hill were stunned last month when Jean-Pierre spoiled the names of the two senators from Hawaii and Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, while discussing the Maui wildfires that killed at least 115 people.
A White House reporter, who works for a liberal-leaning outlet, questioned whether Jean-Pierre was sending the wrong message about the Biden administration by modeling expensive suits.
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“It’s the kind of magazine that exemplifies everything the KJP Democratic Party has come to stand for right now: ostentatious wealth concentrated and controlled by a very small minority of Americans,” the journalist told The Post.
“The sheer cost of the clothes that KJP is modeling shows how disconnected the party is from the pain people are feeling right now trying to make ends meet.”
Although Vogue makes little mention of tensions with the press, it did highlight an exchange this year when NPR reporter Tamara Keith, then president of the White House Correspondents Association, denounced the White House’s lack of acknowledgment of that classified documents had been found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, in initial remarks about the discovery of records in his post-vice-presidential office in DC.
“Are you upset that you came to this podium… with incomplete and inaccurate information?” Keith asked.
“And are you worried that it will affect your credibility here?”
When he gets involved with difficult questions, Jean-Pierre usually refers the journalist to another office or agency.
Former Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was brought into the White House last year to complement Jean-Pierre on national security issues, leading to an awkward briefing room exchange in which a reporter asked if Kirby was effectively a second press secretary.
Washington figures regularly speculate on how long he could last in office after taking office in May 2022.
But Jean-Pierre told the Blavity outlet in May that “I will continue in this job as long as I can, as long as possible, as long as the president wants me and needs me.”
Psaki, Biden’s first press secretary, also received a Vogue profile, but The Post was unable to locate a similar extension for the four Republican women who held the position, including press secretaries to former President Donald Trump, Sarah Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn