Democrats criticize Karine Jean-Pierre after her departure from the party: "everyone thinks this is a scam"

Karine Jean-Pierre, the former White House press secretary during Joe Biden's presidency, announced Wednesday that she was leaving the Democratic Party, declaring herself an independent.

Jean Pierre's decision is linked to what she describes as the party's "betrayal" of Biden, who withdrew from the 2024 election race after internal pressures and concerns about his health.

Also, the former press secretary announced the upcoming publication of her book Independent: An Inside Look at a Broken White House, where she will reveal details about the causes that led to Joe Biden's withdrawal.

According to media outlet Politico, Jean-Pierre's decision has drawn criticism among her former White House colleagues for what they consider "celebrity-seeking" and "media exposure" while she worked as the Democrats' press secretary.

Jean-Pierre's turnaround: "The most painful thing I've seen in a long time"

Seven former Biden Administration officials, to whom POLITICO granted anonymity, said Jean-Pierre's "attention-seeking ploy" rekindled frustrations that had existed for years about her.

"Everybody thinks it's a scam," one former official said of the former press secretary's book project.

Another former colleague of Jean-Pierre said the Democrat "had joked about the possibility of becoming an independent even while working at the White House," a comment considered out of character for someone who worked as a Democratic Party spokeswoman.

According to Politico, Jean-Pierre frustrated her White House colleagues by focusing on raising her own profile while leaving the practical management of media relations to her aides.

The former press secretary's longtime aides criticized the move for what they consider to be "an opportunistic scam."

"Last year she made a joke about being independent and now it's a book. All ideas are monetary, even the dumbest ones," said one of the former aides.

"A New York publicist, Gilda Squire, worked informally with Jean-Pierre while she was at the White House and, on multiple occasions, received copies of official emails before her staffers complained this situation," another former official told Politico.

According to two former officials, after her job as press secretary, Jean-Pierre hoped to land a position as a co-anchor on The View, following the model of her predecessor, Jen Psaki, who landed a job as an anchor at MSNBC.

One Democratic operative who worked with Jean-Pierre before she took the White House called the sudden turnaround "the most distressing thing I've seen in a long time, and that's saying a lot in Washington."

"She was the public face telling us all that the White House was on the right track and that Biden was awesome. And now she doesn't even want to be a Democrat????," a former Biden official told Politico via text message. Jean-Pierre "is positioning herself in the middle when Republicans hate her. She is not in a position to be a connector to our two-party system and to assume she could be is just ego."

Neither Jean-Pierre nor Squire responded to a request for comment from Politico.